Broken Women of the South

I was going about the mundane task of shredding lettuce for a salad when my mother launched into a tale with chilling nonchalance and a blasé air. A woman we all knew, a woman trained in law enforcement, a policewoman, had been killed in cold blood by her boyfriend. It no longer mattered that the woman had been married and her having a boyfriend had gained disfavour in our small community (because in a small town everyone knows everyone’s business).

Nobody knows why it happened but everyone knows what happened. The woman was nine months pregnant. Everyone had been having a lovely time speculating about whose baby it would be. Even though they judged her, and judged her harshly, nobody wished to see the woman dead. So on the day a keening cry was heard, emitted by her aged mother on a clear sunny afternoon, nobody laughed; nobody thought she deserved it; and many cried upon hearing the grisly tale.

It would be her young children’s testimony that would lead to the arrest of her boyfriend. It seems that the woman went missing for a few weeks; no one was alarmed as her lover was missing too and everyone added two and two together. The boyfriend came back, claiming to have been visiting family and asked where the woman was. That was when the alarm was raised. When police came asking questions, the children said it was the boyfriend whom they had last seen with the woman. Perhaps it is the compulsion, often cited in criminal modus operandi investigations, for the murderer to return to his crime scene that sent the boyfriend looking for the woman. In a matter of hours, the woman’s now decomposing body was discovered in a cane field. Her abdomen had been slit open, the child wrenched from her uterus and bludgeoned to death. There were signs of rape and stab wounds.

Each slice of my knife into the tomatoes made me visualise the murder of this woman. No matter what she had done, no matter her morals, she did not deserve to die like she did. And yet I carried on, ‘oohing’ and ‘aaaihing’ when appropriate while my mother regaled me with the horrifying story.

On Monday, a co-worker told us the story of how she found her children’s nanny stabbed, her eyes gouged out and raped the previous Saturday. Y co-worker had to identify the body when the community called her and asked to see whether or not the ‘victim’ was still alive. Despite this shocking experience, my co-worker was at work on Monday, although visibly sad, showing no signs of the emotional scarification one would expect from the encounter.

My mother, my co-worker and myself are products of a country that has become desensitised to violence. We are saddened yes, we grieve, but we are hardly ever shocked at the violence of crimes against women. We are no longer distraught when we hear stories like this, we are just fervently thankful it was not us. We are aware that nothing differentiates us from those who have fallen victim to such cruelty, except sheer dumb luck. We are powerless to protect ourselves pre-emptively, because when our turn comes the perpetrator might not need to break down windows or scale walls, it could be someone who has shared your bed and shown you what you thought to be love.

Indeed, our country is diseased.

Capital Questions

The argument for or against the capital punishment has barged into many an amiable conversation or dinner party. It is an old argument and the opposing sides vehemently defend respective points of view, convinced it is the right one.

I am against capital punishment. But not for the reasons you might think. 

Death is the last refuge. It is the ultimate destination each of us reaches with each step we take throughout our lives. It is the culmination of existence. The final price one pays for being born. Death is final.

Yes some may believe that there is life after death but since that is yet to be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, I choose to believe death is IT. End of story.  Working on this premise we can be assured that once one dies once simple ceases to be; they merely rot in the ground, or disappear if they are ashes. 

How is death, then deemed punishment? How is killing someone, ending the slow plod to that inevitable end punishment? Sure, person’s life will be unceremoniously (actually the execution of the death penalty is quite the ceremony) shortened but he will not live to regret the things he may have done had he not been killed. He will simply end.

Who is punished by the death sentence; the perpetrator or his family? Because when someone dies, it is those left behind who mourn his death and are hurt by his demise. So when the justice system calls for capital punishment, who exactly is it is punishing? Yes, the condemned man might worry and fear death but when the deed is done the fears are gone.

Does it serve any purpose? This forms part of the core argument against capital punishment; killing the perpetrator will serve no purpose other than usage the victim’s family’s grief, if even that! Killing the perpetrator will not bring back the victim; it will not reverse the damage that has already been done. If anything, it creates further anguish for those who might have loved the murdering son of a bitch.

