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Sigh. I’m still protesting

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BODY LANGUAGE: For the sake of a new generation of women, for the sake of our daughters (the daughters of the witches that were not burnt — as another poster declared), we cannot give up the struggle against women’s oppression now or ever.

I have been holding this sign since the 1980s, when I became a feminist activist, while studying in the United States for my PhD in political science and gender studies.

In South Africa, the ugly display of sexual violence reared up on its hind legs in the third week of May 2017, while I was writing this essay, as it does most weeks. Beautiful Karabo Mokoena was killed by her intimate partner, her body burnt beyond recognition, just because she wanted out of an abusive relationship.

But it is not only the politics of spectacle on the front pages of our newspapers or in the chambers of the legislatures that make our arms tired, it is also what academic and author Rob Nixon conceptualises as “slow violence”. In a digital era of soundbite solutions, women are made to believe that they can achieve everything if only they concentrate on cultivating an image, buy the “right” clothes, the “right” make-up, the “right” underwear, and subscribe to a new age dietary regime to improve appearance and reduce weight. It makes us believe that women can be everything a man can be, we can be sexy and even predatory in our sexual behaviour. We only need to “lean in”.

 

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