Birthmarks of oppression

THE aptly timed “naked” protest at Rhodes University by female students demanding respect and safety within their own university has elicited a lively, yet at times spurious, debate about the method these activists have chosen to protest, with some feigning ignorance as a fig-leaf to attack the actual protest.

One of the things this discussion has brought out in bold is the issue of the use of language in a modern-day patriarchal capitalist society.

Of course, I know this will be a controversial part. Our traditionalists will extol us with the virtues of lobola – how it is a symbol that joins families. Others will allege it is also used as part of the wedding.

But none contest the key point – that through this, women are a commodity sold off to the husband’s family, while the husband is not sold off anywhere.

One matter is clear, as in the sale of a slave, the “commodity” woman sold for lobola is advertised to the prospective buyer as hard-working, obedient, honest and a person who has been properly raised and will therefore prove less troublesome.

Thus, terms such as “my woman”, “my wife” and “my girlfriend” which many may view as terms of endearment and expressions of love, sprout from the history of women as commodities rather than being harmless terms denoting devotion and love.

These terms actually express private ownership of the body of another.

This is at the core of the rape culture in our society and the notion that women’s bodies are the private property of their husbands, boyfriends etc.

And if that sense of entitlement to the woman’s body is threatened in any form, violence becomes the possible method used to reassert and restore it.

So while the expression “my person”, may appear harmless and even sound like an expression of love, it actually depicts the skewed property relations that hold sway in our society. It is a not-so-harmless mask for an entirely dangerous sense of ownership and hegemony over the body of another and possibly the desire to determine how that person would use their body.

Of course, as a patriarchal society we have many terms we have come to convince ourselves are harmless. In fact, to many, the very notion that we are a capitalist, racist, patriarchal society is a figment of the imagination. This is why when one argues that the term “my woman” is problematic, many will say “you’re taking it too far”.

The unpaid propagandists go as far as saying both women and men use the phrase “my person”. Women too, call their partners “my man”, we’re often told.

But the fact of the matter is that, because of the unequal power relations between men and women, the meaning of every phrase uttered by each of them takes on a different form and meaning.

The term “man of the house” and the term “woman of the house” may seem to be the different gender versions of one another. However, “man of the house” actually denotes the person in charge, almost the CEO of this household. Meanwhile “woman of the house” suggests this person is responsible for keeping the household clean and well looked after.

Thus, terminology is a significant part of oppression in every society.

We (men and women) must be willing to accept that what we have internalised as normal and harmless within patriarchy, is actually very dangerous.

In a warped society such as our rapist-infested, gender violent patriarchal society, what appears harmless can actually be very harmful. Terms, however nice they seem, do not sprout out of nowhere. They carry the birthmarks of the society using them.

Ours is patriarchal and capitalist – a cocktail of oppression all in one.

So long as bourgeois property relations continue to dominate our society, the horrendous assault on the bodies of women and children will continue unabated. Our society will continue to pay lip-service to ending domestic violence and rape, but these abuses will persist.

As long as the notion of bourgeois private property exists, there will continue to be a class or stratum that seeks to control the labour power of others.

A struggle must not just produce its own morality, it must also produce its own language. In order to succeed, every struggle must be willing to tear asunder all that has been endeared and revered but which still continues to represent oppression and subjugation.

Lazola Ndamase is deputy secretary of the SACP in the OR Tambo District