Here is where I come in with my brilliant plan. Punish the son of a bitch. Make him wish for death because he knows that in death there will be relief. He knows there will be no pain beyond that curtain. Instead of life sentences in cushy jail cells, three meals a day, TV, libraries, exercise, sex and an occasional reprimand from the warden, I think we need to overhaul the entire prison system. Prisoners are allowed visitors, mail, and an education for crying out loud! Why? And in our beautiful country they are allowed to bloody well VOTE! 

A person who commits a heinous crime like a murder should be stripped of his humanity, fed only enough to keep him healthy and bathing enough to ward off lice and the like. He should be isolated from any human contact except with the wardens. He should spend the duration on his prison sentence with only a few thoughts, revenge/remorse, thoughts of the deed that landed him in prison and wishing for death or escape.  

Now THAT is punishment!

She Said No; A Rape

Hers is a typical rape story, isn’t amazing that the phrase “typical rape” story exists? A testament of the age we live in; and the abnormalities that have become the norm. Someone she knew, someone she would have allowed inside her house in the dead on night on a stormy night, turned on her. He was deaf to her screams of, NO! NO! NO! He did not care that she begged him to stop. And when it was over, he asked her if she had enjoyed herself; while she struggled to make the world stop, so she get off.

On her Matric Dance night she braved the farewell and after-party without a partner because her boyfriend (someone she had promised herself to) could not make it. It was a day to celebrate the end of her high school career, it was more important she commemorate the journey with friends than it was that she show up with a gorgeous boy on her arm. She intended to have a good time. She was a virgin.

“I was sitting and chatting with a guy friend when the friend who had brought asked us to organise a ride home. She had brought me and my best friend. The guy I was chatting to offered to drop us off. I was flattered that he was even talking to me – he was very good looking and well known in our neighbourhood, was a part time house music DJ and had no shortage of girls. We continued drinking together and I remember I was knocking back red Sambucas at his invitation. When we were ready to go home he asked me to walk to his bakkie with him as it was parked a bit far from the club; claiming he felt tipsy and wanted some fresh air before he got behind the wheel.

By the time we got to the bakkie I was feeling seriously woozy and it was only after we had driven off that I realised we were heading away from the club and not towards it. He told me he just wanted to take a short drive with the window open to sober up.

Looking back now I feel stupid but then I was just a short, fat girl with glasses; I was also wearing a floor length black dress that just about covered me like a sack – the last thing I thought was that someone like him could possibly be thinking of me in any way other than a friend.

He pulled up at a parking spot overlooking the beach and asked me if I wanted to take a walk on the beach. I said no – by this point, I was getting a bit uncomfortable but he assured me he was still trying to sober up and he just wanted to talk. Then he asked me for a kiss – at which I told him that I had a boyfriend.

So he said, “Why did you come with me then? Just give me a kiss and then we can go get your friend and go home.”

So I kissed him, because I thought that would placate him and he would take me home. I wanted to get away from him at this point. When he tried to push my dress up, I started pushing him away and saying “no”.

I can’t remember how many times I said to him, “Please do not do this”. It felt like forever and my throat was sore from shouting the following day – I fought so hard, he tore my stocking; I started trying to open the door to get out and run.

Then he leaned over me his 1.8m frame over my 1.52m (to me he was huge) and my efforts to fight him off were useless; I was like a moth swatting at a bear; he opened the glove compartment to show me a gun; he told me to shut up and stop screaming or he would have to use it.

I was sobbing and just kept saying, NO. NO. NO, thinking he would stop. I asked him to at least use a condom but it was like he had zoned out and he could not or would not hear anything I was saying.

Then he raped me.

After he was done, he asked me if I had enjoyed it and I said no. He seemed surprised, and then continued to try to have a conversation with me like there was nothing wrong. He said it had been great and we should get together again. He could not believe that I was a virgin when he saw the blood streaking down my legs.

