How to stop Femicide and Gender Based Violence in South Africa

On the 19 August 2021, Nosicelo Mtebeni’s dismembered body was found after she was murdered by his boyfriend.
The gruesome murder of this young lady is not an exception in South Africa, in fact, it was reported that in the same week her body was found, four more other women were murdered in the same area.
In 2020, it was the gruesome murder of Tshegofatso Pule that was popular, the year before that, it was that of Uyinene Mrwetyana, and the list can go on and on to fill a book.

Femicide, Sexual and Gender based violence is a known phenomenon that is of great concern to everybody but it is one that is not well investigated and researched on in order to understand its root causes. There never seems to be anyone or organization that is committed enough to research and understand the root cause of these violent crimes in South Africa, how they severely impact the lives of others and how to actually solve these problems that are detrimental to society.

Most people don’t bother to understand it much deeper or the bases of it, especially those people who are not affected by it. It is often the norm that after another woman, often a black woman, is murdered, one or two of the following happens, the deceased’s name gets to trend on Twitter with members of the public condemning the evil act, the police minister promises to bring the suspect to book, there is a memorial service held, maybe a demonstration takes place and eventually the deceased woman is laid to rest. Once all this is done, nothing more really happens other than to wait for another woman to be murdered pretty much in the same manner and the same actions happen again.

I believe that everyone should be concerned about the gender-based violence in South Africa and make it their problem to solve.

The acts of Gender based violence are well understood and documented but it is the root causes that are not comprehensively understood and this is a big hinderance to society because generally if you don’t understand a problem well enough, you would not be able to come up with pragmatic solutions to solve it.

I am a Feminist, a person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexist.
I believe that in order to solve the problem of Gender Based Violence in South Africa, everyone will have to be a feminist.

What does it really mean to be a feminist in the real world?
Let me pose a few questions about the equality of men and women.

Why is it that when a woman and a man get married, it is a norm that the woman must change her surname to that of the man?
This is an action that implicitly imposes women as being secondary to man, that men are more powerful and that in a marriage, men are the leaders and therefore should be more “commanding” in a family setup.

How is it that when a woman is married to a president of a country, there is the title of “First Lady” attached to her? The title of first lady seems to be harmless to society, in fact, it is used for good purpose and great humanity initiatives most of the time but the basis of the title is wrong, the idea that a woman gains a more “important” social status in society because she is married to a man who happens to be a president.
Women should gain prominent status for their own work and the significant impact they make to society on their own, not on the basis that that they are married to a president. The practice of women that are married to the president of country using their title, networks, and the privileges to partake in initiatives that have a significant impact to society is not a bad thing at all, however, it has an unintended consequence. It teaches young girls and women in general to aspire to be married to men, or anyone men in particular who have the potential of being president, which can be any men for that matter. To some extent, it portrays the idea that for women to play a significant role in society, they have to be married to a president.

How is it that we have all kinds of sports played by both genders but make rules that say boys should play with and only against boys and girls to girls. Is it because over the years, we have been inculcated or socialized to think that games are more fun when the same gender is playing or is it because previously, all kinds of sports were just played only by men? Either way, I think that this has to be changed.
Most games require endurance, mastering a skill and consistent practice to be perfect and none of this has anything to do with gender.
Any game can be played amongst both genders, and we can start socializing this and making it a norm for men and women to play sports together, with and against each other.

How is it that we have accepted that it is okay for men to walk, run or just be shirtless maybe at the beach or some other public spaces but for women to do the same is completely unacceptable. Our bodies as women and men are different but sometimes it is not the different body parts that make us vastly different but the ideologies and what society has adopted as acceptable over the years that really differentiates us.

There are many other instances that we should start to question and try to introduce the idea of equality between men and women but I want to focus on South Africa because this is where the gap between women and men is significantly different and the repercussions are deadly.
South Africa has quite a high number of ethnic groups or tribes that follow somewhat different cultures but actually have a lot in common and one of those things that is common is how women are treated in each culture. Women are always seen as less important in society and more so in the family home. They are treated and made to feel like they are secondary to men. In Venda, for instance, a woman has to lie on the floor to greet men, in Pedi, the phrase “Monna ke hlogo ya lapa” (The man is the head of the household) is used to emphasize that women are subordinate to men and in Zulu, there are many practices that treats women unfairly, which Dr Mncwango and Ms Luvuno dived into in greater detail on their article titled “Language, Gender and Women Development in South Africa”. Other cultures have similar practices that treat women unfairly and one could write a whole book about them.

