Being a woman in a man’s world

LAST WEEK, I had the opportunity of listening to a diverse group of university students, from many African countries, discussing reconciliation.

Despite being habitually linked to race and racism in post-apartheid South Africa, we broadened the scope of the debate to include topics like religion, sexuality, the law, land reform, power, and privilege.

I was tasked with facilitating conversations on gender. These conversations occurred in Cape Town, perhaps ironically, since the DA-run city is itself awkwardly caught between paradoxes that are stubbornly persistent, such as a female premier but an all-male cabinet in the past five years.

One young man complained about feeling excluded in national programmes on gender, because the focus is usually women and girl empowerment.

He wasn’t convinced that the exclusive emphasis on females was necessarily empowering communities as a whole.

After all, in such violent societies where rape is so common, there is something terribly wrong with how boys and young men are being raised and how they are learning to treat women.

The behaviours that are encouraged by their peer groups are worrying. In 2008, the United Nations reported that one in every three women was likely "to be beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in her lifetime".

Another student, a self-styled feminist who believed she was quite liberal in her thinking, realised how uneasy she was at dating a guy who didn’t live up to the “typical macho man” image she expected from him.

These expectations were surprising to her, because she’d always championed female independence and not conforming to typical gender roles, but seemed to have different subconscious beliefs about men.

So, when her boyfriend, a selfstyled new age man, went for waxings, manicures, pedicures, and other grooming and pampering treats, this irked her enough to eventually break up with him.

I wondered how many women would be comfortable with their boyfriends spending more time on their appearance and grooming than they do, and whether this affects their perceptions of the guy’s masculinity.

One fellow remembered coming home really tired after a long day on campus and didn’t feel like making himself supper. He texted his girlfriend to come over, knowing full well that she’d feel compelled to cook for him, irrespective of how tired she was. It was a simple text message, but with complex implications.

Do women feel pressured to be subservient, submissive, and sacrificing? Do both men and women get trapped easily and unknowingly into gender boxes that are tough to break out of ?

The challenging aspect of facilitating these dialogues was getting people to move away from talking about gender in abstract, theoretical terms, and personalising it by using everyday examples from their own lives.

It was suggested by one student that escaping gender oppression was only possible if you, firstly, realise the oppressed position you are in, and then imagine new possibilities.

Eventually, voicing these new possibilities shifts the system just a little, bit by bit.

Gender is an extremely broad and complex issue that cannot be broken down easily into digestible parts.

But, this doesn’t mean that we should not make attempts at dissecting it and exploring what is meaningful to us. I was impressed at these young students who were grappling with difficult issues in a very socially conscious way.

The urgency of this is vital. Globally, men hold 85 percent of all elected parliamentary seats. From political opportunities, to education, to health care, to marital and property rights, women get a bad deal in a patriarchal society.

Our biased customs, traditions, religions and routines need to be critically questioned. Substantive gender equality won’t happen without asking the tough questions that lead to concerted action.

Through our own behaviour we participate in creating a freer, fairer, more equal society for our mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. Reconciling gender paradoxes is a challenge for all of us. Open, honest dialogue is a start.

Suntosh R. Pillay is a clinical psychologist in public service who writes independent social commentaries in print and online media.