I was crying by now and he just kept talking normally so I asked him to please drop me off at the club and I would find my own way home; by the time we got there, it was closed and my friend and her boyfriend were waiting outside. I was hysterical when I jumped out the van, I did not even wait for it to stop moving. My hair was a mess and the blood could be seen all over my legs, my stockings were ripped – I looked like hell.

My friend’s boyfriend was horrified, he wanted to go to the police station immediately but I was in no shape to do that. I was so shocked and hurt and ASHAMED. I just did not want anyone to know.

When my mom opened the door, took one look at me and started shouting and crying that we needed to go to the police station and asking if I had been raped. I was sobbing and hysterical, the last thing I needed was my mom panicking and shouting it out to the world. I ran into my room and into my shower with all my clothes on; I stayed on the shower floor for more than an hour; scrubbing the blood away and trying to clean myself.

I could not clean myself enough – the next day, I kept taking a shower. Oddly, my mom woke up the next day and never asked me about that night again; ever. It was like she decided she did not want to know.

For about a month afterwards, I did not want to brush my hair or get dressed – or make any attempts to look nice. I thought it was my fault for trying to look pretty and maybe if I made myself as unattractive as possible, it would never happen again.

I also fell pregnant. The man who raped me called me a few times, adding to my trauma. When I saw him with his friends they would stare at me. It felt like no matter where I went, if I turned around he would be standing there; watching me.

I could not stand the thought of a baby, I would have hated it, and so I had an abortion. I never told anyone. I thought I would tell my family once I had got over the shock, once I had dealt with the rape and the fact that I knowingly aborted a baby.

I did not want to lay any charges because I was convinced no one would believe me. I could scarcely believe it myself, it made no sense. Why would a good looking well educated boy from a good home do something so violent – and a boy who had girls throwing themselves at him?

Then a few months later, my mom, brother and I came home to find that my father had committed suicide – he had shot himself. There was no note. For a long time, I felt very guilty because a part of me thought he had somehow found out about the rape and was so ashamed of me that he killed himself. I later discovered he had financial difficulties.

However, there was no way that I was going to add to my family’s trauma after that. We were so ravaged and torn apart by my father’s suicide, it was a total shock to my family. I also broke up with my boyfriend because he wanted to get engaged and I did not know how to tell him I had been raped. I did not want to see any looks of revulsion or pity on that face I loved so much.

I think of that year as the worst year of my life and I know I made it through that year somehow – so I can handle anything that comes my way now.

It was a long time before she was able to date, to be intimate with men and to be happy. But she did it, drawing strength from a will to live, to triumph, and to never be the victim again. She still believes aborting the baby was the right decision. She is now a successful married and mother to a beautiful son.


Near that stretch of sandy beach, her innocence being ripped from her, she became his victim. To see her today and know what she has been through is testament of her power. Where some would break, she is a woman who has lived beyond her fear. I salute her.

A Blogger Challenge: 16 Days of Activism

I’m not a preachy blogger.

*snort*

Seriously.

Well I didn’t used to be, and I’m hoping I not one now also.

25 November 2010 is the beginning of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, this day itself being International Day Against Violence Against Women.

I challenge anyone who feels so inclined to use their blogs to create awareness and participate actively in the 16 Days of Activism by blogging about a real woman you know or have heard of that symbolizes women’s triumph against violence and abuse.

Perhaps I detract from the purpose of the project when I say that violence and abuse does not necessarily have to be “traditional” spousal abuse in which a woman is abused by a man. I challenge you to find that lesbian woman who was traumatized by her lover, that child whose own mother or teacher abused, the woman who rose above the humiliation of sexual harassment at work, the little girls suffering at the hands of bullies on our playground.

As South African woman let’s all stand together, just for 16 days, and barrage the ears of abuses with our words; via our avatars, tweets, blogs, Facebook status and wearing a white ribbon.

You did it for the world cup. :)

You may also participate here. I know I will!


PS: I got this post in early because I'd like those who are interested to invest some thought and time into at least one post! Ta.