Opinion / Columnist
Gender based violence against women! All political parties are to take the flake and not only Dr Grace!
26 Nov 2015 at 15:26hrs | Views
Dear Mr/Ms Chimanzi
I am replying to your today's article: Grace Mugabe the biggest violator in fight against gender based violence by Thamarie Chimanzi MDC Women Assembly Spokesperson 26 November 2015 (MDC Women Assembly joins the rest of the world in commemorating the 16 Days of Activism against gender based violence which runs from the 25 November to 10 December annually) It is indeed a noble idea to keep us in reminder on this most important time on the life a woman globally.
I hasten to say that it is not only Dr. Grace who is in violation against based violence but most Zimbabwe's political parties: to name them Zanu PF, and MDCs all of them are in breach of those human rights abuses against women. To grandstand and denounce gender violence does not exonerate MDC- Ncube anyhow because you are also found wanting in this respect, to improve your gender-based human-rights violations.
According to CEDAW definition, gender based violence is violence directed at women because they are women and this violence is disproportionately executed. Violence against women will be physical, mental, sexual violence.
One needs to reads the Zimbabwe social media to establish the magnitude of male dominance, chauvinism, hate of females, in our culture. Sexual violence and rape on women and girls and toddlers is the order of the day in Zimbabwe's societies and it is no longer a secret that children are the most sexually abused niche in Zimbabwe.
By all civilized standards how do you comprehend this: men who deduce sexual pleasures from children as old as two, three, four, five years, sometimes to cure HIV/AIDS disease? (How do we comprehend a woman who wants money to go to South Africa for vending, she gives her daughter to some beasty to defile her child, outsource the funds sexually, she was present in the hut to make sure the man finishes his sexual act and she is remunerated from what a toddler of five years would have been forced to sexually outsource) Now is this gender based violence still? Should we call it with another name: gender-same-gender-sexual abuse on toddlers?
Women and children and toddlers are raped almost on daily basis by the very people they trust most; fathers, step fathers grandfathers brothers and relatives, those very people who were given the authority over the underage girls and young women. When men get infected with HIV who is blamed, the woman! When men want to cure their HIV/AIDS who do they go to, they go to those virgin girls and young women for cure, even babies are not spared. In 2015 girls are still being married at an early age to alleviate poverty in families.
There are many pregnancies due to rape in Zimbabwe, because abortion is illegal, it is an uphill task to convince the judiciary systems at place that a pregnancy was due to rape. This is pure gender violence.
Zimbabwe men do not know that responsibilities are shared in the home including financial and home duties. The poorest people in Zimbabwe are women. The face of poverty is feminine and not masculine. As soon as the men define themselves as poor they abscond the homes and they go to faraway places leaving their women and children destitute, some and most of them never come back.
As long as the women who are given those masculine powers and continue to give voices to our girl-folk that to be recognised in the society it is the marriage institute that will elevate one is flawed and no less. It is violation of young women and girls and their personal independence. To say marriage is an elevation of the woman is disillusionment as it emphasizes the culture of dependence of the woman to the man and men in general whereby the woman will always see herself as inferior, subject person, and less to the man and men in general.
It is the very women with masculine authority who categorize other women as good and bad, they even categorize function of talk. They express views congruent with macho masculinity. Choices and definitions are all at their discretion some of which are en passant. It is the rebel women who suffer this set-up.
This is an affront to women of all ages and womanhood. This notion shuts down any vision of self fulfilment and self discovery in women and girls.
To be an unmarried woman in Zimbabwe is defined as a social comedown, an unmarried woman is not worth anything it does not matter how educated and resourceful she can be, and self sustaining. If you are not married you are less. Full stop!
It should never be emphasized enough that to give a girl child education empowers her more than an early marriage or any marriage at any age without empowerment.
There is some culture of fear that is nurtured from birth in a girl child, duty and role performing life. Definition of a "good woman" starts at an early age of their upbringing (gender-based upbringing). You should adore and respect any man, bow down before him because he is better than you by birth! It is as a result, women do not report violence against themselves at they were taught never to report irregularities in the marriage home, if a little girl was raped, she should be good and never report, if a young woman was beaten by her husband, she should never report as a good woman should endure everything that goes with the marriage ever to be called a "good married woman." Gender-based violence no less!
Another cultural dimension is when a woman outsources vaginal medication to tighten her vaginal opening. ( in Shona kunonzi ku taitena, in Isindebele it is called itswayi, ukugqhiba nge ntolwane) All this effort, a very uncomfortable performance, for the enjoyment of the man and not the woman! These medications corrode the vaginal lining causing serious health problems, some women suffer from cervical cancers because of these cultural practices. These cervical cancers are common in women in the sub-Sahara Africa. This is culture based gender violations against women, but it is the women who practice these to themselves.
