My arrival into adulthood has been a series of failed and unfulfilled dreams. It has been a series of challenges and a lot of learning. When I was younger I imagined it would be freedom, that it would be the time to do what one wanted whenever one felt like it. To discover that responsibilities and lack of money would deny you the freedom was the hardest letdown of all.
However, there is a bit of freedom I had not imagined growing up that I found tucked into the many disappointments, a consolation of sorts. The ability, space and freedom to speak about hard issues with your parents. A lot of us growing up dared not speak about certain topics to our parents, you didn’t question, you were told and accepted what was.
I watch now when my dad and stepmom are always tickled at the things my daughter says that I would have got into trouble for. There was a time my dad shouted at me because I asked him how we knew that Jesus was really dead those three days and if he hadn’t just been in a coma and maybe no one back then knew what a coma was.
I suspect he shouted because he didn’t have an answer for me. As an adult now, he engages me on issues that are difficult for him and where he does not have the answer he remains silent.
One instance recently was when I brought an observation to him that may have come out as an accusation. I was telling him about how horribly his sisters, excluding the youngest, had treated my mother when she was alive and how she had been othered in the family, so much so that she and the only other makoti became close because they both needed an ally. I imagine it is strange for him to not only hear this but to comprehend it, he has known nothing but love from his sisters.
I am reminded of this particular conversation by the bigger and more urgent conversation happening in the country. That of the many women who are being raped. A conversation that places SA as the rape capital of the world, a shame men need to own and carry.
Women are raped and suffer in silence because we as a society have not made it a safe space for them to point out their rapists. We say but "oh he is a great father", "he is a loving husband to me" or "he helps out in the community".
And this is why I am bringing up the issue of my dad’s sisters, my aunts, because to him they have been nothing but loving. And boy do they love my dad, even the ones who have since left us, they loved him. But that does not erase the fact that they were horrible to my mother. The two can live side by side, be mutually exclusive and both be true.
This is how we need to approach the issue of rape, the victims need safe spaces, urgently. There isn’t a certain kind of man that rapes. There isn’t a mould. The men that rape are the very fathers you love, the brothers who would fight anyone for you and the priests who pray over you. There does not exist some kind of monster that rears its ugly head and goes on a raping spree.
The longer we jump to their defense because of who they have been to us we protect them; we allow victims to suffer alone, and for the rapists to claim more victims.
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