female guilt

the guilt of existence

Trigger warning: Discussions of SA and gender based violence

As I get older I get regrettably more empathetic. I once prayed for God to make me kinder yet I often find myself wishing I could recall it. Why must the empathy be tied to a flood of tears? A buy one get one free I did not sign up for. The tears I have shed to no avail whilst wondering if women will truly ever be free after encountering yet another gender based violence story. I want to scroll away to rid myself of the mental torment of consuming such matters yet the guilt stares at me, daring my thumb. How lucky am for my greatest burden to be the inconvenience of listening to what someone lived through. If they were forced to live through it I sure can stomach sitting through it.

Everytime I come across news on the misfortunes that persecute women in different parts of the world I am crippled with guilt. The gang rapes that are recurrent in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Enabled by the systemic misogyny and patriarchal beliefs that vilify the victim and justify the perpetrators. Further exacerbating this issue of violence is the gender based violence that is rampant in South Africa where according to this BBC documentary, 1 in 4 men is a rapist. There is a page on X formerly known as twitter named Women4Change, which posts victims of femicide in the nation, it posts daily oftentimes more!!

In more modern yet equally insidious manifestations of misogyny there is the ever growing incel attacks of women and girls in the US and now in the UK yet some people still think the events are isolated attacks from some evil loser men not hateful calculating misogynists. I recently read the book Men who hate women by Laura Bates. It emphasises how media and society fixates on and refers to women as having been raped or killed and not the men who rape and kill as the rapists and killers. We need to shift from statistics that address the victims and towards statistics that call out the perpetrators. From “X women are raped annually to x men are rapists”

Beyond overt physical attacks women and girls face other violations embedded cultural practices one being child brides that are common in a multitudes of countries from Zambia, Afghanistan to name a few. A custom that only ever has girls as victims. Equally pervasive is Female genital mutilation (fgm) a custom that has been outlawed in many countries yet still remains prevalent in some. FGM comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. While reasons for the heinous procedure vary culturally they are all align with pleasing men, from making it more difficult for women to be promiscuous or it being a necessity for marriage. Putting hypothetical promiscuouity over young women and girls’ well being as the reduction of the vaginal opening can cause infections, and makes it unbearable to pee let alone give birth.

Adding to this grim reality is the thankfully dying tradition of forced marriages of Kyrgyzstan. This tradition entails women being abducted and socially pressured into marrying their abductor. A custom where leaving a marriage you were literally abducted into brings familial shame.

Pilling on to this list of misogynistic traditions is Breast ironing, also known as breast flattening, which is the pounding and massaging of a pubescent girl's breast, using hard or heated objects, to try to make them stop developing or disappear.” The practice is typically performed by a close female figure to the victim, traditionally fulfilled by a mother, grandmother, aunt, or female guardian who will say she is trying to protect the girl from sexual harassment and rape. “Similar to other misogynistic traditions it is also in favour of men. Instead of diverting our energy to the pedophiles that are aroused at the sight of young breasts, we punish the girls simply for existing and growing.

“Fast” a term used to describe great speed and simultaneously a young girl who falls victim to grooming. One realisation that persistently clouded my mind after I left high school was how unshocking it had been for a high school girl to be in a relationship with an older guy. It was as intriguing as it was a taboo when they would get picked up in the man’s car after class. Sometimes it was a teacher, how he would make weird inappropriate jokes to seem more approachable. How he would tickle the girls who would let him and despise the boyfriend of the girl he took an interest in. How one would recurrently catch a glimpse of him in your peripheral with young girls at odd hours.

My young mind always found it odd but as my frontal lobe developed I understood the disgusting gravity of the situation. It should have never gotten to a point where a teacher amassed a reputation of “liking girls” he should have been behind bars. My mother who was a geography teacher at my highschool had a reputation of being a strict which spared me from such predatory glances. While I’m grateful for her protection which would also linger in her absence like a guardian angel, I am saddened by the girls who were not so lucky and fell victim to predatory claws. Girls with mothers who prioritise everything else but the safety of their children. Mothers who barter their daughters’ innocence for monetary compensation or male validation. Mothers who turn a blind eye to their children’s cries offering them to be devoured by familial prying claws in exchange for familial peace. How expensive is the peace or familial unity when the cost is the innocence of the young? Parents who persistently pressure their daughters into marriage and conceiving for the sake of being grandparents. Then later force their daughters to remain in abusive marriages threatening disownment or honour killings preferring a shallow grave to social ruin.

