We sustain rape culture when we shield Our Beloved Rapists

The actions last year by female students at Rhodes University made Panashe Chigumadzi reconsider the myths and realities of the South African rape scourge

18 June 2017 - 00:05 By Panashe Chigumadzi

At 12.45am on April 18 last year, I sent my brother at university a screenshot that was doing the rounds on social media under the hashtag RUReferenceList.
This was a list of alleged rapists compiled by women at Rhodes University who were fed up with what they deemed ineffectual university rape policies that allowed men accused of rape to walk freely around campus and retain and ascend to positions of authority in university structures.
The women's actions included going to the various residences where the alleged rapists stayed to demand that they account for their actions, and handing a memorandum of demands to the university listing key changes to its responses to rape reports.
When my brother woke up, he WhatsApped me, saying he'd heard about it and was shocked to see a former classmate of mine on the list.
A few hours later we spoke on the phone and I warned him that if I saw him on the list, I would have no choice but to believe his accuser.
Incredulous, he responded: "But as my sister surely you should give me the benefit of the doubt because you should know that your brother would not do something like that."
"I'm sorry. The victim is never given the benefit of the doubt and we know that the social cost of alleging rape makes it highly unlikely that they would lie. Besides, all the family members of rapists would say that their beloved would not do something like that."
"You do realise that if I was really a rapist your talking to me right now wouldn't deter me from raping someone?""That's fine, I'm not trying to convince you. I just want you to know that there will be consequences."
It was not an easy conversation to have, but I was emboldened by the brave actions of the Rhodes women and it was important that I thought seriously about the ways in which I was complicit in rape culture by protecting the men in my life from their harmful actions.
The focus on consequences was the key insight advanced by #RUReferenceList. It sought to end a rape culture (that extends beyond the university) where the shame and cost of rape remains with the victim.
By publicly naming and ostracising the alleged perpetrators, the women of Rhodes University were ending a culture of silence and complicity that continually fails rape victims.
Ironically, Rhodes vice-chancellor Sizwe Mabizela decried the move by referring to the need to "respect the privacy" of the alleged rapists.
My first conscious awareness of South Africa's rape culture came around the age of 10 when headline after headline told of the brutal rape of nine-month-old Baby Tshepang by her teenage mother's ex-boyfriend.
This was in 2001, three years after the publication of Alison Botha's book I Have Life, which documents how Botha was raped, stabbed in the abdomen 37 times and disembowelled, and had her throat slashed 17 times.
Although her attackers turned out to be two white men, the attack, a few months after our first democratic elections in 1994, was condemned by some as the very embodiment of the Swart Gevaar or "Black Peril" that so many had warned about.
The Myth of the Black Rapist is central to the story of the British Empire and colonialism as it disciplined not only black male and female bodies but also white female bodies with farcical rape logic.
In her book Rape: A South African Nightmare, Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola helps us make sense of this time as she details how society's ideas of what rape and rape culture "look like" determine whether a victim's reports will be believed and acted upon.The intersection of racism and patriarchy has historically determined that there were certain bodies that could not rape - those of white men, because they were entitled to black and white women's bodies; and certain bodies that could rape - those of black men, because they were not entitled to black and white women's bodies.
Likewise, certain bodies were deemed "rape-able" - those of white women, because they were held as pure and sexually chaste; and certain bodies were deemed "unrape-able" - those of black women, because they were held to be dirty and sexually deviant.
Then and today, the logic of who "can rape" and who "can be raped" is further complicated by aspects such as age, class and profession to the point where, for example, a sex worker cannot be raped, while a baby or an elderly woman is the undisputed victim of rape.
With this rape logic informing the dominant narrative of my formative years, I was suddenly being escorted to public bathrooms and would walk feeling more suspicious on the streets for fear that I might just be dragged into an alley by this (Black) Stranger Rapist. Little did I know that I was more likely to be raped by someone close to me.
My parents did implicitly recognise this reality.
I remember that around the age of five, we had family friends who had young teenage boys who thought me cute and so would often have me sit on their laps.
Noticing this lap-sitting habit, my parents reprimanded me and told me to stop. Not having been given a reason, I ignored them and covertly continued when my parents were not there to notice.
They did notice and threatened punishment if I continued, and so I stopped.
Years later, I realise that my parents had recognised the danger of the Beloved Rapist.
Following this understanding, after the standoff between #FeesMust Fall patriarchs, feminists and queer protesters over misogyny in the movement, a friend half-jokingly remarked that she was glad that her father was dead and that she didn't have any brothers.
She clarified her remark, saying the scary thing about wanting to end rape culture is acknowledging that your beloved father, son, brother, friend, partner or pastor can very well be a rapist.
After all, Anene Booysen was raped by her brother's friend. Baby Tshepang was raped by her mother's ex-boyfriend.In light of the recent #MenAreTrash debate, we have to ask: if we needed to implement a #SouthAfricaReferenceList that covered all of our institutions - our places of work, worship, learning - how many of Our Beloved Men would find themselves on that list?
And more importantly, if we woke up to find Our Beloved Men on such a list, would we be brave enough to give their accusers the benefit of the doubt, or would we instead choose to look the other way?
Part of ending rape culture is to end the Myth of the (Black) Stranger Rapist and to acknowledge the Danger of the Beloved Rapist.
Even more difficult is for us and our institutions to begin to impose real consequences on Our Beloved Rapists.
It is because Our Beloved Rapists are so beloved that a #SouthAfricaReferenceList would be seen as "too radical" and "going too far".
It is because we want to protect the "privacy" and "dignity" of Our Beloved Rapists more than we want to protect rape victims that we will continue to fail them.
If we are sincere about ending South Africa's centuries-old rape culture, #RUReferenceList has set an example for us to follow.
Following such a zero-tolerance policy will no doubt be painful and uncomfortable, coming at both personal and institutional cost, but we will have to grit our teeth and get on with it because the cost of rape culture to victims and broader society is too high and no longer tolerable.
• Chigumadzi is an award-winning novelist and essayist. She is also a feminist..

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