THE ONUS OF RAGE

This week after the furore around a wildly triggering Facebook post that was under the username of Mpendulo Simelane (the latter claimed it was hacked), about rape survivors and the mocking that cost his job or at the very least, the Swaziland Sugar Association came out to distance itself from him by clarifying that he was no longer employed there.

That is just one of the ways in which women have been at the receiving end from a section of the society that still has no regard for other people’s feelings.

Seething

On October 12, an article was published about a UNESWA student having been kidnapped, drugged and raped by an as yet unidentified prince and a classmate. I was livid when I read this story.

I am livid in anticipation in fact because I thoroughly hope the court system remains infallible and protects the survivor not the perpetrators because of one of their titles. And really, in this country, all you can do is wait anxiously for things to play out. I’m angry.
And it feels like I have been this way for as long as I can remember. Kusenjalo another man posts a tweet wondering where the online social media activists are on such and such a story.

He implied that for those of us who do use our social media platforms to speak out, those actions are only reserved for online. Which is a lie.
We are in the streets, we are on calls to SSA’s Head of Human Resources, we are doing all we can to sensitise, yet someone with data on that day finds it within his purview to criticise how we show up.

It’s upsetting because it also places the onus of rage on certain people.
When you do act on an issue, your methods are criticised. Beyond even that, activism is difficult, tiring and thankless work. 
Who could have ever guessed that women wanting to have equity would receive such a terrible push back?

discussion

I can already hear someone saying, ‘if it’s equity that you want why must you slander all men?’
And with the patience the oppressed is always expected to possess when discussing that oppression with the oppressor, I would say to that – My rhetoric makes you uncomfortable because it doesn’t put you on a pedestal nor does it centre you. It prioritises women and that doesn’t sit well with you. I won’t change my narrative because it isn’t palatable to you.

Men then say to me, my approach is alienating to men and if I want to dismantle patriarchy I need the buy in om men. I think I’m a terrible negotiator because the systemic oppression and violence that is allowed by men refusing to give way is an urgent issue to me. Too urgent to be polite as I beg for men to give me and mine a chance.

I also have a word for the men who think feminism is a senseless cause until they need it, because the way the world is set up – everyone whose life is touched by a woman, either mother, daughter, aunt, sister, will one day find themselves needing feminists as allies.

You spend most of your days rubbishing the tenets of feminism and the violence against women it vehemently rejects until someone does it to someone you care about, suddenly all the feminists you know are validated and are necessary.

patriarchal

That in itself is problematic because it means unless and until you witness a violation it doesn’t exist.
That view is patriarchal in and of itself. Instead of other women saying ‘when this happens it is threatening to us, we don’t want it to happen to other girls or women’ you wait until it does before you take it seriously. How are you not contributing to the problem. We thank God for your repentance though.

Understand that the threat doesn’t begin when the comments or the stares are happening, understand that the culture is toxic and destructive. Patriarchy, misogyny, rape culture; all these are things which allow men to speak inappropriately to girls and women. Deconstruct it now and always, don’t wait for it to come to your door because listen, being sexually violated/assaulted is a lot.

In conclusion, allow me to say how tired I am also of having to perform my pain at being a sexual assault survivor everytime men push me, by asking ‘why, why why?

Answer us, tell us why you’re like this? What happened?’. So I do because I have found it helpful to be vulnerable in that way, only for men to diagnose me and say I need psychological help for what I went through as though it didn’t happen because men are entitled to our bodies and that is a systemic issue, the very one we are trying to fight.

The many women who reached out to me to check on my safety and mental health, I love you for it. We really are all we’ve got. But anything worth having never did come easy – remember that as we forge ahead.

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