It is also interesting to note that girls do those ethoses without being told but because they see it in their everyday lives from their elders and role models they internalise it. But also it is imbedded in the local cultures of oppression of women and girl-children, almost in all societies of Zimbabwe. It is in the deeper recesses of a girl-child in Zimbabwe, imputed in her to fear the man or any man and sees a man as better than her by virtue of him being man he is therefore superior human being.
Sex at home, in married bedrooms, is meant for the man and not the woman. A woman who complains about sex inadequacies in the married bedroom should be deemed a prostitute. A woman is not supposed to know about sex but a man should know more than the woman. He is only one entitled to sexual enjoyment and not the woman. A man in Zimbabwe is a man who can outsource sex outside his marriage, he can have "more," if he so wanted and this is normal in our society and a "good woman" is supposed to put up with that. She is allowed to complain but remain intact in the marriage institute and cope with it possibly. "All men do it anywhere, what is her problem!" This is a clear gender-based violence against women, why should a woman play ignorant of sex intimacy and its pleasure, if she knows?
Coming back to the today's article that fired me to the point of sitting down and counter it, MDC-Ncube is gender-insensitive party. The former Secretary General Priscilla Mishhairabwi-Mushonga comes to the debate. The poor widow was purged by the party MDC until she decided to resign. Some nasty articles were written openly in the social media about her looseness towards men in political parties. Why was the emphasis on her looseness only on her as if she was sexually intimate to herself? Does it not take two to have sex, in Zimbabwe; man and woman? Why is promiscuity on men in MDC-Ncube not explicitly written in social media like the way it was done to Ms. Priscilla Mishihairabwi-Mushonga?
Those men were not mentioned not for any other reason either than the fact that they were men and never to be written about in the Zimbabwe social media for bad reasons. They are married and therefore "decent men." It is easy for a man to tell it all in the media how she bonked! Do the "decent men" in the MDC-Ncube not bonk too, with her?" This is a clear violation of women rights and their dignity. This is gender-based violence against women.
Priscilla is a widow who is supposed to be revered and protected by the society, and not only that she made sterling contributions in the GNU, albeit a false hope for us Zimbabweans. She deserves our utter most respect. All those useful contributions were forgotten the moment Priscilla started to think independently and not dictated by the MDC-Ncube Presidency.
In Zanu we saw how Mai Mujuru was purged to the point of madness. She lost her position in the party and government because of false accusations. We women we see how we are treated by men and wonder when will it ever dawn on women never to be used like condoms and get discarded at will by these uncouth Zimbabwean men, masculine and chauvinistic in nature. Mai Mujuru was purged because she dared to campaign for presidential elections in her party to unseat President Robert Mugabe. Having done it vigorously, Zanu was about to be democratic in selecting a successor to replace the old timer, got all but one province supporting her, it was enough to chase out of the party accusing her of all sorts of silly and unsubstantiated stories laughable even by small children.
The established order in Zimbabwe is very oppressive and an impediment to change. Women should be the ones to defy this sub ordinance if we really mean it to liberate ourselves from this macho-dominated societies of Zimbabwe. We should seek self fulfilment and go through a journey that will discover our potential.
We women of Zimbabwe should take the feminine dimension of poverty seriously and tackle poverty as it affects us all. We are focused on men too much and too long as if we do not have responsibilities in our hands. We should be smart enough to trample on the bunions of conventions that reduce us as women, dare to crush those retrogressive cultural definitions that define us as less than our men folk.
Let's refuse to be silenced, let's talk it all to the mountains to shame them paedophiles, women bashers, and abusers. Let the women of Zimbabwe define a new cultural logic; cultivate values and new beliefs for our coming girl-child generation. Let's refuse this men-superiority illogic masquerading as virtue in our midst. We should stop defining ourselves with sex as gratification to our self beings.
Let us risk insults and embrace change in our lives and those of our girl-children. We refuse our future generations of girls to continue to be packaged commodities like ourselves. Let's engage in female discourses that talk about female independence and redefine traditional values that are long overdue. We must put a big effort to critique these appropriations of cultural discourses, dare to cross them and effect change for the betterment of our girl-children if it's too late for us!
A fillip to change traditions demands a multiplication of many women who are determined to cross cultural values and replace them with new and modern ones. With these hopes a mass character can develop to change our societies for the better.
