Youth join the conversation against toxic attitudes

Dismantling oppressive and violent practices across SA and globally

OW did you make sense of Bertha’s* death?”

Immediately the atmosphere dropped, and we were knee-deep in a few moments of palpable tension.

“How does one make sense of it? It’s not normal.”

We were seated with about 30 young people from Overberg in the Western Cape.

We asked them to interrogate and reflect on the gendered nature of violence and power within their respective spaces.

The workshop took place in a small and semi-rural town.

A short distance from where we were situated stood the open field where Bertha Jansen’s* body was found – an apt yet unnerving space to host a dialogue aimed at exploring the links between gender and violence.

Throughout our conversation with participants, we were hopeful of the change that young people could activate in their communities, yet we were concerned by the deeply problematic beliefs and ideas held by a few who were unwittingly upholding the violent status quo.

During discussions on gender-based violence (GBV), there were occurrences where victims of violence were blamed for the abuse inflicted on their bodies.

A few older participants’ remarks centred on survivors’ whereabouts, circle of friends and parents’ influence and/or incompetence, which ultimately served to relocate responsibility from the perpetrators of violence.

It is this mentality that sustains the rape culture and further inhibits us from collectively and impactfully acting against violence, or re-engineering a society that is just and inclusive.

Throughout the day’s conversation about GBV in the town and its surrounding areas, older cis-het men’s voices dominated perceptions of gender, violence, and the impact these have on the lives of those living within the community.

Men are victims of GBV, and the impact it has on them – their psyche, emotional state and physical being – requires deep interrogation and collective action.

However, we must guard against 0the inclination of those who seek to weaponise the abuse of men to discredit, derail or confute dialogues about GBV and its effect on womxn, femmes and non-binary people.

Too frequently, men who want to voice their gender story will confidently accuse womxn as master abusers, yet grudgingly confront their own toxic enactment of masculinity or the patriarchal structures that sanction it.

It is possible for us to have a holistic conversation that engages all the nuances and intersections of gender and violence without reinforcing toxic attitudes or practices.

So who should take up more space? We need to actively listen to the most marginalised and ignored members of our society.

We must listen to the stories of the LGBTQIA+ community and how GBV affects them. We must listen to the trans community. We must include the narrative of sex workers.

We need to centre the voices of youth who are part of these oppressed communities. We must surface and reflect on their experiences in our conversations.

Throughout our time in the town, we observed a generational disjuncture between young and older people in how they understand gender, violence and the multi-layered power dynamics at play.

During the workshop, younger men and older men held divergent interpretations of violence and engaged the issues differently; older men unconsciously preserved the patriarchal script whereas younger men appeared more open to engineering a new one.

This is not a foolhardy attempt to absolve younger men from their own complicity in perpetuating violence, but serves as an opportunity to reflect, understand and bridge those intergenerational gaps that inhibit us from dismantling oppressive and violent practices, not just in the town, but across South Africa and globally.

Intergenerational and inter-sectoral conversations and action are needed to address GBV. Young people offer fresh insight and creative solutions to some of society’s deep-rooted problems.

The information age has made us more open and capable of engineering a new social script that centres the community rather than the self. This era has introduced us to new ways of being, and fostered a deep empathy and a new consciousness. There is much to learn from us. So listen.

Danielle Hoffmeester and Jodi Williams are project officers at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR).

(*Name changed to protect the integrity and identity of the participants and the deceased victim.)