EDITORIAL | We don’t need ‘Barbie’ talk on GBV this Women’s month

Around the country, hundreds of women are co-ordinating their shades of pink to watch the hyped-up Barbie, which attempts to unpack the tangled web of patriarchy and feminism in society.

Others still are planning their outfits for some high tea, wellness day, seminar or gala dinner to mark countless women’s day events to reinforce the message behind the significance of 20,000 women marching to the Union Buildings in 1956.

However, the reality is that for the majority of the female population, this month dedicated to women is a farce in South Africa.

That’s not to say the freedom of choice to “come on Barbie, let’s go party” during the month is a criticism of those who choose to celebrate their femininity the in whatever way they see fit.

Instead, it is a reminder that this is the time of year when we are flooded with PR exercises to bolster reputations with scripted sound bites to solidify street cred. Sadly it does nothing for the countless women who struggle with domestic violence and drown under economic debt.

Just ask the 35-year Limpopo woman, whose husband tried to run her over while she and her sister-in-law were walking home from an event at the weekend. After dodging the car, he ordered her to get in and a short while later, some kilometres away the battered and bloodied woman crawled out of bushes and managed to get passers-by to take her to police to lodge a case of kidnapping and assault.

Or the family members of Mahlaku Rabalao, 26, whose boyfriend was finally arrested on Friday after her burnt body was found in her Mercedes-Benz on March 7. Police said the mother of a toddler was killed before her car was set alight and it took four months for the 30-year-old man to be arrested in KwaZulu-Natal.

The string of crimes involving female victims, in the past month alone, is as long as the number of times former president Jacob Zuma has appeared in court on corruption charges. It will go on.

And there will be no change in those heinous stats just because it is Women’s Month.

No-one is helped by care packages, lunches under marquees and speeches aimed at bolstering some tenderpreneur’s bank balance.

Last week, Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini was the keynote speaker at the second annual National Men’s Day against gender-based violence and femicide at the King Zwelithini stadium in Umlazi. He dangled a carrot to Zulu men that he would discuss reducing cows for lobola but “will only be considered if you behave” to fight the gender-based violence scourge.

While the notion of reducing the lobola load will be relatable to some, the possibility of such a practice happening any time soon is inconceivable.

And therefore deceptive.

Therein lies the rub of the Women’s Day farce.

The insult to the activism displayed by the likes of Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams, who led the march, is sickening, frustrating and speaks to the double standards of our society.

But even more troubling is that the monarch has a court case involving rural women — who say they were tricked into signing leases by the Ingonyama Trust on their ancestral land — looming over his head. While it is something he inherited, the king has been deafeningly silent on a matter that significantly affects the economic freedom of women.

He has the power to change behaviour beyond offering talks about incentives, as well as change the lives of his female subjects, but this is yet to happen.

What will happen this month is that government departments will spend thousands of rand on various engagements to amplify their commitment to this year’s theme “Women’s Socio-Economic Rights and Empowerment: Building Back Better for Women’s Improved Resilience”.

These events are tone-deaf and a frightful wasteful expenditure to the women on the street.

No-one is helped by care packages, lunches under marquees and speeches aimed at bolstering some tenderpreneur’s bank balance.

Instead, the government should be acting on the pleas of the elderly women in the Eastern Cape who have asked parliament to make it possible for older rape victims to testify in camera in court, as is the case with minors. Or the senior citizens who are robbed and sometimes raped in KwaZulu-Natal and beg for protection when they get their social grants.

There are several, mainly non-profits, who do good work to actively rebut the pandemic of GBV, but these mainly get by on the whiff of volunteerism and crowd-funding. Instead, we need those government budgets doled out in August to those lavish affairs to be redirected to those programmes.

One of those are the Thuthuzela Care Centres, which are run in partnership with a range of departments and donors, to provide for prevention, response and support for rape victims. According to those involved, there are only 63 in the country, and the need is double that. In his last state of the nation address President Cyril Ramaphosa said we need more, but this is yet to happen.

We need more people-centric government initiatives that work and definitely less talk as fake as the plastic Barbie doll.

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