ANGER MANAGEMENT CRUCIAL IN SOLVING GBV
MORE people were raped in South Africa between April 1 and June 30 this year than the number of people who died during the deadly third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
That excludes more than 5 700 people murdered during this time, with those deaths including the statistic that a woman is murdered every four hours.
Anger is at the root of the gender-based violence, which shatters families and traumatises the community, rather than political legacies. We’re not going to change the ubiquity of GBV and child abuse until we understand the root cause of perpetrators’ anger, because it is only a deeply angry person that will choose to inflict physical and emotional abuse on another person – more so if the victim is a relative.
We need more campaigns to teach women to be stronger, and to arm themselves or learn self-defence tactics. While those steps may make a difference in the short term, they do not address the deep issues of anger in our society, or the fear that it causes.
We need to address the anger first, and teach new ways of thinking and being to eliminate domestic violence.
The clash of traditional cultural values and those of a more modern society is what causes the anger plaguing so many communities.
Understand the contrast of a traditional household, where the man of the house sleeps on the bed and his wife is expected to sleep on the floor, responding to his physical needs when poked with a stick, against that woman’s working environment in a corporate office, where she is treated as an equal among her colleagues.
That woman is sure to start rebelling against her subordinate role at home, which is going to cause stress in the relationship with her husband – who is unaccustomed to having his authority as the head of the household questioned. Other complexities arise when both partners in a relationship are employed and the woman earns more than her husband, who ascribes to traditional norms that he should be the breadwinner, while his partner should still be responsible for all the household chores and child-rearing, in addition to her work.
The time is sure to come – particularly if she earns more than him – where she is going to insist that he help with household chores – and he is likely to refuse because doing so would be against cultural norms.
This traditional patriarchy forms another backdrop to GBV in homes where women who don’t work are completely dependent on their partners, but they also believe that their partners are entitled to discipline them physically as they belong to them and are there to do the man’s bidding.
The tragedy of this type of violence is that children see it, accept it as normal and grow up to behave in the same way – men who visit violence on their partners, and women who accept abuse as a normal and justified part of life.
This is only one example. There are many others.
Men need to know that they’re important and that they matter in a family context, even if they are unemployed or their partner is making more of a financial contribution than they are.
They also need to learn to see their partners as equals, regardless of who is providing an income or who is doing which chores around the home. Families are built on partnerships, and in situations where our counselling has been taken to heart, we have seen the most wonderful results.
In my years of working to address gender-based violence, I’ve consistently advocated for counselling and diversion programmes, rather than pursuing criminal justice for perpetrators, wherever possible.
When successful, these programmes help shift behaviour while keeping family units intact – a vital consideration in communities where single-parent or child-headed households are the norm.