The Sunday News
Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena
The ancient feminist cliché that “ours is a world of men” is one of those undying statements that keep gaining new life as it appears that in truth the world is a male domain, economically, culturally and politically.
One can argue that Empire itself as a world economic system and political structure is a male monstrosity, and that is the reason why most imperial conquerors and Empire builders have been men.
Throughout history and across the planet women or female bodies have endured rather enjoyed life in the world, as the so called weaker or finer sex.
Decolonial philosophers and theorists have noted and clarified the marginalisation and exploitation of female persons in the world as one critical pillar of coloniality and the down-classification of one type of human beings by others on the grounds of gender and sexual identity.
One can state poetically that wherever they are needed and desired women are treated as flowers or fruits of the earth for the pleasure and benefit of men, and wherever they are abhorred and negated they are given the treatment of witches and demons that haunt and irritate the domain of men. The angelisation of loved women and the demonisation of hated ones does not make a difference to the fact that almost always the woman is understood and treated as an object, not really a human partner under the sun.
Without committing the political and intellectual crime of elevating women in general to holiness and degrading men in total to evil, I seek in this instalment to flag the ticklish and also tricky subject of sexual harassment or gender-based harm against women in society at large and specifically in the troubled and also troubling workplace.
Gender-based violence, from actual rape to the sexist gaze and verbal abuse of women is a complicated subject that takes many shapes and sizes and manifests in some deep and also disturbing ways.
Feminist intellectuals and activists, especially the legalist minds among them, have stated that according to the legal definition of rape almost all men, sexually active men, under the sun are supposed to be in jail, this might be a political exaggeration but it helps to clarify just how much most of what gets away as day to day sexual activity is actually gender-based and sexual criminality.
A Crime of Power
In crude and beastly rape a physically powerful male overpowers, dominates and forces himself on a weaker and unwilling female, this crime is easy to note. At the workplace a powerful boss who can hire and fire, the alpha male and patriarch who can promote and demote uses his social and political power and privileged position to force an unwilling and most times fearful woman into sex, even if the act happens as consensual, the man’s power is always a hidden stick that beats a woman to submission. For that reason, feminist philosophers insist that sexual submission is not necessarily sexual consent as power, physical or political, is used to compel the weak woman.
At the schooling world, especially in the high schools, colleges and universities there is usually what in South Africa they call the “sex pest” or the “sex predator.” The sex pest is that persuasive men, who offers attention, says kind amorous words, tenders gifts and other rewards and favours to pressure young and old ladies for sex.
The sex predator uses his power to pass or fail, or to promote and demote subordinate women to pressurise them for sex. Both the pest and the predator might not declare their demands for sex but use their different power, stick or carrot, to get women into situations and circumstances where they offer themselves for survival at work or at school.
To get opportunities, the right examination marks or the renewal of the ever troublesome contracts, women in compromised or compromising situations, frequently find themselves having to offer their bodies as bribes to appease powerful male lecturers or bosses that use their privilege as sexual capital.
Especially where political and social power is used, not just physical power, sexual abuse may appear legal and ethical conduct among consenting adults when in actuality the women would not be consenting but submitting to a kind of force.
That difficult boss and impossible lecturer might not be the muscle and knife wielding beast, but their use of powerful positions to get women to submit to their will is equally if not more violent.
A Crime of Sensuality
At its best and its worst, sex is deeply sensual. The human senses are mobilised, even for sexual violation. Some words and sounds that men make to and about women are violent and demeaning, whether in the taxi rank or the office corridors. Sometimes some women smile or even say “thank you” for what sounds and appears like compliments about their bodies when it is verbal sexual violation.
Frequently some men, not only in the perverted category, but some regularly gentlemen make sounds and gestures that are sexually suggestive and socially violent to women, in the name of the “boys will be boys” and they will be naughty assumption. Another category of predatory men make inappropriate touches of female bodies.
In public and semi-private spaces, some men simulate stumbling and other physical accidents and use them as an excuse to touch female bodies inappropriately and therefore violently, illegally and unethically. There is always that guy in a crowded taxi or queue that will press himself on women or make women press themselves on him in a criminally sensual and undue manner.
And then there is what feminist philosophers call the “gaze.” In the sexually violent gaze the pervert looks at the female body in a focused, sharp and undressing manner, most times making sure the woman can see and feel that she is being examined in no other way but a sensually criminal and violent one. Some sex pests and sex predators derive pleasure in exposing their bodies, covered or uncovered, to women.
Clearly most sexual violence and harassment appears as accidental behaviour or simple jokes and even normal day to day behaviour. Some women smile and laugh, and feel recognised or complimented when men act in sensually violent ways around them, and this, even the feminists have noted, saves to encourage rather than prohibit gender-based harm in society and in the workplace. Some of it takes place as innocent and normal flirting, or even sexting, and then it degenerates into crime.
The Philosophical Dilemmas
It seems natural that men will love and desire women and the opposite. So when exactly does male attention to women, and the opposite, some women abuse men, become violent and abusive? There is the subject of women that may trap and even blackmail men using their sexuality to get paid or to punish powerful men.
There is also the pathology of blaming victims. Violated women are blamed for “asking for it,” by dressing or behaving provocatively. Suddenly the man is allowed to be this victim who cannot help it or help himself when he sees parts of the female body, which is a biological and even philosophical fallacy.
Some random thinkers allege that a woman who accepts favours, participates in flirting or answers to invitations to private places consents to sex, the “udle imali yami” allegation can be strong. Like coloniality itself that uses its victims for its growth and promotion, there are women, sometimes friends, mothers, aunties and sisters who in the name of being “a good girl” or “good wife” advise other women to put up with sexual abuse and exploitation in society and in the workplace.
Some women deliver their relatives and friends to predators and pests for financial and social benefits of their own, those sisters and aunties who “organise” and “deliver” an unwilling friend or relative to that brother.
The world of consensual sex, natural sexual attention and activity and that of gender-based harm and violence are a philosophical wilderness that is intersected by very thin lines of consent and submission, force and persuasion. There is the stalker, the men who keeps asking out that woman in word and in deed even when she repeatedly makes her unwillingness clear.
There are those myths about her saying no when she means yes or playing hard to get that promote stalking. Such comforting myths like that “if she gives out her cellphone numbers then she is willing to go all the way to bed” are used by stalkers to justify undue attentions to women.
The ticklish subject of sexual harassment and gender-based harm is a forest of philosophical, legal and ethical dilemmas. Importantly, if it hurts a woman, embarrasses her, diminishes her and makes her uncomfortable, even if she submits to the words or the actions, then it is violence, even if she is too young or too uninformed to know it.
If social, political and cultural power and privilege are used to pressure and dominate and make her submit to the will of a man, then violence has taken place.
If normal courtship involves threats or certain false but aggressive promises and somehow must be kept a secret, cannot be declared at home or at work, some people must not know about it, then something is unethical, illegal or violent about the encounter. In short, about this old and long subject, a wink and a pinch can be a kind of rape.
Not all that pleases and comforts men in their power and privilege is ok for women, total vigilance should be kept if the humanity and dignity of all is to be preserved.
-Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Cape Town, South Africa: [email protected].