All these cultural practices in South Africa leads to men feeling entitled to women, and the entitlement is so profound that men think it is okay to control women, to abuse them, and even terminate their lives if they think they have overstepped their boundaries. These different cultures in South Africa have led to Gender Based Violent crimes in the country being higher than anywhere else in the world. In fact, based on certain measures, South Africa is regarded as the most dangerous country for a woman to live in.

There are, however, other attributes that contribute to the Gender Based Violent crimes in the country, such as low levels of literacy (Education). It is argued that a person with a low level of literacy is more likely to commit a violent crime than a person of the opposite literacy level. This argument is plausible given that a high literate person is able to be logical and act rationally by consulting their different reasoning capacities compared to a person who does not have much information to consult when faced with simple decisions.

Another major attribute to the gender-based violence in South Africa is the abuse of alcohol. The country is one of the highest alcohol consuming countries not just in Africa but also in world measures too. Alcohol abuse does cause one to temporarily lose some of their physical capabilities and more psychological capabilities as well. This leads to men who are fully rational to also abuse their partners when they are under the heavy influence of alcohol. As a side note, alcohol abuse is another reason why so many men in South Africa have big bellies, but this is another topic I will explore in a different article.

Another attribute is the lack of fathers and male role models for most young boys who grow up with their single mothers. This problem stems back to the apartheid days when most black men (fathers) stayed in hostels close to the mines they worked at, away from their families. This meant that they involuntary neglected their roles as fathers and as such, most young men do not know what role a man is supposed to play in a family or society in general. Those young men who grew up in apartheid have obviously grown now, but they are now the same men who are abusing women today and continue to spread, perhaps unintentionally so, the culture of what roles men play as opposed to the ideal roles they are supposed to play.

The above-mentioned attributes to Gender based Violence remain second to the biggest attribute, which is culture. I would like to reflect on a few of those accepted cultural practices and suggest solutions on how we can change them in order to reduce the gender based violent crimes in South Africa.

Lobola
Lobala is the process of traditional marriage. It involves the family of the groom paying a specific amount of money as required by the bride’s family. Let me explain in greater detail this process for those who might not be familiar with it. Once a couple has decided that they want to get married, the groom’s family, which is often the uncles of the groom, have to go to the bride’s family home to ask for the family’s hand in marriage. The bride’s family will then decide the worth of the bride, essentially, the father and the uncles of the bride will decide how much they will charge the groom’s family in order to accept him to marry the bride. This is called “negotiations” as both families will be deliberating how much will be paid for the bride. Some of the attributes that both families will be negotiating on to factor the price of the bride include how well behaved the bride is, if she can cook, if she had any kids before she met the groom or even if she has kids with the groom, how much the groom can afford to pay and how well educated the bride is. It is apparently suggested that the more educated the bride is, which suggest how much the father or family paid for her education, the more expensive will be the lobola (the money that will be paid by the groom for the bride). Often, the price was paid in cows but because recently some brides are costly, actual cash is often used to supplement the cows. Once the price has been settled, the bride can be released to the groom’s family and the wedding will be allowed to happen. This practice is completely wrong because while it does not have any intentional harm from the outset, it creates a sense of entitlement for the men who paid for the bride.

Let me put this into perspective using an example. If I got to the shop and I buy a bread by paying for it, I essentially own the bread and become entitled to it. I can do anything I want with the bread, I can go home, make a sandwich, I could donate the bread to a homeless person, I could leave the bread in my cupboard until it is spoiled, which would not be by intention as I probably bought the bread to eat it. My point here is that because I paid for the bread and it is now in my possession, I own it and I can do whatever I want with it. This sense of entitlement is the same in lobola because essentially, men are paying a price to own the women. While it is argued that this is actually not the case and everything is actually done out of love, I don’t think this practice should involve a transaction.
As a matter of fact, the many couple that have gone through the process of a traditional marriage that included lobola actually love each other and often the men feel a sense of pride for the price they have paid for their wives as they think she was worth it. Basically, some men actually go through the process of lobola because they do it out of love and the whole idea of marriage, that is, having a life partner, someone to share a home with, someone faithful, someone to have kids and raise them with and share the burden of life with, all those things. It is for these reasons that some men don’t actually make a big fuss about lobola as they just think it is a traditional process they have to follow and not necessarily a transaction where they are buying the women (bride). The price they pay is actually viewed as a gift to the bride’s family, a sign of gesture to thank the family for raising a well-rounded woman that has grown to be worth marrying. This argument is highly plausible because most of the hateful crimes against women in South Africa are often committed by men who are not married as opposed to those men who have gone through the process of lobola and are married.

