men in action

By Zanele Muholi & Sabine Neidhardt

May 19, 2004: In response to the prevalence of gender-based violence that is perpetrated in boundless varieties of abuse, indignity, violation and sexual molestation against women and girl children in South Africa, the National Network on Violence Against Women has recently challenged men to take a vocal and engaged stand.

Through its latest campaign called Men In Action (MIA), launched at Pretoria’s Holiday Inn, Arcadia, on May 18, 2004, the Network is in the process of expanding its mandate from awareness — making women aware of the services and protection laws available to them when experiencing gender-based violence at the hands of male perpetrators — to prevention. As Kamogelo Lekubu-Wilson of the National Network explained, “we asked ourselves ‘have we changed t! he communities in which we work?’ and we said, ‘no.’…“Our projects are not sustainable if we don’t get the organizations outside of our [women-centred] groups.”

The MIA vision is to involve men and male dominated organizations and to adopt a program of action that will not only awaken the silence of men who are not perpetrators in their communities, but who will ultimately strive to redefine the form and expression of dominant contemporary masculinity that breeds violence, conflict, and unequal power within male/female relationships. Soul City’s Langi Mphelo walked the approximately 150 mostly male audience members through the various steps that could be taken to explore positive masculinities, from challenging negative stereotypes that drinking, drugs, or sex with multiple women as ‘manly’ to alternative perspectives on men and masculinity such as finding strength through sharing power equally within relationships, taking on increased parenting and domestic duties, and sharing emotions through negotiation and talking. Komeng play theater group staged a 30-minute drama that interrogated the cycle of stereotypes, peer and cultural pressures, and feelings of alienation that perpetuate gender-based violence. Much emphasized by both the presenters and female audience members was on the role women must play in supporting the expression of the “new man”, that women have a key role in redefining masculinity in their young boys and men. Amongst many men who were present in the forum, Rosie Motene of Generations fame also challenged men by relating her personal experience of abuse in a relationship 9 years ago. She was greatly applauded by the audience, one could easily see her interest in the issue. She later was seen chatting with one of the lesbian men who were there, which made people left with another story to talk about. The presence of lesbians in the mainstream fora is nowadays becoming, at least for our communities, more of a visible reality.

However, acknowledged in all this were the critical challenges that still lie ahead: creating positive spaces for dialogue and what manhood should/could mean; deconstructing patriarchal structures of power; facilitating an enabling environment to increase men’s participation in domestic duties; and enabling men to deal with rejection, whether it is in matters of love, employment, the family. As such, men were asked to pledge their commitment to ending violence against women and children, and to never again allowing an abused woman or child to go unnoticed or unheard. Among the men pledging was one lesbian man who was in attendance to do her part in educating her community about gender-based violence in same-sex relationships. Sadly, her male peers did not underst! and her willingness to contribute to her community.

The event ended with a fundraiser that attempted to highlight some of the gender mainstreaming that must take place within homes and communities across the nation — an auction in which participants could bid on 7 men (all celebrities unfortunately present at the auction only in photo form) who will perform for the successful bidder a series of domestic duties “traditionally” termed women’s work. The idea is to invert gender roles and highlight the socially constructed nature of gender.

But judging by the men’s discomfort when hearing they could bid on a ‘man’ doing ‘women’s’ work and the fairly poor showing of auction participants, the fundraiser was only successful in essentially highlighted how much work is still to be done. Gender as a social relation of power, and patriarchy as an entrenched system of oppression that systematically locates women within the private sphere of home, tradition, and domesticity, is one of the roots of the crisis of violence women and girls face, not only in South Africa, but globally. Yet these issues were not discussed. Moreover, while many of the speeches in support of the MIA focused on the need for a redefinition of masculinity, it is unclear how this redefinition is to going to help liberate women from systemic violence if key axes of domination and power are not interrogated. Emphasis was placed on men’s need to reclaim their rightful places as leaders and healers within communities, on the nuclear family as a source of strength, and on women and girls as victims in need of protection by the “new man.” Left uninterrogated were questions of how heterosexism and heteronormativity informs notions of what a ‘real man’ is and how it constructs men’s capacity to construct alternative sexual identities and behaviours that move away from the binary of male sexual prowess/female sexual passivity.

Telling too, was that the ‘new’ definition of masculinity was very clearly to be a heterosexual masculinity, erasing not only the experiences and masculinities of gay men, lesbian men, butches, and transgendered men, but also represses any space for discussion on the violence perpetrated against women in non-heterosexual relationships and lesbians. The issue of hate crimes against lesbians in townships, which take the form of individual and gang rapes, curative rapes, violence through physical erasure of identity, and verbal, emotional and physical abuse, cannot be discussed in a forum that is so unequivocally heterogendered. Moreover, those who experience violence in same-sex relationships are left wondering where are their experiences and voices in this campaign? Who should advocate their struggle? The LGBT movement? The women’s networks? Certainly it is an issue that all men and masculinities must engage with in whatever movement they are in.

Consequently, at least from our perspectives, the Men In Action Campaign will offer no more than lip-service to many women who face violence on a daily basis in South Africa as they pledged to end GBV.