The answer isn't easy and it goes right back to slavery, sexual stereotypes and the misconceptions held by many, including our president, writes Diane de Beer.
Reading book about rape in a country where the statistics are of such frightening proportions, is not something one dips into lightly.
The book is titled A South African Nightmare: RAPE, and that last word, that carries such hatred and violence, is large and in fire-red type against a black backdrop.
But, like Johnny Steinberg’s The Number, a book about prison gangs in the Western Cape, Pumla Dineo Gqola’s book doesn’t simply tell of the horrific violence directed mainly at women - and, usually in this country, black women, but gives us a context that reaches as far back as slavery and oppression, the mindset that has been developed through the years because of our country’s past.
For Gqola, the book is her contribution to the debate on how to curb rape and how to hold rapists accountable, how to understand the phenomenon that holds us hostage and perhaps most importantly, how to stop the cycles of complicity. That’s particularly powerful because, in most instances, when dealing with any scourge, it’s much easier to turn away, deny it or point fingers.
Broadcaster Redi Tlhabi wrote in her book, Endings and Beginnings, about a young girl at the age of 11 being terrified of rape when she went to school. That is something no one at that age should even think about - especially not as a daily occurrence. But depending on who you are and where you live, the topic becomes more of a horror and much more real.
Gqola is at pains to peel off, layer by layer, the problems as they exist.
She states the obvious - but with specific reasons: “Most rape survivors in South Africa are black because most people in South Africa are black”; that seems quite straightforward. However, there is a more insidious reason for the extent of rape in South Africa than numbers. “The white supremacy that constructed the stereotype of black man as rapist, created the stereotype of black women as hyper-sexual and therefore impossible to rape...
“It means... that black women are safe’ to rape, that raping them doesn’t count’ as harm and is therefore permissible.
“It also means that it is not an accident that when black women say they have been raped, they are almost never taken seriously and in many instances are expected just to get over it’.”
After reading that, you simply take a deep breath. It’s a devastating truth.
Gqola starts the book by briefly tracing how this came to be. “It is not an accident that the explosions and brazen instances of rape in South Africa and India have been so remarkably similar in recent years.
“Part of the history of who becomes safe to rape, and safe to construct as unrapeable, is directly linked to history. It’s important to consider our similar colonial past and what followed it,” she says.
Gqola unpacks what she describes as the “pornography of empire” and demonstrates how it is that “although all women are in danger of rape, black women are the most likely to be raped”.
One must reflect on the most high-profile and publicised instances of rape and the colour of those women survivors. They are almost always white, in a country where their numbers, demographically, are, of course, far fewer.
This situation is a major reason why activists like this author must keep taking a stand.
A similar activist mindset is that of playwright/director Lara Foot, who dealt with the issue of rape in the play, Tshepang, which tackles the reasons rather than the rape itself, defining the problems and possible solutions rather than just telling a shocking tale.
Gqola says in her introduction, “when we recognise that rape is a huge problem in our society, we have to accept that something in our country enables that to happen. Something makes it acceptable for millions to get raped on a regular basis”.
She also confronts issues like patriarchy and the reason that the survivor rather than the rapist becomes the subject.
She relates the story of a television programme she viewed, where a man was remorseless about his rape record and the fact that his actions may have destroyed lives. Then he is asked what he would do if his sister or mother were raped. Only then does he concede in any way that the rape victim is harmed.
Gqola notes that too often we place emphasis and pressure on women to talk about rape, to access counselling and get legal services to process rape, but very seldom do we talk about the rapist.
“If something or some things in our society make rape possible, then we can change this. We are society,” she rightly argues.
“We need to confront the myths and excuses that enable rape,” she says. These are addressed, as are the post-apartheid South African cultures that enable and make excuses for rape.
“Rape flourishes in our country because it works and because there are very specific ways in which collective behaviours make it seem okay.”
But take a step back to where the author returns, time and again, as the root of the problem. She doesn’t stop pointing fingers. No one escapes her gaze as she strikes out at our present president who was helped to his position despite his misogyny about what women want when they dress a certain way, act a certain way. “There is a clear and urgent need to change South Africa’s public and private gender-talk.”
Gqola states as an example how the woman at the centre of Jacob Zuma’s rape case was regarded and treated by the law.
The way that she spoke about her identity as a lesbian was dismissed and replaced by another marker of identity, her being bisexual.
There’s no pussyfooting around any of the issues all of which are placed in historical context while bringing in specialised voices to illustrate Gqola’s plea. It’s a necessary and illuminating read for those of us who don’t face that daily fear.