By Dr Ruby-Ann Levendal
As we celebrate Women’s Day, we have to accept the reality that South African society across the board continues to be an unsafe space for women and girl children. Socially entrenched male-on-female dominance and violence, particularly in intimate partner relationships, continues to besiege our society.
Despite millions being spent in South Africa on campaigns, advocacy and interventions to stop gender-based violence (GBV) and all forms of violence, including femicide, rape and intimate partner violence, we are not seeing impactful change in behaviours and attitudes.
Clearly we need to do things differently and it starts with valuing the human being.
We have lost the ability to identify the humanity in each other. We have to change this, starting with educating young children before they become the products of socialisation. From childhood, many boys observe that males are valued above females, that it’s fine to show aggression and dominance over females, with many of our children being exposed to domestic violence in their homes. They regard this as normal.
To address this, starting with young children we need the development and implementation of structured programmes that emphasise the value of the human being, how to value each other and to understand that, irrespective of gender identity, we are all equal. As children grow into teenagers and young adults, we need to keep emphasising the message that when we devalue women, it breeds inequality and other forms of violence, including GBV and femicide.
As the Transformation Office of Nelson Mandela University, we see the power of socialisation and we work tirelessly at trying to change this. We have ongoing programmes, workshops and services for our students and staff to address GBV and related aspects of human dignity, equality, fairness, non-sexism, non-racism and redress. We also engage with a range of education institutions and NGOs outside the university on advocacy issues, such as positive masculinity and social inclusion, including LGBTQI.
In response to trauma emanating from incidents of GBV and any form of unfair discrimination (e.g. bullying), we offer counselling for survivors and other support provisions. Our university’s policies clearly signal Zero Tolerance to all forms discriminatory behaviours, including GBV. Our goal is for all our students and staff to conduct introspection, personally commit to changing their attitudes and behaviours, and ultimately become change agents in society.
We have a range of ongoing campaigns such as the Memeza! Yellow Whistle Campaign, which is an anti-GBV initiative with the use of whistles that are blown in an emergency. On campus we have appointed first responders, including residence house committee members, and we have protection services people who have been trained to respond to the whistles being blown or any other emergency.
We monitor GBV hotspots on and off campus in areas where our students live, and we are making headway but not enough. When I speak to male students, too many of them retain toxic attitudes. They are deeply socialised into believing they are dominant over women, and, as with any kind of dominance, it is difficult to relinquish.
I draw the parallel with apartheid where one group occupied a position of privilege and dominance over everyone else. As wrong as it was, it is difficult to give up privilege and dominance. So too, it is wrong for men to continue to be dominant and/or violent towards women, but they are used to it and it is not easy to let go.
The dehumanising effect that was transmitted generationally during apartheid significantly contributed to what is now our violent, traumatised society. Somehow this terrible situation has become normalised and we have to undo this.
Our Transformation Office is dedicated to achieving this and has highly informative information on our website created for everyone to use. As a university in service of society, we engage with our communities and work with all our faculties to try and undo the harm instilled from childhood.
I strongly believe that instead of offering a voluntary service, we need critical thinking programmes included in the curriculum in every discipline to help young people understand the power of socialisation and behaviours that breed violence and acceptance of violence.
If we look at the complaints lodged with us by our students between 1 January and 31 July this year, the majority are male-on-female sexual offences, as well as some same sex incidents. Of concern is a spike in the cases of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) which increased from 11% last year to 20% this year. Off-campus residences remain the hotspots of incidents.
All complaints are investigated and addressed, and depending on the type of misconduct, we offer mediation and counselling or we refer it to our Legal Services Office and disciplinary committees, as well as the police. If a student is found guilty of an offence such as rape, they are expelled and the victim can take them to court. We also have a safe house for victims of GBV and other forms of violence.
To try and change the patterns of violence we have increased the number of discussions where, for example, participants reflect on their past and think about a moment in their life when they became violent. We encourage our male students to challenge inherited attitudes and behaviours of entitlement and intimidation, including:
- Buying a woman a lot of expensive drinks at the club means that they should go home with you;
- A real man can control his woman;
- Jealousy is a sign of love;
- Women sometimes play hard-to-get. When they say no it means keep trying;
- Women need to dress respectably to avoid being assaulted; and
- Men are naturally violent.
We unpack the processes through which society instils gender norms and expectations and examine how these norms manifest in women accepting abuse and men displaying toxic behaviour. To create a better normal, we have sessions with our students to explore the concept of positive masculinity and its role in enjoying wonderful, equal healthy relationships. We explore societal expectations of manliness and the burden this imposes on individuals. We discuss vulnerability, challenging stereotypes, and encouraging open dialogue about emotional expression and mental health.
We have workshops and radio sessions on our campus Madibaz radio station where we chat with students and share knowledge on how to navigate platonic and romantic relationships. We debunk myths such as that your partner is showing how much they love you by tracking your every movement.
We will persist with all the initiatives mentioned above and more, and in the meantime we also have to be proactive about protecting our students from violence. We offer self-defence courses and on 19 July the university launched our Campus Community Safety Forum in collaboration with the South African Police Service on all seven of our campuses that span Gqeberha and George.
The launch comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for a national initiative to make campuses safe. Future plans include a place of safety to provide a temporary refuge for students who need to leave their residences or off-campus accommodation due to, for example, fear of encountering a perpetrator of gender-based violence.
It’s been said so many times that our campuses are a microcosm of society and indeed they are. Our students and staff are the products of our society, with beliefs and examples embedded from the earliest age. It would be our greatest wish to undo the violence and harm that has become normalised, and that is why I once again emphasise the need to pro-actively change these norms, starting with our little children.
* Dr Ruby-Ann Levendal is the Director of Transformation, Nelson Mandela University.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.