The crowd snaps their fingers and murmurs in agreement, “You are more likely to get expelled for plagiarism than you are for rape,” said Ashanti Kunene, former primaria of Metanoia, masters in International Studies student and activist.
She spoke at the Inequalities Through My Eyes: Confronting Rape Culture discussion, held at Metanoia on 8th of August 2018. This was a collaboration between Irene, Sonop, Metanoia, Venustia and the Student Representative Council (SRC).
Panellists, Dr Debra Shepherd, Lilian Notayi, Dr Jade Gibson and Ashanti Kunene Photo: Bonita Williams
“Everything about this place supports rape culture. We need to talk about how the university facilitates the non-accountability of young men. If anything, the system here protects deviant young men,” said Kunene.
The organisers of the 2017 SLUT walk came to the same conclusion. The slut walk was about rape culture on campus. They experienced first-hand the institutional culture that prevents survivors from speaking out.
“I began to see the influence the University has over the town; the municipality wouldn’t approve my permission form without university permission even though it was on public roads. I experience a lot of fear-mongering from law enforcement to the point where I felt like I had to change the narrative of the slut walk from a protest to a march,” said Lilian Notayi, a former Metanoia woman empowerment HK and organiser of the 2017 SLUT walk.
“I came to the realisation there is a culture of secrecy in Stellenbosch. I began noticing that women and queer people are silenced when discussing issues of marginalisation,” says Notayi.
“This is the definition of rape culture, it is about the dis-empowerment of others and an entitlement over people’s bodies,” said Dr Jade Gibson, an interdisciplinary academic and author of Glowfly Dance, a book about intimate partner femicide.
Dr Gibson reading from her book, Glowfly Dance. Photo: Bonita Williams
“Gender-based violence is everyone’s violence- it is all our responsibility,” said Gibson. “If you have something that needs to be said, we must find a way to say it. It is an ongoing process to make a difference. It takes time.”
The ongoing process of slowly closing the gender wage gap is what Dr Debra Shepherd, a lecturer in Economics at Stellenbosch University (SU) spoke about. This is important to note because of the power imbalance among the genders in society being linked to gender-based violence.
“The gender wage gap is not the same across all levels of employment. The average is 25%, meaning women earn on average 25% less than men. One of the major contributions of this is occupational segregation. In STEM [sectors], approximately 45% of professionals are women. When you remove nurses the 45% halves. Is this progression? No,” said Shepherd.
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“We don’t need safe spaces we need brave spaces, to be uncomfortable and learn,” said Kunene.
“When people feel like space is not theirs, they self-exclude. Go include yourself in spaces by force or by fire.”