It
took me a really long time to finally understand what my forerunners in the
struggle for attaining gender equality and eliminating violence against women
where gunning for in Beijing _1995 and its aftermath when they chanted "Human Rights are Women's Rights & Women's
Rights are Human Rights!!!" A
good analysis into the nature of some of the forms of violence and gender
stereotypes which women are subjected to and expected to live under normally
can give one an insight into how the agency and person hood of female beings is
viewed and or interpreted by men and the society at large, I will delve into
more of this later in this piece.
Human
rights are women's rights! Why the emphasis??? Someone had to
emphasize this because being a woman should never be separate from being
human, one is human first before their sex and before society
determines the gender they fall under. Do you not think so? Well, my reasoning
is that whatever treatment one gets emanates from whether or not the
perpetrator thinks their victim is worthy of the dignity any human being is
inherently entitled to. This led me to dig deeper into where all of this
emanated from and so I found out that women, strictly noting Victorian England
women were treated as perpetual minors i.e not adult enough
and not human enough (my emphasis) simply
because they were born with female anatomy this is seen in some of their past
laws and customs where men were allowed to physically batter their wives as a
disciplinary measure and women had no right to vote, later alone to open a bank
account in their own name or on their own. Hence this worldview that women are
not human and or adult enough was carried throughout history into colonialism
right through into our general and cultural laws so much so that almost if not
all Zimbabwean cultures adopted the Victorian England way of life that women
are just not human and adult enough and so whatever treatment that befits a
child and any object that does not have inherent human dignity is what a full
grown woman deserves. Section 23 of the old Zimbabwean constitution allowed
discrimination on the grounds of gender if and when culture/ religion and or
personal laws allowed it🙉👀. It is crucial to note that as of 2013, almost a decade ago
it was agreed in Amendment 20's second section that any laws and customs that
are inconsistent with the provisions of non- discrimination and equality
enshrined therein are inconsistent to the extent of their inconsistency. Even
so we are far from actual realization of this in most Zimbabwean ways of life.
Back
to the nature of most of the forms of violence against women and gender
stereotypes they are expected to live normally under, most of them if
thoroughly analysed portray just how women are viewed as objects meant for male
control. For instance physical violence which constitutes the following and
more (open palm slap, pushing and shoving are signs that one has control and
power over the victim, being beaten by a belt/ whip/ rod may mean one is
perceived as a child/ minor); it is important to note that most cultures in
Zimbabwe and the world over discipline their children in this way. Some
extremes of physical violence can result in burning or beating one to death
which also shows a perpetrator's power and or control over the victim. Then
there are gender stereotypes which normalize that unpaid care roles at home
should be done by women that their participation in job and business markets
and that economically fending for their families is unnecessary or occurs
rather more naturally in men. All this boils down to how women are viewed.
A
few years ago well after the inception of Amendment 20, Zimbabwean females
experienced and witnessed amongst many others a form of violence that
screamed "you are an object after all_
you are not human enough, you are deserving of pushing and or shoving around
and your body is an object for male control" Apart
from this women have for long been subject to battering as a form of discipline
and a survey carried out in a Zimbabwean nationally representative sample of
5907 women of reproductive age of 15- 49 years revealed that 53% of Zimbabwean
women believed that wife beating was justified in one of five the situations
read out to them, (when a woman burns a meal or under/overcooks it) when in
actual fact, no situation gives any man the right to batter a woman.
Having
laid out the above it is vital for programming personnel in interventions aimed
at eliminating violence against women to put into cognizance the motivation
behind gender based violence against women. What gives one the right? What gives him
the idea that he has power and control to push you around? To openly slap you?
To pour gasoline and throw a lit match stick on you? To still pin you down hard
even after your protests to forced sexual intercourse? What gives him the
right/ power and control over your body/ destiny/ fundamental freedoms/
decision making power just to mention a few???
As
most of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence
commemorations in Zimbabwe and the world over are being concluded today the
10th of December (Internationally Observed as Human Rights Day), I
urge all of you activists out there not to end your efforts here and now but rather
align your thought pattern with that of most feminists that 16 days are just
not enough and that there is still a lot of ground to cover in undoing gender
stereotypes and hegemonic masculinity which disenfranchise women and normalize
the idea that women are not human enough and or perpetual minors compared to
their male counterparts who are the subject and actual humans. Think about it, being
female is human too and so women's rights are human rights and human rights are
women's rights.
Yours Truly & Unapologetic
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