The fight against patriarchy and gender-based violence will be far from over for as long as we keep barking up the wrong tree. In reality men believe they own women. Sometimes they refer to nonexistent cultural or religious practices to justify themselves.
And the government continues to be a spectator in the enforcement of these oppressive practices against women. Ukuthwala, an age-old human trafficking practice, is still practiced in some parts of the country but the perpetrators are not viewed as human traffickers as they insist that it’s an old traditional practice. But it must be outlawed and heavily punishable.
Traditional and cultural fundamentalists do not allow women to wear trousers, short-sleeved blouses, short skirts or to go out without wearing doeks but women cannot take on the role of being fashion police for men. Men wear shorts but nothing wrong is seen with that. What is it that a trouser does to a woman that it does not do to a man? Nothing.
Men grew up knowing that they have to enforce their fashion police status on women, which is wrong and must be discontinued.
Both men's and women's dress codes came with the colonialists. For health reasons white women wore long dresses, pantyhose and hats as they could not withstand African temperatures. As for the doek, it was worn for the hygienic purpose of preventing white women’s hair from peeling off during the preparation of food .
Why then do we force these dress codes on African women? They don’t get skin burns from the continent’s heat and their hair does not easily peel off.
When a married man dies, the woman is expected to mourn his death by wearing black clothes but this is not so for men when their wives die. This practice was also introduced by colonialists after the Anglo-Boer War as a means of identifying the wives of men killed in the war because there were no other means of identification then. There’s no prescribed code for men in mourning their wives. So the dress code for women mourning their husbands must be abolished as it cannot be equally applied.
Some religions are also perpetrators of GBV and patriarchal practices. For instance, in some countries a woman cannot make close contact with a man other than her spouse or a relative because of religious beliefs. Hence separate transport and paypoints at shops. In some countries women are not allowed to drive. Women are expected to remain in-house as men will provide for them and their families. Some Christian churches too do not allow women to wear trousersor do hairstyles.
These religious practices must end. The Bible also talks more about men than women (about 10:1), meaning that women did not play any role in this religion. The Bible must be revised and the role of women in Christianity, if any, be recognised, because for every family to expand, you need a woman and a man.
If all these practices can be heavily criminalised, the increasing acts of GBV can be eradicated in the not-so distant future. Traditional, cultural and religious fundamentalists must scrap their oppressive practices against women and realise that women are human beings capable of making their own decisions without the approval of men hiding behind tradition, culture or religion. If traditional, cultural and religious practices need to be observed, such practices must not be to the detriment of women.
• Radipere is a Sowetan reader
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