The men who feel more entitled to women are the ones who often have not experienced love and affection as much as they wish for and it is maybe for this reason that because they have never really developed such feelings to someone or a woman in particular, and that they see other men who are married who are experiencing the good things that comes with marriage, they develop that sense of entitlement to get such affection from women. This is just one psychological argument of why most of the men who commit hateful crimes are often not married or involved in a serious relationship. The are many other psychological factors but I think this is one of those that are often overlooked at when it comes to the repercussions of the culture of entitlement that is created out of lobola. The entitlement from other men just stems directly out of the fact that because they have paid a price for the women, they essentially own the women and therefore can do anything they want with her.

The transactional part of lobola should therefore be banned. The traditional celebration of the wedding should be permitted, and the exchange of gifts can occur as per norm of the different cultures, but the outright negotiating of a “price for the groom to pay” should be completely forbidden. Women should not be purchased or be priced in order to enter into marriage, it is outright wrong on so many grounds and this practice is fairly comparable to Slavery, except for the fact that it is mostly practiced by and amongst black people and between people who know each other. It is displeasing to think and suggest that some cultures that were adopted and followed by society years ago amount to being barbaric. Wars proved to be barbaric and engaged by people who were not entirely civilized, the same goes for white men who thought slavery was something acceptable in society. I personally hold the same view on a transactional lobola and hence I suggest it is made illegal in South Africa as it has ‘grave’ consequences. It might sound outrageous to someone to suggest that their culture should not be accepted by society, but it is the right thing to do to question that culture, why it is practiced and evaluate if it does any good or harm to society in general. We are human beings, and we evolve, we adopt to make humans survive even longer and for the better, and this happens when we change our traditions and culture for the better.

Media
Another cultural that we should change in South Africa is the narrative and stories we tell about women in society, especially in media. A couple of decades ago, the most popular drama shows in South Africa, the most watched shows portrayed women as being secondary to men. In Muvhnago, women often had to lie down on the floor when they greet the chief. On Generations, women often played roles secondary to men and the story line or theme suggested this as well. This narrative has completely changed though, the most popular shows in South Africa now, which include The Queen, The River, Uzalo, and so forth feature women playing leading roles and the theme is those women being in control of some business or family and being independent to some extent from men. This is a great step towards normalizing the idea of gender equality, and it does great strides to society in changing their culture. Interestingly, Holly Rey, the South Africa musician made research for her Honour’s qualification on the effect that Uzalo had on empowering women though its story telling and its theme. I think her research is worth exploring further, not because she earned the qualification with distinctions by the way, but because the arguments presented are often the kind of observations that are ignored when discussions about gender-based violence are had. The only thing that still needs to be improved in the aspect of storytelling is the kind of stories we tell about women. All of the above stories mentioned that have women playing the leading roles actually tell stories about illegal and evil things they do to be in control and powerful, which is not really the reality because the most powerful women in society use education to succeed.

Soap operas are not the only thing we should change. Over the years, music and music videos in particular have been used to introduce and inculcate society to new certain cultures. It is often depicted in some music videos, mostly by male rappers, that women exist to entertain men. It is often the case that when women go out to clubs, they are there for the pleasure of men or to please them, not out of their own will to be out and having a good time with their friends or other girls. As much as these story lines are actually a product of society, that is, the musicians are only telling a story of what has come to be accepted in society, they further condone such culture when they are given the platform to show it, they exacerbate the bad culture by spreading it to other people who are not yet exposed to it. My suggestion on this is to ban music videos that depict women as being objects to please men. Music video channels should hold high standards on the kind of content they allow to play on their platforms, and social media networks as well, as this is where culture spreads more rapidly with the younger generation.

Gender Based violence in South Africa is a serious going concern that I think need more discussions and solutions on how we can stop it. I presented here just two solutions that form part of the cultural problem related to it but there are many other aspects that can make a huge difference on the matter. What concerns me about Gender Based Violence in South Africa is the muted reaction from business leaders, who often choose to be silent on the matter. It seems like the attitude is something like “This is a social problem and therefore we should leave it up to politicians to solve it”. What is disappointing is that we all know that politicians are not actually good at solving social problems, in fact, some problems are actually created by the same politicians we expect to solve those problems. Hence it is imperative for business leaders to get involved in solving the problem of Gender Based Violence in South Africa. It might not benefit you in the short term or enhance your profits, but your skills and resources that are used to run successful businesses can be very valuable to ending gender-based violence in South Africa.

Disclaimer
The views expressed in this article are that of my own and do not represent the same views of any entities I am associated with.