Christopher Harper. Agenda. Volume 26, Issue 3, 2012.
Introduction
It was her daughter’s laughter while watching a video clip on her cellphone that alerted her mother to the 10 minutes 33 seconds of recorded horror. Through her subsequent actions this recording of a 16 year-old, whom I shall refer to as N, being gang raped by seven youths and men became a symbol for the violence of rape and the vulnerability of young women. This horror was later amplified by the discovery of another cellphone recording of N being raped by two men previously.
This case is not an isolated one. Media reports and my own experiences within the organisation which I work for have shown this to be a disturbing trend where incidences of sexual violence are made into pornography, where the “graphic sexually explicit subordination of women [is portrayed] through pictures and/or words” (Dworkin and MacKinnon cited in Russell, 2004). The advances in the development of and access to cellphones and other handheld technology has greatly increased people’s ability to make, view and share pornography. No longer are boys and men only reliant on bragging about what they have done; now they have the capacity to obtain proof of their actions and can even cash-in on it. Copies of a recording of a young women being raped at an East London school were sent to other learner’s cellphones providing they paid R20 for it.
Naming the Injustice
Tamasese and Waldegrave (1996:51) write on the importance of naming an injustice and its importance for framing a response to the challenges being faced. They argue that:
“Removing an issue from the shadows illuminates its complexity, highlights potential opportunities for change and ‘encourages self-conscious reflection’.”
This echoes what feminist theory has highlighted:
“names provide social definitions, make visible what is invisible, define as unacceptable what was accepted; make sayable what was unspeakable” (Kelly and Radford, 1996:20).
The behaviour of a group of young men and boys in recording their rape of N is horrific and brutal, but merely a symptom of a greater malaise. We can get lost in a visceral reaction to this horror. We can join those who paraded with placards reading “Monsters. Cut the penis. No bail” (Grame Hosken ‘They are good boys. Can it really be them?’, Sowetanlive, 20 April 2012) or join in the cries for the perpetrators to be necklaced and their homes burnt down, but all that this serves to do is to hide the real issue at play in the lives of women and girls in this country. The underlying injustice which needs to be named is the “system of structured power and oppression” (Hearn, 1998:31) that constitutes patriarchy and which discriminates against, stigmatises, penalises and oppresses women. Rape and pornography are forms of men’s violence which are at “the very heart of patriarchy” (ibid:32).
The rape of N and its exploitation through the video recording needs to be seen for what it is, not a single attack on a 16 year-old girl, but as an expression of the prevailing view of women’s and girls’ value and status in the country. Women’s value is diminished while male expression of reality, defined in terms of power, aggression and sexuality, is prioritised. Within this system women live their lives along “a continuum of sexual violence” (Kelly quoted in Radford and Stanko, 1996:67) perpetrated by men which is the most extreme sign of gender inequality in South Africa. Sexual violence is a tool which men use to ensure that their dominance over women remains and any resistance to it is undermined (Kelly, 1996; Radford and Stanko, 1996). A recent study on gender violence showed that 8.9% of men who participated in the study had participated in gang rapes, while more than a quarter (27.7%) had at some time raped a woman or girl (Jewkes et al, 2009). The sharing of the video of N’s rape shows how normalised rape has become. Women’s marginalisation is thus complete when even the most horrific acts become a form of entertainment and amusement. Witness the young girl laughing when the video was discovered and how quickly it went viral.
Women’s value is diminished while male expression of reality, defined in terms of power, aggression and sexuality, is prioritised.
While all women live under the oppression of male dominance not all women experience it in the same way. Women’s experiences of patriarchy are intricately linked to their race, class, age, education, economic status, sexuality, ethnicity and disability (Kelly and Radford, 1996). These all influence their exposure to and experience of sexual violence as well as the responses to their experiences.
