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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The reproduction of an "ideal" masculinity through gang-rape on the Cape Flats:Understanding some of the issues and challenges for effective redress
| Panel |
31. Sexuality and Politics in Africa
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| Paper ID | 697 |
| Author(s) |
Moolman, Benita Joy
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | In this article I explore the construction of heterosexual masculinity linked to gang rape on the Cape Flats. I will look at how the political and economic marginalisation of coloured men under apartheid influenced the construction of a violent, sexualized masculinity linked to gang membership on the Cape Flats. Values such as domination, power, control, conquest, achievement and competition contribute to the above masculinity while encoded and shaped by gang rape in particular ways, which I will seek to decode. The political-economic marginalisation of masculinity on the Cape Flats happened in relation to the dominant white masculinity. In the South African space all other masculinities, black, sub-economic and working class, homosexual and so forth became subordinated to the dominant masculinity. I draw on focus group discussions that I conducted on the Cape Flats, where the population is predominantly classified as coloured. Most residents are Afrikaans speaking.
In identifying a link between the personal and the socio-political with regard to gang rape on the Cape Flats, I do not seek to excuse the criminality inherent in the act or absolve the gang rapist of personal accountability. Rather, I aim to explore some of the reasons and rationale for the occurrence of this kind of rape in order to further thinking for more effective redress and prevention.
Historically in South Africa interventions aimed at addressing rape have focused almost exclusively on work with women with the goals of empowerment, education, support and advocacy with regard to them. Hardly any work is done with the perpetrators or men in general, Vogelman (1990) and Abrahams and Jewkes (2002) are the few exceptions. Perhaps as the main perpetrators of sexualised violence, men are often only assumed accountable through the legal system. This of course is a misassumption as South African society increasingly begins to understand the intent of the occurrence of rape in South Africa and the small proportion of redress in this regard.
I examine the complexity of power relations in the phenomenon of gang rape on the Cape Flats so that more focused intervention strategies can be developed for the reduction and long term elimination of the occurrence of gang rape in these communities on the Cape Flats. In so doing I hope that it will become clearer that redress interventions for gang rape (and indeed other forms of rape) ultimately require specific focus for the different communities in which it occurs.I conclude the article by offering some redress recommendations for both managing the aftermath of gang rape and prevention. The recommendations promote a community development approach, which emphasizes socio-economic factors as paramount to the development of intervention programs.
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