Zvinorema, zvinorema, zvakutoda vadzimai
Kunzima sokufuneka omama
But surely not Dr. Grace!
I am replying to your today's article: Grace Mugabe the biggest violator in fight against gender based violence by Thamarie Chimanzi MDC Women Assembly Spokesperson 26 November 2015 (MDC Women Assembly joins the rest of the world in commemorating the 16 Days of Activism against gender based violence which runs from the 25 November to 10 December annually) It is indeed a noble idea to keep us in reminder on this most important time on the life a woman globally.
I hasten to say that it is not only Dr. Grace who is in violation against based violence but most Zimbabwe's political parties: to name them Zanu PF, and MDCs all of them are in breach of those human rights abuses against women. To grandstand and denounce gender violence does not exonerate MDC- Ncube anyhow because you are also found wanting in this respect, to improve your gender-based human-rights violations.
According to CEDAW definition, gender based violence is violence directed at women because they are women and this violence is disproportionately executed. Violence against women will be physical, mental, sexual violence.
One needs to reads the Zimbabwe social media to establish the magnitude of male dominance, chauvinism, hate of females, in our culture. Sexual violence and rape on women and girls and toddlers is the order of the day in Zimbabwe's societies and it is no longer a secret that children are the most sexually abused niche in Zimbabwe.
By all civilized standards how do you comprehend this: men who deduce sexual pleasures from children as old as two, three, four, five years, sometimes to cure HIV/AIDS disease? (How do we comprehend a woman who wants money to go to South Africa for vending, she gives her daughter to some beasty to defile her child, outsource the funds sexually, she was present in the hut to make sure the man finishes his sexual act and she is remunerated from what a toddler of five years would have been forced to sexually outsource) Now is this gender based violence still? Should we call it with another name: gender-same-gender-sexual abuse on toddlers?
Women and children and toddlers are raped almost on daily basis by the very people they trust most; fathers, step fathers grandfathers brothers and relatives, those very people who were given the authority over the underage girls and young women. When men get infected with HIV who is blamed, the woman! When men want to cure their HIV/AIDS who do they go to, they go to those virgin girls and young women for cure, even babies are not spared. In 2015 girls are still being married at an early age to alleviate poverty in families.
There are many pregnancies due to rape in Zimbabwe, because abortion is illegal, it is an uphill task to convince the judiciary systems at place that a pregnancy was due to rape. This is pure gender violence.
Zimbabwe men do not know that responsibilities are shared in the home including financial and home duties. The poorest people in Zimbabwe are women. The face of poverty is feminine and not masculine. As soon as the men define themselves as poor they abscond the homes and they go to faraway places leaving their women and children destitute, some and most of them never come back.
As long as the women who are given those masculine powers and continue to give voices to our girl-folk that to be recognised in the society it is the marriage institute that will elevate one is flawed and no less. It is violation of young women and girls and their personal independence. To say marriage is an elevation of the woman is disillusionment as it emphasizes the culture of dependence of the woman to the man and men in general whereby the woman will always see herself as inferior, subject person, and less to the man and men in general.
It is the very women with masculine authority who categorize other women as good and bad, they even categorize function of talk. They express views congruent with macho masculinity. Choices and definitions are all at their discretion some of which are en passant. It is the rebel women who suffer this set-up.
This is an affront to women of all ages and womanhood. This notion shuts down any vision of self fulfilment and self discovery in women and girls.
To be an unmarried woman in Zimbabwe is defined as a social comedown, an unmarried woman is not worth anything it does not matter how educated and resourceful she can be, and self sustaining. If you are not married you are less. Full stop!
It should never be emphasized enough that to give a girl child education empowers her more than an early marriage or any marriage at any age without empowerment.
There is some culture of fear that is nurtured from birth in a girl child, duty and role performing life. Definition of a "good woman" starts at an early age of their upbringing (gender-based upbringing). You should adore and respect any man, bow down before him because he is better than you by birth! It is as a result, women do not report violence against themselves at they were taught never to report irregularities in the marriage home, if a little girl was raped, she should be good and never report, if a young woman was beaten by her husband, she should never report as a good woman should endure everything that goes with the marriage ever to be called a "good married woman." Gender-based violence no less!
Another cultural dimension is when a woman outsources vaginal medication to tighten her vaginal opening. ( in Shona kunonzi ku taitena, in Isindebele it is called itswayi, ukugqhiba nge ntolwane) All this effort, a very uncomfortable performance, for the enjoyment of the man and not the woman! These medications corrode the vaginal lining causing serious health problems, some women suffer from cervical cancers because of these cultural practices. These cervical cancers are common in women in the sub-Sahara Africa. This is culture based gender violations against women, but it is the women who practice these to themselves.
