Publications
Partners
(Shutterstock)
Shutterstock [http://www.shutterstock.com]
SO HERE we are again, boys and girls. It’s that sickening time of year, which we are rapidly turning into another Hallmark opportunity – you know, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter and Women’s Month.
Mags, retail displays and competitions are women-themed and political parties indulge in a little light electioneering-for-the-ladies.
Is that gonna hack it, sisters? Will it end discriminatory pay levels and management attitudes? Will it make the slightest dent in the rate of gender-based violence? Hah!
No – instead we’ll have to put up with a month of articles about GBV, domestic violence and sexism, which attract a raft of commenters saying some predictable things:
* Everyone ignores the fact that men are just as likely to get raped as women – and men are the victims or domestic violence too, you know. (Yes, of course men can be and are victims, and should be as able to access help and treatment, but the numbers of women victims compared to male victims is just staggering. There is research to back this up.)
* Feminists are castrating bitches who hate men and just want to dominate them. (That’s fear talking, babe. Yes, there are some very angry women out there, but on the whole, all feminism seeks is equality - oh, and safety from GBV, geddit?)
* You need to protect yourself from rape - in the words of one commenter on a News24 article last year this time, “The only proven way to prevent rape is to arm yourself - and I don't mean pepper spray - and get decent training. Yes it's inconvenient doing those competency tests and waiting the months for the licensing, but so is getting raped.”
Thanks for the advice. But this kinda places the responsibility for rape in my lap. I don’t want to have to take up karate in order to walk down a suburban street in some safety. How about we tackle this by doing something about the perps, not making the victims shoulder the burden?
But I have been here over and over again. Will reciting the facts repeatedly and in every different colour in the emotional palette make any difference? How do we get the powers-that-be – not just government, but people with the money and the resources and the influence – to take this seriously?
Well, how about this: we look at gender-based violence as an economic issue. Yeah, let’s haul it out of the kitchen cupboard and think about the societal and economic impact it has.
Following that awful rape case in New Delhi in December 2012, the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry in India did a survey: “The survey highlights that nearly 82% of the women respondents said they have started leaving early after the sunset.
"The anxiety is more among those women who travel by buses, chartered buses, three-wheelers and metro is the most after sunset. About 89% of those participated in the survey in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Faridabad said they have begun insisting on leaving offices on time, immediately after duty hours following the atmosphere of insecurity, adds the survey.” (Press release, Assocham, January 3 2013.)
This pervasive atmosphere of fear has affected women in South Africa for years. I chatted once to a learner in Grade 11 who could not participate in after-school sport, for example, because that meant catching a taxi home too late for comfort.
I know women with fancy cars and cutting-edge mobiles who won’t attend after-hours work functions or leave their office buildings unattended after 6:30pm. If you could tally the lost productivity these constant choices add up to, I wonder what the figure would be?
“According to The American Institute on Domestic Violence, US victims lose nearly 8 million days of paid work each year, the equivalent of more than 32 000 full-time jobs. In the UK, 53 percent of female victims of domestic abuse miss work at least 3 days a month and 75 percent are targeted at work.
"The cost of violence against women in Canada, including health care, criminal justice, social services, lost wages and productivity, has been estimated at $4.2 billion annually,” Leah Eichler wrote on www.femme-o-nomics.com on April 15 this year.
All of these things affect the earning capacity of women, and that should worry people with their noses tucked in the public trough as well as accountants and managers. Because the lower a woman’s earnings, the lower the tax she pays.
Can we turn the tsunami of GBV around? Oh yes, I think so. It just takes a little political and societal will – yes, manne, it’s not all government’s responsibility, it’s yours, too.
In their 2005 book, The Causes of Rape, Martin Lalumiere and his co-writers noted that rape is more common where the costs of rape are low and the women who are the targets of rape are devalued.
So what we need is a campaign that specifically targets catching and convicting the perpetrators of GBV. But we also need male role-models – men in government, in sport, in entertainment, in business – to stand up and express, at every opportunity and in every possible way, their contempt for the men who commit these crimes.