I remember talking to a friend a few years ago when I mentioned how I don’t want to get married soon and when I do eventually marry, I would like to hold off having kids for a few years. While I was well aware of her desire to marry young, I had hoped the preference was purely her own and not forced onto her by her parents or unintentionally by her sister who got married upon getting her bachelors. “ Do your parents agree to that?” bewilderment laced in her tone. I felt simultaneously appreciative of my parents and saddened for her as I understood her desire to get married young wasn’t her own.

I find myself being grateful for my parents who desire nothing more than my happiness and prosperity. Who despite the social pressures on women to get married persistently fight to defy the African parents stereotype of sometimes putting marriage above or else.

I moved to a different country in a different continent for my college education. I had not fully realised how safe I finally subconsciously felt here until this one night. I was walking back home after a run. My headphones had died and as a habit I left them on my head, too lazy to remove them. I suddenly felt the presence of some people behind me. I had just walked past a local pub and after hearing their stumbles and incoherent speech through my dead headphones I concluded that they were drunk men. I had been in this country for a little over a year and I had not realised I had finally settled. It’s relatively a very safe country but the ingrained fear of the unknown and strangers especially male ones had been instilled in me the countries I once lived in. Surprisingly to myself there was no underlying fear as the strangers got nearer. One got a bit closer than I would’ve liked but still no bubbling anxiety over what could could befall me. They soon stumbled past me and continued on the way, I eventually turned right as I had arrived home. I had so many mixed feelings about the experience. The other part of me was kind of grateful for that level of safety and realisation that I had been in this country long enough to know that the people for the most part have no ill intent. On the other hand I felt hollow. I felt robbed simultaneously for myself and other women in countries that are not as safe for women. Women and girls who will never get to experience this level of safety, the level of community that allows you to trust that strangers do not have a intent ill intent.

I lived in South Africa for a bit, that's where my parents currently stay and I worked there during my gap year in my sister’s salon. The astronomically high levels of gender based violence in South Africa was a culture shock migrating from Zimbabwe which was relatively safer. It was always a plight trying to feel comfortable even in public. My father’s inflated concern and anxiety on safety or the lack thereof rubbed off on me and would often be substantiated by the recurring GVB news coverage or word of mouth. Though not as tragic, I had a news unsettling encounters of my own.

I remember a time when I was working at a mall there was a guy who despite my protests would visit me daily at work to bother me. Every single day, even when I had customers he would persistently taunt me for my number. I asked him repeatedly and politely to leave me alone but my word meant nothing because nothing changed despite my pleas . The thought of going to work tightened my chest with anxiety. The easy access of guns in the country and the statistics on gender based violence discouraged me from wanting to escalate the matter by involving proper authorities out of fear of retaliation. However I eventually amassed the courage to do it and it went away. On a different occasion I was on a lunch break at the salon and a man expressed interest in me, I did not reciprocate and he started following me around. He followed me when I sought refuge in a store and at every turn in every aisle. I was in a public place yet I had never felt so alone. Finally reported him to the security and he went away. It is experiences like these that made me grateful for feeling safe in public. To be able to go on a run at 11 pm and my worst fear is my battery dying and not me. When I can see a group of men at their drunkest and not feel crippling anxiety out of fear of my safety.

That greatfulness is short lived as it morphs into anger. Why should I be grateful for the things I am entitled to as a human being? Why should I be grateful for a loving mother and a caring father? Why should I be grateful for male strangers that have no ill intent? Why should I be grateful for men who do not desire the young? Why should I be grateful for societies and cultures that see women as human?

I should neither feel grateful nor guilty for existing safely. I want to cast it away. It’s not mine to be burdened by. I want to be free. I want to be free to walk at night without fear and without guilt. I want go on long runs at night and not be grateful that I am able to do so, I don’t want to be grateful for having access to basic human necessities grateful for my college that supplies sanitary pads in the bathroom as period poverty persecutes young girls in a multitude of countries. I do not want to be grateful for having access to education as the guilt of girls who are denied it overwhelms me. The guilt of my grandmother whose literacy is owed to my father who taught her how to read and write as she had been denied education by her father, my great grandfather.

What makes me more deserving of safety or education. If I had been born 100 km up north I could have been married off as a child for some bags of maize. I am not special and I do not want to be. I do not want to carry the burden of other women on my shoulders. I want to be free from feeling ungrateful when I take my education for granted, I want the freedom to be mediocre if I so choose, for my shortcomings and wins to be mine only. I want to live in a world where women don’t have to be grateful for what’s owed to them.

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own." - Audre Lorde