Men must change their entitlement

It is sadly sobering that, as our country marks – or should that be ignores? – 16 Days of Activism For No Violence Against Women and Children, a leading gender activist believes we are losing the fight against the abuse of women.

Brenda Madumise-Pajibo, director of feminist organisation Wise4Afrika, said “as a country we are still not winning the war against GBV” – because our actions to combat the scourge are often selective. We don’t, for example, seem to take action when alleged abusers are well-known personalities.

“Look how people supported Chris Brown’s concert that was held in the country recently. They did not care about the fact that he previously faced GBV charges.”

That attitude, she added, was why there was such support on social media for KwaZulu-Natal man Sibusiso Lawrence Ntaka, who murdered his former girlfriend and posted about it on Facebook before hanging himself.

Ntaka claimed that he stabbed Nontobeko Cele because she had cheated on him and abused his generosity after he supported her financially.

ALSO READ: Sibusiso Lawrence found dead after sharing video about him killing girlfriend [VIDEO]

He received an appalling amount of support from mainly men on social media, whose arguments were tantamount to saying that women belong to men and should show gratitude.

The upside of that was that social media allowed many men to feel comfortable enough to reveal their true, brutal, colours. They believe they are entitled to control women’s lives – and their bodies – because they are the superior gender.

And let’s not kid ourselves or seek to assuage our own guilt by saying it’s “not all men.”

Yes, it is all men. It is those men who snigger at sexist jokes. It is those men who don’t call out bullies and abusers in their midst. It is those men who believe, consciously or in their subconscious, that women are somehow inferior.

Unless we admit that, more women will end up as corpses.

NOW READ: Why SA’s gender-based violence crisis deserves global attention