Only when admired men nationally and in communities model their respect for women and show their concern about this issue, will we start to see a shift.
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
Mags, retail displays and competitions are women-themed and political parties indulge in a little light electioneering-for-the-ladies.
Is that gonna hack it, sisters? Will it end discriminatory pay levels and management attitudes? Will it make the slightest dent in the rate of gender-based violence? Hah!
No – instead we’ll have to put up with a month of articles about GBV, domestic violence and sexism, which attract a raft of commenters saying some predictable things:
* Everyone ignores the fact that men are just as likely to get raped as women – and men are the victims or domestic violence too, you know. (Yes, of course men can be and are victims, and should be as able to access help and treatment, but the numbers of women victims compared to male victims is just staggering. There is research to back this up.)
* Feminists are castrating bitches who hate men and just want to dominate them. (That’s fear talking, babe. Yes, there are some very angry women out there, but on the whole, all feminism seeks is equality - oh, and safety from GBV, geddit?)
* You need to protect yourself from rape - in the words of one commenter on a News24 article last year this time, “The only proven way to prevent rape is to arm yourself - and I don't mean pepper spray - and get decent training. Yes it's inconvenient doing those competency tests and waiting the months for the licensing, but so is getting raped.”
Thanks for the advice. But this kinda places the responsibility for rape in my lap. I don’t want to have to take up karate in order to walk down a suburban street in some safety. How about we tackle this by doing something about the perps, not making the victims shoulder the burden?
But I have been here over and over again. Will reciting the facts repeatedly and in every different colour in the emotional palette make any difference? How do we get the powers-that-be – not just government, but people with the money and the resources and the influence – to take this seriously?
Well, how about this: we look at gender-based violence as an economic issue. Yeah, let’s haul it out of the kitchen cupboard and think about the societal and economic impact it has.
Following that awful rape case in New Delhi in December 2012, the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry in India did a survey: “The survey highlights that nearly 82% of the women respondents said they have started leaving early after the sunset.
"The anxiety is more among those women who travel by buses, chartered buses, three-wheelers and metro is the most after sunset. About 89% of those participated in the survey in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Faridabad said they have begun insisting on leaving offices on time, immediately after duty hours following the atmosphere of insecurity, adds the survey.” (Press release, Assocham, January 3 2013.)
This pervasive atmosphere of fear has affected women in South Africa for years. I chatted once to a learner in Grade 11 who could not participate in after-school sport, for example, because that meant catching a taxi home too late for comfort.
I know women with fancy cars and cutting-edge mobiles who won’t attend after-hours work functions or leave their office buildings unattended after 6:30pm. If you could tally the lost productivity these constant choices add up to, I wonder what the figure would be?
“According to The American Institute on Domestic Violence, US victims lose nearly 8 million days of paid work each year, the equivalent of more than 32 000 full-time jobs. In the UK, 53 percent of female victims of domestic abuse miss work at least 3 days a month and 75 percent are targeted at work.
"The cost of violence against women in Canada, including health care, criminal justice, social services, lost wages and productivity, has been estimated at $4.2 billion annually,” Leah Eichler wrote on www.femme-o-nomics.com on April 15 this year.
All of these things affect the earning capacity of women, and that should worry people with their noses tucked in the public trough as well as accountants and managers. Because the lower a woman’s earnings, the lower the tax she pays.
Can we turn the tsunami of GBV around? Oh yes, I think so. It just takes a little political and societal will – yes, manne, it’s not all government’s responsibility, it’s yours, too.
In their 2005 book, The Causes of Rape, Martin Lalumiere and his co-writers noted that rape is more common where the costs of rape are low and the women who are the targets of rape are devalued.
So what we need is a campaign that specifically targets catching and convicting the perpetrators of GBV. But we also need male role-models – men in government, in sport, in entertainment, in business – to stand up and express, at every opportunity and in every possible way, their contempt for the men who commit these crimes.
Only when admired men nationally and in communities model their respect for women and show their concern about this issue, will we start to see a shift.
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
