Taking Back The Night - Grocott's Mail

Anti Sex CrimeS Weekkirting thessueMY BODY... Women wore short skirts at the My Short Skirt protest on Rhodes campus last week. Photo: Karen TennantStacy Morelandeve ensler's poem My Short Skirt reads "my short skirtis not an invitation, a provocation, an indication, thatI want it, or give it...rhodes students, men and women, donned their short skirtsthis week in defiance of the cold weather and in celebration offreedom. Many things make a women pause before she putson her short skirt. What women might think. What men mightthink. What some men have been known to do with the provocationof some exposed thigh. The problem is, some exposed thighcan be quite nice.cool on a summer's day – and nice to look at too. So, shouldwe regard the thigh, knee, calf and ankle as strictly political andtotally asexual for one week a year? Should men and womenwho catch themselves admiring thighs during Anti Sex crimesWeek feel guilty, or be regarded as one of ‘the enemy? How doyou look without leering? or compliment without creeping-out?Is it even politically correct to notice someone's body thesedays? Nice earlobes. You bodyist! disgusting!But surely it's impossible to stop looking. Perhaps the idea isthat, because we are arguably just souls, personalities, processingunits in fleshy covers, the body should be irrelevant.can you walk down the street looking at people and disregardthe bodies they inhabit? It seems impossible. There seemsto be no answers and no rules, so, we suppose, “my short skirt,believe it or not, has nothing to do with you” will have to be theconclusion.Women wait to have posters stapled on their short skirts at the protest. Photo: Mapodile MkhabelaStacy MorelandA record number of womenwere wearing short skirts,1 in 9 t-shirts and defiant attitudeslast week. However,some students were asking,where are the men?on Tuesday morning theGender Action Project (Gap)called on male students totake the pledge to be partnersand not perpetrators, but fewarrived. Similarly, the turnoutfor Tuesday evening’s menonlydiscussion of genderviolence was low, with onlythirteen participants.despite this, the menwho attended the event saidthe forum was a good placeto discuss issues of masculinityand the role men needto play in opposing genderviolence. Gap member andpledge organiser KaraboMohale said South Africa’sskewed gender relations areformed by our social values.“We need to acknowledge therole society plays in makingthe myth of what it means tobe a man, you form your ownmasculinity - we don’t need toaccept what society tries toGrocott’s Mail Tuesday, 27 April 2010TAKING THE PLEDGE... Karabo Mohale, organiser of the GapMen's Pledge to Act. Photo: Dominique LittleWhere are the men?teach us.”He would like to see moremen acting and thinking inways which question patriarchy.“It’s cliché but everyweek should be Anti Sexcrimes Week,” he says.“People say that a windof change is blowing butthese things don’t happen bymagic – it’s time to do”. Thepledge asked men to rejectviolence and to act againststructures which victimiseand subordinate women.Mohale acknowledgesthat campus, like the country,can seem apathetic towardsex-crimes. “If you are violated,you are silenced,” he says,and men contribute to thissilencing when they refuseto think and speak out aboutrape. But “these are uncomfortabletimes,” says Mohale,“so it’s time to get uncomfortable.”Mohale believes “thereis a willingness and a desireto engage with these issues”among men on rhodescampus.“I’m wary of being tooaware of numbers,” saysMohale. “What’s important isintent.”SILENCE... Morongoa Masebe (sporting a mohawkhairstyle) and Gini Mavovana, with her mouth taped shut,popped in at Grocott's Mail on Friday to pick up theircourse evaluations. Mo had to explain that Gini was partof the Rhodes Anti Sex Crime Week protest that requiredher to tape her mouth shut for the entire day in solidarityfor rape survivors who don't report the crime.Photo: Steven LangGrocott’s Mail Tuesday, 27 April 2010Silenced!Pride filled me – pride for women, pride for all of us in thathall, brave enough to take part in this day – at 6am, on a 6°cmorning. I promised my friends that if someone approachedme with judgmental and inappropriate comments I would givethem a piece of my mind or, should I say, my foot. But, whenthis moment came I froze and quietly imploded.Dying voicesWith no-one to talk to I could only speak to myself. We all haveour own reasons for taking part – mine, I realised, ran muchdeeper than I had thought. I found the place within myself,that box of memories. Throughout the day I thought aboutit, held it in my hands, not wanting to go through it. My ownsilence had confronted me.At midday the protesters gathered on the steps of the clocktower. Lying among all those silent men and women gave methe space and comfort to confront