“I understand a fury in your words, but not your words…” (Shakespeare’s Desdemona, femicide victim).
“These girls ain’t loyal”. (Singer and woman abuser Chris Brown defines ‘showbiz’ women)
Intimate-partner violence. How can those words go together? How does the scene of love become a death chamber? As the traumatic story of Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp unfolds in a glare of publicity, there are many questions. Some may never be answered. But as we try to understand this very South African love story, it may be that questions are just as important as answers.
Dear reader: this is not a profiling. The court is the place to expose what happened that awful night. I’ve heard the same ‘facts’ and claims as anyone else (though I don’t think their significance is being discussed enough). But I think of Reeva, and how she wanted South Africa to become aware of gender violence: as a writer, I try to imagine ways to honour her memory and her voice, to represent her as a whole person, not just a body spilling blood. Reeva, say those who knew her, was honest, loving and brave. She looked the world in the eye and tried to change it. Are we brave enough to speak out, do we care enough to challenge the ways we love, or teach our children to love?
In the High Court Oscar sits alone, sick-bucket at the ready. Yet another man who killed his partner – he says, in an imaginary person’s place.It was a mistake, he says. Friendly fire. But why are so many South African men like this – emotional Peter Pans, with the careless savagery and playing at war that is typical of children? Why do women fall for them, make plans with them, blindfolded to their deadly games?
South Africa is rotten with gender violence. It’s no coincidence that we also take gender inequality for granted, and routinely tolerate violence as a way to express anger, or deal with conflict. Our sense of normality is twisted to the point that many don’t consider it bizarre to keep two guns, a cricket bat and a baseball bat in your room for “self-defence”.
Nor are perpetrators always male, or victims female: it’s complicated. Men physically, emotionally or financially abused by women are mocked – making them reluctant to disclose – and people in same-sex relationships also experience violence, often with few helping resources.
So, this is not really about male and female, but rather about gender-based attitudes and practices, through which we learn the “rules” which have messed with our heads ever since someone put a pink or blue bracelet on our soft newborn arm. These rules – though not without resistance from both men and women – are foundations of male privilege:
ONE: Real Men should stay in control, and not show pain or fear
TWO: Real Men do not experience emotional vulnerability or discomfort
THREE: Real Men take charge unless there’s a clear line of male authority already
FOUR: Real Men exercise authority in disconnected, non-relational ways
FIVE: Women (or gender-disobedient males) are forbidden to provoke, discomfit or diminish a Real Man. Men lower in the male hierarchy are also forbidden
Without a number of strong and widespread supporting beliefs, these rules would constantly be challenged, and where sexist beliefs have been undermined they are challenged, often with success. For example:
a) men and women are fundamentally different and opposed (hence, “opposite sex”)
b) women are “the weaker sex” who stand in need of male protection and guidance
c) being responsible for the comfort of men, women must anticipate and defer to male needs
The list of behaviour capable of provoking patriarchal men (and women) is extensive. It ranges from dressing in ways considered inappropriate, language (words or tone) and positioning of the body in space, to myriad perceived failures of deference. When male privilege is at stake, the word “respect” is often used although “deference” or “obedience” is the real meaning behind it.
We know how the furious words of men, and the fatal incomprehension of women, play out in South Africa. We’ve seen it all before, so many times. Reeva is one of those lost women, and yet – this time – she didn’t stay lost. There is something about Reeva: people cared about her, and still do. Maybe that offers a chance to start opening up this huge can of worms in ways that we haven’t tried before?
To my way of thinking (and I’m not alone here), the story of Oscar and Reeva is marked by more than one big red flag, warning of impending disaster. Since we now read their history backwards, the warnings are clearer than before Oscar delivered his bloody Valentine. Why were they so hard to see back then? Oscar is still here to tell his version of the relationship and its terrible end, turbo-charged by a team of high-priced legal minds. Reeva’s dust keeps silent company with the dolphins in Algoa Bay. Sweets to the sweet: Farewell.
But as someone once told star-struck Cinderella: “if the shoe fits, wear it”. The steel capped boots of intimate-partner abuse fit too many of the alleged facts about Oscar and Reeva to be mere co-incidence, and that’s not something that can be changed now, unless a fairly large and diverse group of people are all proven to be absolute liars.
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- Study: Oscar, Reeva and Intimate Partner Violence, Part 6 - 27 April 2014
