What do Stanford swimmer Brock Turner and South African president Jacob Zuma have in common? They both sexually assaulted a woman. Their cases both garnered a lot of public attention around the intersection of sexual assault, privilege, and justice (or lack thereof), a type of conversation we don’t nearly have enough. They were both protected by a criminal justice system that safeguards the rights and privileges of some and ignores those of marginalized groups in society. And, the most obvious of all: they are both men.
My name is Hannah and I am a woman. “Oh, no shit,” you might think.
While it is quite evident that I am, I never considered my sex to be a defining part of my identity; back home, I never actively thought about what it means to be a woman in society. I feel the occasional microaggressions in a classroom conversation or on a bus. I learn about statistics pertaining to the unfair gap in wage and opportunity between men and women. I read about gruesome cases of rape or sexual violence, especially those occurring on college campuses.
You might think I am naïve, but all these obvious signs of disadvantage and discrimination towards women were always something peripheral to my existence. In general, I felt so safe and secure in my womanhood that it was never a part of my identity I had to actively take into consideration when floating through everyday life. But here, that part of my identity doesn’t go ignored. On the contrary, I am constantly reminded of it as soon as I leave our B&B.
I’m aware of being a woman due to the inquisitive yet highly uncomfortable stares on the street. Sure, my race inevitably plays a role in drawing attention to me, too. But many men fully embrace their male dominance when they put their eyes on me or my friends when we are walking to work or restaurants. While I want to be cautious of passing judgment and making assumptions, these stares seem to differ from the looks you get as a woman back home. I feel less like a human being and more like a piece of meat.
I’m aware of being a woman when I feel how much the presence of Nate and DJ increase my sense of security, day and night. I feel less stared at than when I walk around with my girl friends, and people asking for money or food seem to take “no” for an answer way more frequently. The one time I walked back from the gym by myself, I felt this urge to keep my head down and speed back home; I wanted to be as invisible as possible. Speaking of the gym, a few friends of mine and I bought a two-month gym membership at a female-only gym, and I love it. I never thought of a separate female gym as something necessary, but every time I enter the local gym I feel a sense of relief, I feel like I am reclaiming my agency, I feel like I am embracing a part of myself I want to hide on the street.
I became aware of being a woman, and what that means with regard to my position in the social hierarchy that is South Africa’s, when I started my work at the Women’s Legal Center. Here, I am getting a sense of what it means to be a woman in South African society, and how the intersection of sex, race, and class affect their everyday lives. We read and hear about numerous cases of gender-based discrimination in the public and private sphere and about sexual violence against women of all ages. During the first week at the WLC, I noticed two things all these cases shared in common: first, the complete lack of legal and psychological support for victims, and second, the culture of impunity that safeguards men and masculinity.
Gender inequality and patriarchy transcend race and class. It’s fallacious, ignorant, and discriminatory to think otherwise. Nor are they restricted to life in the private sphere. On the contrary, the cases we are investigating at the WLC show just how entrenched patriarchy and sexism are in the public sphere. The very first case we were asked to research centered on the leader of the ANC in the Western Cape, Marius Fransman, who was accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year old girl this January. Since the public prosecutor in the North West Province decided to withdraw the charges due to “lack of evidence,” the victim and her legal team are now trying to press charges against him in another province. But her chances are slim, to say the least. The Fransman case, highlighting the legal impunity enjoyed by many political leaders, is reminiscent of the facts of the infamous case that occurred a few years ago, when a young woman, named “Khwezi” to protect her identity (which says a lot), accused President Jacob Zuma of rape; not only did she experience a terrible form of victim-shaming, she also lost the case and witnessed Zuma get elected president in 2009.
Gender-based violence and discrimination don’t merely happen in South Africa. They go unnoticed and unpunished. I’ve always admired the progressiveness of South Africa’s Constitution, promising a democratic, non-racist, non-sexist society, but my personal moments of discomfort and the cases of gender-based violence we work on at the WLC have brought to my attention the stark tensions that exist between the liberalness of the document and the realities of South Africa’s society.
Patriarchy as a social phenomenon we find all over the world, yet as women, we are confronted with it in different ways, depending on where we are. It can be subtle, it can be institutionalized, it can be overt, it can take all kinds of forms. Patriarchy is like that shadow you carry around, and depending on the position of the sun, you notice it more or less, but it’s always there.
I’ve been thinking about what factors might contribute to the construction of masculinities that perpetuate the cycle of violence against women in South Africa. In my view, the fact that Zuma and many others go completely unpunished after committing acts of violence against women is both a product of and catalyst for patriarchal dynamics and male entitlement. An alarmingly high number of women also don’t report incidents of sexual violence out of fear of victimization, stigmatization, and retribution (“Khwezi” fled the country, fyi). This means that gender-based violence is taken less seriously and being normalized into society. The culture of victim-blaming and shaming, which we clearly find all over the world, is poison for social change and justice. During both the Zuma and the Fransman trial, the sexual offenses against the two women were turned into a political issue. At the WLC, I was responsible for examining the media portrayal of the case; what was most baffling to me was the fact that a few months after the political leader was accused of the assault, all the media was discussing was whether or not it was a political plot and how the charges might affect the upcoming elections. Many newspapers talked about the case as if it was Fransman that was the victim in this case.
Since I’m already on a rant, can someone please explain to me how a man like Zuma is the leader of a country and the face of a nation so full of potential as South Africa. Besides getting away with rape, he also says he “took a shower” to avoid contracting HIV after he had unprotected sex with a woman he knew was HIV-positive. From his position of power, Zuma constantly asserts a heterosexist and patriarchal masculinity and glorifies the idea of male sexual entitlement.
I am sure the male-dominated violence that pervaded the country for centuries during the long era of oppression also contributes to the South Africa-specific construction of masculinities. And so do the traditional beliefs and patriarchic cultures forged in South African tribes. They certainly granted Zuma impunity. Identifying every possible factor giving rise to male domination in South Africa is beyond my level of knowledge, but even those few aspects I’ve mentioned show that masculinity and male domination in this country are protected by a wall of culture that is incredibly difficult to take down.
The ANC does an exceptional job of fulfilling one of their promises, namely raising the quota of women in government – the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament is higher in South Africa than both in Germany and in the U.S. (my two countries of citizenship). But this creates a dangerous illusion of gender equality that simply doesn’t exist. I am more and more realizing that laws on paper don’t have the transformative power that we wish they had. A few progressive letters on paper don’t suffice as a source of liberation if their meaning gets lost in translating said promises into action. The change has to come from within; it cannot be imposed through law. We need more education and open dialogue to promote mutual respect and to redefine masculinity to bring men to uphold women’s rights and value their agency.
Immersing myself into a different culture hasn’t changed my view that human rights are universal. But it is pushing me to see the cultural complexity and contingency of universal concepts. There should be absolutely no bargaining or concession when it comes to women’s rights, but to outright condemn the norms that shape a local culture is to be that insensitive, ignorant, Euro-centric person you really don’t want to be.
