EXTRACT | ‘Smashing the Patriarchy’ by Lethabo Maleka

“Let us dare to hope for a movement whose primary task would be to lessen the institutional pain inflicted upon women by dismantling the structures of male dominance and terror, namely, patriarchy.” − Carmen Soler

About the series

Smashing the Patriarchy: Why Women Must Rise Up Against Gender-Based Violence is a powerful call to action for women to free themselves from the yoke of patriarchal oppression. In this comprehensive set of books, author Lethabo Maleka explores the roots of patriarchy and its devastating consequences, particularly in relation to gender-based violence.

Drawing inspiration from her extensive research, Maleka challenges traditional beliefs and societal norms that perpetuate the subjugation of women. With a clear and pressing message, she urges women to unite and fight for their rights, offering a roadmap for dismantling patriarchy and creating a more equitable society.

The eight volumes of this book are a testament to all the women who have suffered at the hands of men, a tribute to the strength, resilience and power of women, and a rallying cry for urgent and fundamental change.

About the author

Maleka grew up and attended school in rural Limpopo. She obtained her matric through correspondence at Turret Correspondence College, funded by Sached Trust. She obtained undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the University of the Witwatersrand and a master’s degree from the University of Johannesburg. After graduating, she started her career at the Educational Opportunities Council (EOC), a non-governmental organisation in Johannesburg, which had offered her a full four-year scholarship sponsored by the British Council. She worked as a student counsellor, a co-ordinator and administrator for local scholarship programmes. When donor agencies pulled their funding after the 1994 democratic elections, she joined the public service in the Gauteng provincial government.

EXTRACT

How many women must die before femicide is taken seriously? How many families are waiting for justice? How many rape victims are suffering due to DNA backlogs? By now, women should be well awake to the fact that, for GBV to come to end, we must address the elephant in the room. Forget about men, though. Without patriarchy they are nothing; without us women they are nothing.

As women we must swing into action as talking is not nearly enough. We must revolt and retaliate. We are not the most vulnerable members of society. We have brain power, and brain power is stronger than physical power. We must not be terrorised by the very people we brought to earth, natured and nurtured.

Certainly, violence against women is not a uniquely South African issue, but the scale of it in South Africa is in a league of its own and we can surely show the world the way. We have the worst levels of GBV in the world and the highest incidence of rape per capita on the planet.

Quite understandably, this has caused widespread outrage. We have seen angry marches, social media rants, hashtags such as #noexcuse, #countmein, #menaretrash and celebrities of all kinds speaking out. But how much does any of this do to truly cure the societal cancer that is GBV? It creates awareness, which is a very good thing, but mostly offers little in the way of real solutions.

My gut feeling tells me that atrocities meted out to women seem to spiral during times in which the country celebrates Women’s Day, Women’s Month and the 16 Days of Activism because they are angry at the fact that women are becoming aware of their rights, and they are being made aware that they are equal to men, that they are to be freed from the yoke of patriarchy. So, telling them that they are trash makes them worse. It will not change them because, like spoiled brats, they cannot take responsibility nor be accountable, and they feel offended by being stigmatised by women who, in their psyche, are inferior to them and are more like children. In fact, all these tags just serve to make them aggressive and angry.

Overwhelmingly, GBV is perpetrated by men against women, which means it is males’ wounded behaviour coming from a distorted concept of masculinity that needs to change, not females’. Yet the problem of GBV is mainly shifted to women, hence it is women who make a lot of noise. Ideally, women should make a lot of noise because they feel caged by patriarchy and its evils and they are bound to sing like birds so that they are heard.

Clearly, men are afraid of us women. Their propensity to rape and murder us is driven by fear. They are terrorising us through rape so as to destroy us, with the aim of totally annihilating us off the face of the planet. But we cannot be warped to submission and Vaginaless Beings’ Revolution is the only way we can free ourselves. All that we need right now is to work together to eradicate patriarchy and thereby GBV. We are left with no option but to fight: no more talk but action.

I said earlier in the book that we can be passive and do nothing; we can get angry and make a lot of ineffectual noise; or we can dig deeply into the real reasons behind it and take whatever action is necessary to fix it. Gender-based violence is a threat and an indictment against us women. We need to act. Have we not said this enough? We are the best: we can resist and retaliate. Now is the time. The bells are ringing.

Indeed, South Africa is a country in “distress” over violence against women. Below is a reminder of what was said in newspapers and on social media every time these atrocities happened, so that we will never forget. We cannot afford to forget any more. Over the years women have displayed this kind of anger and outrage towards ever escalating GBV. But women, please know that our outrage can only be meaningful if we are determined to purge GBV from the belly of patriarchy. It is time now to tame this leopard. In life, everything has to come to an end, sometime. It is the time that this too passes. Vaginaless Beings’ Revolution means business, and all will come to an end and to fruition.

The purpose of this book is, therefore, to remind women of this beautiful land that we have a leopard in our midst. Is this leopard called gender-based violence not going to wipe us out — I mean the whole of womankind — if we fail to invite everyone — that is, all women, poor or rich, black or white, including those that consider themselves the unreachable and unapproachable — to fight it now?

Women are still hopeful that men will help to eradicate patriarchy and thereby gender-based violence. As a result, we tend to move on too quickly from one incident that captures our attention to the next. We organise marches, shutdowns and, within a short time, we have either forgotten or moved on. I believe this is probably why politicians do not deliver on the promises they make. It is because they know how easily we forget and, as a result, they get away, sometimes literally, with murder.

I reiterate that, indeed, South African women experience many tragedies daily: high levels of femicide, rape and gender-based violence in general. We are generally traumatised. But we should continually ask ourselves the right question: Why are we still here? “Other groups that were subordinated in history — peasants, slaves, colonials, any kind of group, ethnic minorities — all of those groups knew very quickly that they were subordinated, and they developed theories about their liberation, about their rights as human beings, about what kind of struggle to conduct in order to emancipate themselves. BUT WOMEN DID NOT.” (Lerner) The answer is in the Turkish proverb that says: “The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe because its handle was made of wood and they thought it was one of them”.

Extract provided by JDoubleD Publicity