All women are vulnerable within this system, but some are more vulnerable than others. N was extremely vulnerable. As a girl, she was vulnerable. As a 16 year-old girl with the mental age of a 5 year-old, her ability to make informed decisions of consent was compromised. She was vulnerable because her family was poor and unable to provide safe housing and care for her. Furthermore those who live with a mental disability are often excluded and not accorded the same status in society. As a young girl living in a township which has a long history of gang rape she was vulnerable because of where she was. The lack of social services in the township for mentally disabled people meant she was left on her own when her mother had to leave to go to work. She had been raped twice previously and had been let down by poor police investigation into these violations. Her vulnerability had led to her being branded, as the nickname ‘Jackpot’ which had been given to her testified. The community she lived in further added to her vulnerability. While afterwards it was promised fire and brimstone would rain down on the perpetrators, she was not protected by them. They did not take her into their care when they saw her in places that increased her vulnerability to being assaulted. In addition, the failure of police, social services and the court system to protect women and girls in this country and take action against perpetrators of sexual violence has created a culture of impunity which men use to their benefit and which strengthens the stranglehold of patriarchy on our lives. It is this impunity that enabled these boys and young men to believe that they could do whatever they wanted and get away with it.
The grandmother of one of the boys involved in the rape of N couldn’t believe that he could be involved as he was a “good boy” (Grame Hosken ‘They are good boys. Can it really be them?’, Sowetanlive, 20 April 2012). The involvement of boys and young men in these rapes should not astound us for they are a product of the society which they grow up in. The construction of ideas of what constitutes masculinity in boys and young men is “intimately connected with violence” (Hearn, 1998:35). Violence is a common experience within boys’ lives and often forms part of their rites of passage, for example the gang rape of often elderly women by newly identified ‘men’ when leaving initiation school who rape in order to prove their manliness. The rape of N was an act of violence chosen by those involved and was “the product of choice within a structural context of hierarchical power arrangements” (ibid).
The video of the rape of N can be seen as an extreme form of pornography that portrays,
“a hyper-masculine sexual imagination rooted in a conventional conception of masculinity: sex as conquest and the acquisition of pleasure through the taking of (a 16 year-old girl)” (ibid).
The girl is depicted not as a “multifaceted human being deserving equal rights with men” (Russell, 2004), but she is depersonalised as a commodity. N was reduced to a sexual organ for them to do with as they like. For one of the rapists she became the vehicle through which he would no longer be a virgin.
The transcripts of the rape depict how N was treated as a thing to be used and passed around from assailant to assailant (Shain Germainer, ‘The cries of a gang-raped girl’, The Star, 18 April 2012). When one of them was finished with N he says: “I am okay with you,” and then instructs his friend: “Now you penetrate her.” Throughout the recording they ignore N’s cries and continue to make jokes while encouraging others to participate. N is told to close her mouth at one point, while at another to open it so that one of the boys could put his penis in her mouth. When N tries to pull up her trousers, she is told not to. She has lost any agency or personhood. At one point in the rape someone calls out, “Let the madala get in”, which has been interpreted as tsotsi language for: “Let the bigger brother penetrate her”. Again we see her dehumanised. She is there as a receptacle for their games. And even within the rape, masculinity among the assailants is defined in terms of the size of his sexual organ – the bigger penis is dominant and takes precedence over the person already raping her.
Consequences of naming the injustice
Tamasese and Waldegrave (1996) argue that naming the injustice has consequences and that obstructions or blockages can occur in this process, especially when the implications of this injustice are understood. Three common obstructions that may result from the naming of an injustice that strengthen resistance to change are identified: paralysis, individualising and patronising. To this I would add victim blaming.
Feminism has highlighted the link between the personal and the political. When we engage with issues of male dominance it requires that we examine our own lives as men, but also the patriarchal system that we are a part of and which has defined our lives for so long. This engagement is a daunting task for men. For us to tackle this issue means delving deeply into what it means to be a man, the limits these definitions put on our lives and others. It also means examining how our lives are constructed, looking at the structural inequalities that perpetuate men’s violence including, sexual violence. It requires us to look both within and without.
Paralysis
We can become paralysed by our own shame and guilt, so overcome with being part of this system of violence that we retreat into our selves and never venture out again. In place of us moving towards a future of new opportunities, we may regress into previous ways of being and behaving. As a man it can be very difficult to hear the pain and experiences of women. I have witnessed men wilt away in the face of such pain, unable to deal with themselves and all that has been brought up within them as they hear of the pain which women and girls experience and carry around within them simply because they are female. There is also the question of what lies behind the sexual violence experienced by N and many other women, the structures and institutions of patriarchy. Where do we start when faced with such a monolith? What is there that we can actually do?
