I was raped at seven. How careful should I have been?
Fear does not mean women hate men; it means many women have learnt, through experience or through watching what happens to other women, that getting the assessment wrong can cost us something we cannot get back.
Nine women have been found dead in Ekurhuleni since July, several of them naked or partially clothed, with some showing injuries that immediately raise the kinds of fears women already understand too well. Police are investigating whether some of the deaths are connected, although they have not confirmed that one person is responsible for every murder. What they have done is warn women in Kempton Park to exercise extreme caution.
I understand the warning, but I cannot stop thinking about how familiar it is.
Women are told to be careful from the time we are young. Do not walk alone. Tell someone where you are going. Check the back seat. Watch your drink. Do not take the shortcut. Send your location. Phone when you get home. Do not be too friendly with a strange man, but do not be too rude either, because you do not know how he might react. Somewhere along the way, this becomes second nature.We are taught how to protect ourselves long before anyone can promise us that the world around us is safe.
I learnt another version much earlier than I should have; I was raped when I was seven years old.
I survived, grew up, found people I love, built a career and became a woman with a personality that takes up quite a lot of space. What happened to me is not the sum of who I am, but I cannot pretend it taught me nothing about what it means to be female in a world where women are taught to assess the men around them before deciding whether they are safe.
It is not because every man is dangerous; women know that. The problem is that we cannot identify the dangerous one by looking at him.
He can be charming, helpful, educated or funny. He can be someone's husband, brother, colleague, neighbour, friend, or a member of our own family. The First South African National Gender-Based Violence Study: A Baseline Survey on Victimisation and Perpetration found that more than 7.3 million women aged 18 and older have experienced physical violence in their lifetime, while more than 2.15 million have experienced sexual violence.
Numbers like these are difficult to absorb until you remember what sits behind them.
Behind them is the woman who scans a parking lot before walking to her car. The woman who pretends to phone someone when a man follows too closely. The woman who sends her live location before a date. The woman who changes direction because something about a stranger unsettles her. The little girl whose understanding of men, sex and safety was altered before she was old enough to understand any of it.
Fear does not mean women hate men; it means many women have learnt, through experience or through watching what happens to other women, that getting the assessment wrong can cost us something we cannot get back.
The hardest part is not that women are afraid; it is how much work goes into pretending we are not.
Nine women are dead. Families are waiting for explanations, and investigators are trying to establish whether their murders are connected.
Meanwhile, women will continue doing what women have done for generations. We will check the parking lot, reconsider the route home, send the message, share the location and analyse the man standing a little too close.
Perhaps the most disturbing part is not that women do this; it is how normal it has become.
Anchen Coetzee
Lynette Spencer
Mariana Balt
Naomi Roebert
Comments ()