shedding the silence

We are among the few women who refuse to keep quiet, sit back and watch as our dreams, hopes and ambitions are being snatched from our grip through gender discrimination. Regardless of the pressure from schoolwork, as students of the University of Swaziland, we; Nomsa Mbuli and Sibusisiwe Lukhele (studying BSc Environmental Health Science and BSc Nursing Science respectively), will be advocating for the female population on topical issues and sharing our experiences as young women; making the Swazi woman’s voice heard.

As typical young women in Swazi society, we’ve grown to know male dominance as the norm and to know our brothers and fathers, male friends and colleagues as the ‘better’ sex, who have access to better privileges than females. This has become a part of us, such that nobody raises eyebrows to gender-based discrimination and violence anymore.

 At the end of last year, there were reports about a 9-year-old girl from Nhlangano who was repeatedly raped by two men and, in exchange for her silence, they gave her E1. We feel that, besides the fact that she was abused, people were more shaken and focused on the amount of money she got after the abuse. Rape comes with trauma, it comes with after effects; that poor girl will be scarred for the rest of her life and yet we think ‘how lame of them to give her such a small amount? Really, what can you buy with E1?’ When the real issue should be what the country is doing to alleviate incidents like these.

The fact that when a woman reports abuse, the first question she commonly is asked is "what did you do to him that made him so angry?" shows that people think that when a woman is abused, it’s always her fault and that she must have done something to provoke the man. Men who abuse women deserve a harsh punishment, for the whole country to see that all violence is punishable and that it must come to a stop!

Just recently, the world was engaged in the annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence campaign; we couldn’t help but note that the word on the street referred to this campaign as ‘the female campaign’. As much as we are advocating for the female gender, we cannot turn a blind eye to the obvious fact that there are men who are silenced and not given the opportunities given to women. But, where are those men really? Are they not coming out because they find it abnormal for a man to be suppressed? Is it because our society dictates regarding male superiority mean that a man seen as ‘inferior’ to a woman becomes a brunt of jokes and ridicule?

Some dignified men, even pastors and respectable leaders, are against gender equality. A recent article in the newspaper by a very vocal man who’s not afraid to show his hatred for women, talked about how he thinks women can never ‘win’ against men.

 To set the record straight, women are not looking for gender superiority but are fighting for gender EQUALITY, a common ground for women to voice out their opinions and ideas without being captioned ‘female opinion’ or even the widely-used phrase ‘lidvodzile’, a siSwati word used to describe a wise opinion presented by a woman and which loosely means ‘sounds like a man speaking’. Women are simply asking for equal opportunities and privileges, could that be too much to ask?

　

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