Black Looks

Fikirte who blogs at The Concoction has set up a new blog VAW: Do Something!
The site is an excellent resource with links to books; a guide for activists and researchers; types of violence and signs on what to look out for; campaigns, organisations and blogs as well as reportage and commentary. She explains the reason behind the blog as

A year ago when I was taking a course to become a volunteer advocate for survivors of violence against women, I naively said that I didn’t know a single woman who was a victim. The course opened my eyes to recognize the variety and degrees of abuse against women and now I see it everywhere. Not so surprising as the statistics is that one in three women is a victim of abuse.

A week after a very close friend of mine confided in me about the violence she and her thirteen year old daughter endured at the hands of the husband, the news about Kamilat Muhisin, a 21 year old Ethiopian woman who was a victim of acid attack, came out. (Updates of Kamila’s story are on Meskel Square and Ethio-Zagol. So, the least I can do is creat a blog with some information about violence against women, the types of violence, the campaign against a victim (it’s premeditated), global and local efforts to stop VAW , what individuals can do to stop VAW, policies needed…

This blog is also dedicated to raise funds for the organization where I volunteer, Harbor House.

Please help in any way you can – spread the world, share your stories, share what you know, help raise funds… Do something.

Fikirte list 16 forms of violence against women and girls. I believe we all know someone who has experienced violence whether in the home or on the streets at work or in social settings – whether it is physical, psychological, sexual or emotional – violence it is.

Fikirte’s challenge is for us to speak out, break the taboos of silence in our communities, silence the phallic women who tell us to “shut up” “put up” and “go home”! I cannot even count on my hands and feet the number of women I have personally known, including myself, who have been subjected to male violence of one form or the other. I remember the first time I was slapped. I remember it as clear as if it happened an hour ago. There were indications, warnings such as extreme jealousy; warnings from my father most of all but hey who listens to fathers (now he’s a teddy bear but growing up the man was was scary)? I was young and I didn’t see them or I didn’t want to.. It was in the car late at night coming home from a club in Lagos, just after driving over Eko bridge – something about I was flirting with other men. It started as an argument and whack, a back slap, there it came and I was silenced. I didn’t stay silent for long enough, and so it went on and got worse and worse until I finally left. This is a story repeated everyday all over the world for millions of women and only in telling our stories can we stop the conspiracy of silence that normalises violence against women.

If my speaking about this is read by one woman who takes courage from it and is able to care for herself and her children then it will be worth it.

Nigerian blogger Funmi Iyanda has an interview with Nollywood star, Shan George where she talks about her own experience of domestic violence…

At 15 she was married off to a much older man on the promise that he’ll educate her. 2 children, six years and many beatings later and the promise of education looked like a mirage. At each beating, she runs to her mother, her only relative who sternly orders her back to her husband and who informs her that if she leaves the marriage she had no home with her.

One day at age 21, Shan walks out on the marriage and keeps walking, living on the streets for a while before a kind lady took her in from whom she started learning dress making and working. It took 8 years but Shan finally makes it into University of Lagos describing the day she got the admission letter the happiest of her life

A couple of weeks ago I was at a book launch in Joburg “Kanga and the Kangaroo Court” about the Jacob Zuma rape case. One of the speakers, a mature woman who had been active in the anti-apartheid struggle including the military wing of the ANC . She spoke to a hushed audience about the violence she experienced from her husband and some of her male comrades and the whole sexual, physical violence and disempowering of women combatants and activists that took place in the movement. She spoke out about something that has been silent for too long.

Commenting on the contradictions of “male comrades” who speak equality but commit acts of violence against women, Pumla Gqola quotes a poem by Roshila Nair (2001)

let’s say it loud
about the other day
how we were talking
about the Comrade X
who went home
and gave his wife
a blue eye,
after we’d all clapped
an hour before
for the liberation
speech he gave
with such conviction

Source: “How the cult of femininity and violent masculinities support endemic gender based violence in contemporary South Africa”, African Identities].

One fundamental problem is that because gender based violence is so common across the world that it has been “normalised” – through actions, language, imagery, pornography – and it is this “normalisation” that has to be broken. I spoke of my own personal experience of domestic violence. But the violence didn’t start there. I have had a life time of it from my child hood, of sexual harassment – touching, misogynist language, presumptions, jokes, looks, homophobia – it becomes a constant battle not to internalise the abuse. As a teenager I used to think it must be my fault – I am to sexual and that’s why this is happening. There was also the added racial element which expressed itself differently depending on whether in Africa or in the West. I did not know where to turn or how to deal with any of this. All of us girls were experiencing similar abuse. With my father acting like a prison guard when it came to boys/men, I was way too scared to talk to my parents about it – even too my mother. The strict environment left no doors open in which to try to discuss this with family members for fear of being grounded to the house. Looking back I probably thought it was normal – we girls and women are the one’s responsible for arousing men who then cannot help themselves. Unfortunately much of society still believes and accept this ridiculous explanation for acts of violence against women.

All our denials – women, men, parents, families, communities – will certainly not protect us. On the contrary it sustains and even encourages acts of violence against women.

Tags: Gender Violence; Feminism; Violence Against Women