It is also interesting to note that girls do those ethoses without being told but because they see it in their everyday lives from their elders and role models they internalise it. But also it is imbedded in the local cultures of oppression of women and girl-children, almost in all societies of Zimbabwe. It is in the deeper recesses of a girl-child in Zimbabwe, imputed in her to fear the man or any man and sees a man as better than her by virtue of him being man he is therefore superior human being.
Sex at home, in married bedrooms, is meant for the man and not the woman. A woman who complains about sex inadequacies in the married bedroom should be deemed a prostitute. A woman is not supposed to know about sex but a man should know more than the woman. He is only one entitled to sexual enjoyment and not the woman. A man in Zimbabwe is a man who can outsource sex outside his marriage, he can have "more," if he so wanted and this is normal in our society and a "good woman" is supposed to put up with that. She is allowed to complain but remain intact in the marriage institute and cope with it possibly. "All men do it anywhere, what is her problem!" This is a clear gender-based violence against women, why should a woman play ignorant of sex intimacy and its pleasure, if she knows?
Coming back to the today's article that fired me to the point of sitting down and counter it, MDC-Ncube is gender-insensitive party. The former Secretary General Priscilla Mishhairabwi-Mushonga comes to the debate. The poor widow was purged by the party MDC until she decided to resign. Some nasty articles were written openly in the social media about her looseness towards men in political parties. Why was the emphasis on her looseness only on her as if she was sexually intimate to herself? Does it not take two to have sex, in Zimbabwe; man and woman? Why is promiscuity on men in MDC-Ncube not explicitly written in social media like the way it was done to Ms. Priscilla Mishihairabwi-Mushonga?
Those men were not mentioned not for any other reason either than the fact that they were men and never to be written about in the Zimbabwe social media for bad reasons. They are married and therefore "decent men." It is easy for a man to tell it all in the media how she bonked! Do the "decent men" in the MDC-Ncube not bonk too, with her?" This is a clear violation of women rights and their dignity. This is gender-based violence against women.
Priscilla is a widow who is supposed to be revered and protected by the society, and not only that she made sterling contributions in the GNU, albeit a false hope for us Zimbabweans. She deserves our utter most respect. All those useful contributions were forgotten the moment Priscilla started to think independently and not dictated by the MDC-Ncube Presidency.
In Zanu we saw how Mai Mujuru was purged to the point of madness. She lost her position in the party and government because of false accusations. We women we see how we are treated by men and wonder when will it ever dawn on women never to be used like condoms and get discarded at will by these uncouth Zimbabwean men, masculine and chauvinistic in nature. Mai Mujuru was purged because she dared to campaign for presidential elections in her party to unseat President Robert Mugabe. Having done it vigorously, Zanu was about to be democratic in selecting a successor to replace the old timer, got all but one province supporting her, it was enough to chase out of the party accusing her of all sorts of silly and unsubstantiated stories laughable even by small children.
The established order in Zimbabwe is very oppressive and an impediment to change. Women should be the ones to defy this sub ordinance if we really mean it to liberate ourselves from this macho-dominated societies of Zimbabwe. We should seek self fulfilment and go through a journey that will discover our potential.
We women of Zimbabwe should take the feminine dimension of poverty seriously and tackle poverty as it affects us all. We are focused on men too much and too long as if we do not have responsibilities in our hands. We should be smart enough to trample on the bunions of conventions that reduce us as women, dare to crush those retrogressive cultural definitions that define us as less than our men folk.
Let's refuse to be silenced, let's talk it all to the mountains to shame them paedophiles, women bashers, and abusers. Let the women of Zimbabwe define a new cultural logic; cultivate values and new beliefs for our coming girl-child generation. Let's refuse this men-superiority illogic masquerading as virtue in our midst. We should stop defining ourselves with sex as gratification to our self beings.
Let us risk insults and embrace change in our lives and those of our girl-children. We refuse our future generations of girls to continue to be packaged commodities like ourselves. Let's engage in female discourses that talk about female independence and redefine traditional values that are long overdue. We must put a big effort to critique these appropriations of cultural discourses, dare to cross them and effect change for the betterment of our girl-children if it's too late for us!
A fillip to change traditions demands a multiplication of many women who are determined to cross cultural values and replace them with new and modern ones. With these hopes a mass character can develop to change our societies for the better.
Zvinorema, zvinorema, zvakutoda vadzimai
Kunzima sokufuneka omama
But surely not Dr. Grace!
Source - Nomazulu Thata
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