Sexual violence = silence

I’m taking part in a silent protest today. It involves wearing a t-shirt with facts such as “only 1 in 9 women report rape in South Africa” on it and I also have my mouth taped up with industrial strength packing tape. The woman who taped me up joked that criminals use this exact to tape up their victims. I am not allowed to speak, eat or drink until 6pm today when we all meet again and talk about our experiences.

I have to say I’m feeling quite isolated. The moment that tape was on my mouth I felt like I lost my power. Walking past people who stare at you like you come from outer space doesn’t help – you become an “other”. A presence that doesn’t belong and shouldn’t be there.

When I told someone I was doing the protest today, they looked at me and said: “You’re quite the activist, aren’t you?” They didn’t say it in a friendly way either. They knew I had painted my hands red to protest the situation in Zimbabwe a few weeks ago - and now I was taping my mouth up in solidarity with rape victims. It’s not that this person thought I was wrong to be an activist. I think they didn’t expect me to be. Students at this university seem to think that the editor of a student newspaper shouldn’t have an agenda – shouldn’t support anything and definitely shouldn’t stand for anything.

My answer to that is: if you can’t stand against injustice, what can you stand for? It’s not like I’m publically protesting a controversial subject like abortion or stem cell research/ I’m in support of something that I believe everyone should care about and believe in. If that makes me a bad editor, so be it.

I am silent today because:

Government statistics report that 54,000 women were raped in SA in 2007.

Stats SA indicates that only 1 in 9 survivors go on to report the rape and of these, only 4% were successfully prosecuted in 2007.

These statistics translate to approximately 500,000 rapes in 2007.

There are approximately 24 million women in SA – which means that based on current statistics, if a woman lives to be 50 years old she has an almost 100% chance of being raped at least once.

These numbers are unacceptable to me – and they should be unacceptable to you too.

Rape limits human potential. It silences people, makes them less than human, keeps them afraid and isolated.

My silence today affirms my solidarity with the 8 in 9 women silenced by rape and sexual violence.

Freedom of Speech is denied to vitims of sexual violence.

I call on men and women to break the cycle of sexual violence. Stand up against sexual violence and help us create a world where women are truly equal, where they are free to walk where they want to, when they want to, wearing what they want to.

Until we achieve those goals – women will remain silenced.

We have a long way to go!

I want to get a job

About a month ago, I was told that in the ‘real world’ (Is student life not real enough for you?) my future employers would look at my blog. I guess it’s better than looking at my facebook profile. I have set the privacy setting higher just in case they think of checking it as well. My wall is full of comments that would embarass my friends more than myself – it’s in their interest.

Either way, I have set up my blog. Excuse the slightly pornographic edge. The Full Monty is one of my favourite movies and I thought the expression would be fitting for this blog. I am a new media student at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. One of my biggest challenges this year – to hell with it – the biggest challenge for me this year is my editorship of a student newspaper. I run The Oppidan Press, a publication started by the former editor, Lionel Faull, and myself back in 2007. It has become the preferred student newspaper for most students at Rhodes University: 55% of the student population are Oppidans (students living off campus) and we have many residence subscribers. Our website has become immensely popular. Many friends and acquaintances in the new media and website industry have complimented me on it and one even went as far as saying that it was ”the best newspaper website in the country”. And he himself made an amazing website.

Things are definitely going well. Ever since we started up, our competitor, Activate, has been following in our footsteps: an Opinions section (pioneered by us), a Politics section (when before it was African Affairs and was cut), etc. They are also starting up a multimedia website in 2 weeks time. But we are still forging ahead with innovations like a newspaper ombudsman, a cheeky editorial policy, newspaper baskets, front page investigations, more pages, and a Health section. For this next edition we have 8 letters! We even have a dedicated training manager who has set up unique training workshops for our staff. Things are going well, but the pressure of having to come up with new ideas all the time is getting to me and I am feeling slightly worn out.

I know people who work on Activate will read this, tell each other about it and they might even be offended. I mean nothing of what I say with disrespect: I have spoken to some of the staff on the paper and most of them agree that (at the moment) Activate is inferior in quality and outspokenness. Issues get avoided and no real stand is made on any topic. However, the paper is improving and I look forward to the challenge.

Enough about our competition (I feel quite strongly about it as you can undoubtedly tell). I had a meeting with the dean of students, Dr Vivian de Klerk, yesterday. We discussed the relationship between the paper and her office. Things had turned sour in the past few weeks. We had a very successful meeting. She is a very friendly and open woman. We sorted out the issues and have come to a new understanding about our relationship and responsibilities towards each other.

That’s it for my first post. I should end off with a witty comment, but I prefer to end off with something a little less conventional.

Quote of the day: ”Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” – Douglas Adams