this box. That dark, cobwebbedcorner no longer weighs me down. It has been springcleanedand aired, light flows through it with ease.This day made me deal with things I never wanted to. ourstrength in solidarity found its way around campus and filledeach of us. I thought that if I dealt with what weighed me downI could never be the same happy person I always am. But, insteadof feeling dirty and impure, I now feel like a blank page– pure, clean and ready to be filled with the life I choose to fillit with.Breaking the silence“Stop the war on women’s bodies!” exhausted protesterspeeled the tape from their mouths, as one voice at a time, thechant grew louder and louder. But a solemn silence fell over usagain as we watched rape survivors stand and make their wayto the stage. We were inspired by their courage and moved bytheir strength. The respectful clapping of hands became deafening.Take back the nightWe ended the day by reclaiming the streets of Grahamstown.Given back their voices, protesters screamed, shouted andsang. “No means no.” “This street is my street.” We pausedat the rat and Parrot – yelling our defiance at anyone whowould dare to claim otherwise. As we returned to campus a localresident, Kerry Jane Gutridge stopped us. Her words werethe ones we had been waiting to hear from the Grahamstowncommunity. “You are the most beautiful people in South Africaright now – you make me so proud, go, continue in the name ofall those voiceless statistics who are dead.”Every single rape is personalAtownship setting, an uneducated black man(perhaps an uncle) raping a younger blackgirl. This is the stereotype, the informationgiven to you by the media. How necessary is thisinformation? What is the focus here? Has ourcountry fallen so far backward that the colour ofthe perpetrator and that of the victim outweighthe crime?Rape is not about colour. It is about an absolutebreach of personal space and the wreckageof a life.Rape is real, it exists. It happens to thousandsof men, women and children every day. It is notjust a statistic. Rape is personal. Do not allowthe media to dehumanise you, never become‘immune’.The very essence of our humanity lies in ourability to reason and sympathise and the mediaoften robs us of this sympathy. If the people whocommit these crimes don’t possess it somewheredeep within them, we need to have enough of itwithin us to uphold society ourselves. We need tofight against this dehumanising effect, and takerape off the headline shelf and place it safely intothe cabinet of our hearts and minds.Anti Sex CrimeS WeekKiss me on my tapeSouth African statistics tell us that for every woman who is brave enough to report that she has been raped, there are eight otherswho are silenced by feelings of fear, shame and guilt. First time protesters in the 1 in 9 campaign Babongile Zulu, Saskia Kuiperand Stacy Moreland are Rhodes students and Grocott’s Mail interns. They spent Friday with their mouths taped shut to expresstheir solidarity with those who are silenced by sexual violence. What follows is their personal account of the daySaskia KuiperMY SPACE...Protestersreclaimedthe streets ofGrahamstown assafe places forwomen in theTake Back theNight march.Photos: Ulandidu Plessis, PhotoAuthorityMEN IN SOLIDARITY... Jacob Phamodi lies down in silent protest during an hour long "die-in" in the university's administrativeoffices. Photo: Ulandi du Plessis, Photo AuthorityImagine being 16 years old. Boys, clothesand gossip. Now, imagine walking home to momafter school. That old family friend sidles up besideyou. There’s darkness in his eyes you haven’tnoticed before. Suddenly you’re dragged into hishouse; the sudden movement makes you dizzywith confusion.But then the blackness in his eyes escapes,it flows into the room and envelops you in a suffocatingsmother. Slowly this hunter begins toskin you, every ounce of dignity and humanity liesbroken on the floor, your being tears through yourskin in shards of hard, sharp pain, smashing onthe floor.He rapes you, and when he’s done, lies backsatisfied and tells you you can leave. As you go,the bubble wrap protecting your being abandonsits precious cargo. Now tell me, does the colourof this man or of this girl really matter? Agreed,we have come out of apartheid where race wasall that mattered, but have we not crossed thatbridge? Do we not owe these countless survivorsa little more respect?This happened in our community just overa week ago. A matric girl was gang-raped by sixmen.The next time you read about a rape, rememberthis story. Think of everyone you know, thinkof yourself. Be brave enough to be there in thatroom, as an observer, or as the prey. Feel the fearand watch the life slip out. Don’t let each storysimply increase or decrease the percentage ofrape, let each story be a story that affects youpersonally. Let each ounce of humanity quake in9