My Contribution to the Global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence - Tracy Chapman, Neighbourhood Activism and Education

Every year, the statistics get worse. Every year, more and more women are subject to gender-based violence, which, as a term, has become almost a slur that no one wants to address in any "civil" conversation at the dinner table, in our classrooms, churches, or at PTA meetings.

The term Gender Based Violence covers a massive variety of atrocities including but certainly not limited to violence against women and children, domestic violence, obstetric violence (which is horrifically prevalent in South Africa under our government health system) human trafficking, rape, sexual assault, abduction, genital mutilation, forced sterilizations, economic abuse, emotional abuse, battering, psychological abuse, marital rape, femicide, forced marriage, street harassment, stalking, cyber- harassment, slavery, sexual exploitation, intimate partner violence and child marriage.

I'm a feminist. There. I said it. It used to be an affiliation one would wear with pride. Men and women could both be feminists, because of what feminism represented and the strides it made over the last two hundred years in improving the lives of every single human being on this planet.

At the core of feminism, was the fight to end the injustices and abuses against women, that had become ingrained into almost every culture in the world. How on earth could anyone hope to dismantle a system of toxic behavior that has been millennia in the making?

Activism and education are absolutely key, but we are clearly not doing enough, or doing it right if the figures are just getting worse and worse.

We talk about patriarchy and toxic masculinity and label all men as trash, but are we really achieving what we want by alienating 50% of the world's population?

I have two young boys, 10 and 12, and a 14-year-old daughter. I am certainly never going to shove that kind of equally toxic and harmful ideology down their throats either.

The facts, however, are the facts. And that is what I will guide them through, alongside my phenomenal partner @ZakLudick.

The ugly truth is that Aime, even though she is 4 years older than our youngest child, is the most likely out of our entire family to be accosted or abducted on her way to school, the shop or even while taking out the trash. We want to teach her that she is 100% equal to her brothers, but she in no way shares the privilege of being able to feel safe in an Uber, trust a drink given to her at a party, in a bus, on the road to school or even with older male family members. The fact is, like me, as a woman she is a hundred times more likely to be attacked. So how do we teach her to reach out and embrace all the equal opportunities she's been told she's entitled to? It's a very tricky road, and believe me, we're still figuring it out.

Then there are our two boys. Are we just going to tell them that real men don't hit women? Is that enough? Don't touch a woman sexually unless you have expressed consent, Is that enough? No. It's not.

We've got to dig deeper. We've got to educate, advocate for, inspire, and champion the basic rights of every human being, especially the vulnerable, and it starts at home.

Behind every abusive man is trauma. Perhaps his mother was beaten by his father, perhaps his grandmother told him that big boys don't cry. Perhaps as a teen, he was conscripted into fighting a war he had no part in and witnessed atrocities no one should imagine in their worst nightmares. Perhaps he, as a little boy, lay awake in his bed at night listening to his sister being raped by his father. Perhaps he was raped by his father. Little boys grow into men with absolutely no understanding of where they belong anymore. Our little princes are emerging into a world that views them with hatred and judgment, and surely, when combined with all these conflicting messages from their childhood trauma, we are in fact creating our own monsters?

@ZakLudick and I attended the last part of an all-day education and activism campaign on Friday the 25th of November, arranged by our local neighborhood watch (who do an absolutely astoundingly good job in supporting our local police).

Zak made an incredibly alarming observation that left us all pondering and wondering how we can do our part to shift this issue. Zak noted that of all the people who turned up to the Rallies, there were women of all ages, and older men - probably fathers and grandfathers themselves, but there was an entire demographic missing. Where was the male youth? No men between the ages of 18 and 35 were represented in the crowd.

Is that not extremely alarming?
Why is this?
What can we do about it?

We can start at home.

We can have hard conversations with our kids and we can be cycle breakers. We can be the parents that guide our children into a more inclusive and respectful future, where injustice and discrimination against our most vulnerable citizens become intolerable. But it starts with us.

Tracey Chapman - Behind The Wall

Last night I heard the screaming
Loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me
It won't do no good to call
The police
Always come late, if they come at all

Last night I heard the screaming
Loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me
It won't do no good to call
The police
Always come late, if they come at all

And when they arrive
They say they can't interfere
With domestic affairs
Between a man and his wife
And as they walk out the door
The tears well up in her eyes

Last night I heard the screaming
Then a silence that chilled my soul
Prayed that I was dreaming
When I saw the ambulance in the road

And the policeman said
"I'm here to keep the peace
Will the crowd disperse?
I think we all could use some sleep"

Last night I heard the screaming
Loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me
It won't do no good to call
The police
Always come late, if they come at all

Source

For those of you who'd like to know more about Obstetric Violence please follow this link and watch the youtube video below.

News24: Unpacking obstetric violence in SA’s public health facilities