“We are not born knowing what it means to be a man. We learn it from the people around us. And because it is something society has decided on, it can also be changed by society” (Ban Ki-Moon, 2009).
The hope in this statement is also frightening to the extreme. Who are we to change society? How can we come up against the colossus of culture, of religion, of neo-liberal economic systems all of which entrench the oppression of women and girls and say, “No more of the old way! It’s time for a new way of being!” In the face of this many men retreat into a place where all we want is relative safety and to be well thought of. It also requires of us that we admit that we are wrong. Not merely in the sense of violence being morally wrong, but that our way of making sense of our world is wrong. Our whole being and identity as a man in this society is called into question (Hearn, 1998; Maclean, 1996).
When we are paralysed, we feel impotent and do nothing. We are imprisoned by fear which enables patriarchy to continue unchallenged. Patriarchy sustains itself through threatening men with non-existence as men. Our silence becomes the tacit approval which validates the actions of those who raped N.
Individualising
A response to a report in The Star about the N’s rape was:
“… The Star headlines, “a nation’s shame”, placing the blame on all of us as South Africans. Yes it is shameful that these terrible things occur, but do not tar all of us with the same brush” (Comments on line to report, ‘The cries of a gang-raped girl’, The Star, 18 April 2012).
This is a common response from men when discussing sexual violence. It is easy to refer to the perpetrators as ‘animals’, ‘demons’, or all kinds of names instead of seeing them as being men just like we are.
We try to separate ourselves from our social, cultural and gender histories and claim we can only be responsible for our personal behaviour. However, this sidesteps the institutional and collective reality of women’s oppression. It is the collective of men through the history of patriarchy which has created the environment that privileges the decisions and actions of men.
We cannot as men have a ‘them versus us’ scenario. We are all in it together. Of course not all men act in violent ways. Neither do we all benefit from patriarchy in the same way. And we can all identify examples of men who are loving, caring and compassionate. But we cannot escape that our lives have been socially constructed within many different contexts and ultimately all our masculinities have been forged within the patriarchal systems which dominate our social landscape. No matter how gender sensitive a man is or how committed he is to gender equality, as a male he continues to benefit at every level in a patriarchal society. As men we need to recognise our potential for physical, emotional and verbal violence (Hearn, 1999; McLean, 1996; Smith, 1996).
I, along with many men choose to live and be in relationships without being physically or sexually violent. But at the same time I have to recognise that there is within me the potential to become violent. There have been times when my physical presence as a man has been intimidating to women, not because of anything I said or did, but just because I was there.
When we try and individualise and make this separation between ‘them’ and ‘us’ we are being dishonest about our relationship to our own gender and dishonest in our dealings with women and girls. We fail to bridge the gap that would enable us to engage in activities to end sexual violence. The higher ground means that we are untouchable and helps us to be untouched by the pain of women and girls.
Blaming
Being separate also creates the space to engage in blaming. In the aftermath of N’s rape ordeal, members of the community were reported as being divided about where blame lay, with many blaming N’s mother for her daughter being raped (Lucas Ledwaba, ‘Tragedy of a girl called “Jackpot”’, City Press, 22 April 2012). Blame is a wonderful tool for deflecting attention from the issue at hand and is another form of resistance to change. A common tactic men have used is to scapegoat women for their own oppression, thereby justifying violence. If everything that happens is women’s fault then men’s position is protected and even validated. It is not men’s fault that we rape. How many times have we heard men argue ‘she was asking for it’, ‘it was the way she dressed’, or ‘she shouldn’t have been there in the first place’.
This is a common argument and one that gets used from the highest echelons of power (as witnessed when it was used as a defence in the rape case against the current President of this country) to informal gatherings of men. Furthermore, one of the successes of patriarchy is that it is not only men who make these accusations, but women too. Witness those women who when supporting Jacob Zuma during his trial held placards demanding “Burn the Bitch” when talking about Kwezi (Mkhwanazi, 2008). Blaming allows us to separate women from each other and obscures those social dynamics of power and control which inform our lives.
Patronising
The final form of resistance to the naming of the injustice is patronising, which Tamasese and Waldegrave (1996) have described as a more crude, but no less common response. We are reminded of the miraculous conversions which some men make, often to such a great extent that they become the self-appointed spokespeople for the group their gender oppresses. Men begin to speak for women in place of women and thus define women’s history, experiences and the meaning women give to their lives. However, this limits men’s ability to be part of changing society as it means that we continue to relate to women not on the basis as equals, but rather on that of dominance. My experience includes men who have led protest marches, have spoken out against male violence in the legislature and public platforms and then gone home and assaulted their wife or partners.
As men we must not fool ourselves. The work we are engaging in is nothing new and to pretend it is, is to diminish the work that feminism has been involved in for many years and their call for men to challenge patriarchy, its institutions and application.
“For a men’s movement to think that it should start the process right from the beginning, rather than being willing to follow women’s lead, is an act of arrogance or blindness” (Maclean, 1996:27).
Change
There was another voice in the recording, seemingly heard only once. At some point in the rape, a male voice calls out for the others to stop what they were doing. This is perhaps the hope in all of this that even in the midst of the frenzy of the sexual violence there was someone who knew that what they were doing was wrong, someone who listened to N’s cries and who exhorted other males to stop.
One of patriarchy’s tactics is that it has tried to silence women. It has taken great courage for women to speak out often in the face of threats to their personal safety. For if women are silenced then men cannot hear what they need to in order to rise up against the tyranny of this system. This silence enables men to construct.
“knowledge about sexual violence, crime and women’s sexuality: through institutions such as the law, medicine, psychiatry as much as the ‘common sense’ that is promoted by the media, including pornography” (Kelly and Radford, 1996:20).
McLean (1996:27) argues that:
“the greatest threat to patriarchy would consist of men being truly willing to listen to women, learn from them and follow in their footsteps … . In cutting themselves off from women … men are isolating themselves from a wealth of wisdom and experience in a way that is deeply impoverishing to men personally, and destructive to the world at large.”
As men we have been taught that we have a right to be heard and what we say adhered to. The ultimate extreme being the traditional leader who after addressing the debate on the Traditional Courts Bill in Bhisho during early 2012 demanded that no-one else talk after him as his word was the last word on the subject.
Men need to stop talking and to listen, to really hear both the cries of pain and the exultations of joy that are part of women’s lives. There are times that we will not be trusted and that our motives will be questioned. We should expect no less, given our joint history as men. But we must persevere, be patient if need be, and learn to acknowledge women’s experiences. Through this process not only do we listen and learn about women and their lives, but about our own as well. It provides us with what Jensen (2007) has called “a gift” through which we men can also recognise our full humanity. There exists within feminism the opportunity for us to discover a very different view of ourselves. No longer do we need to see ourselves shackled by “predetermined social roles that define and confine rather than open up and liberate” (ibid).
Power “operates in time and space” (Hearn, 1998:215) and male dominance is recognised through the domination of both physical and social space. Men have been placed as gatekeepers, controlling the means of access to social, cultural and political institutions which define and control men and women’s participation in social life. Men’s violence towards women not only takes up space, it also limits the space available to women. Thus the second step that men can make to challenge men’s sexual violence is to create safe spaces for women’s voices to be heard. As men we must learn to step off centre-stage and be prepared to be in the wings, supporting, encouraging and learning from women’s experiences.
The call to recognise the link between the personal and the political means that we cannot only focus on change in ourselves but that we must recognise that we have a responsibility to participate in broader social action programmes to bring about the end of men’s violence against women and girls. This is the third avenue of action available to us – to learn from what women have shared with us, to make changes in ourselves as needed and to challenge other men to be different and to make changes in their own lives. This requires that we work alongside women to change those institutions which are the foundations which uphold women’s oppression and allow N and many other women and girls to be subjected to sexual violence.