Compare and Contrast Feminist Perspectives

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My roots lie in the village of Sibizane, three hours drive from Durban, South

Africa. My grandmother and my mother struggled to raise us with the ability to

face a world that they knew was tough. For them, life was to get married if you

were a young woman, and to work in the mines or cities or stay home and look

after a healthy herd of cattle if you were a young man. Work, livestock, and

marriage were the sources of pride or failure among the residents of Sibizane.

This was the society I stepped into in my teenage years.

One afternoon when I was sixteen, I went to the Umzimkhulu River to fetch

water as usual. I met two young women of my age group. Zenzile asked me,

“Sibongile, who is your boyfriend?”

“I don’t have one,” I answered.

They both shouted at me “You are lying!”

“It’s true!” I protested.

Khethiwe then accused me, “I suspect when my boyfriend comes to you

asking you to call me for him, you first give him a bite [have thigh sex with

him]. If you don’t stop this habit of yours, we will fight you.”

Wo m a n We e p N o M o r e

S i b o n g i l e M t u n g w a

Co py ri gh t @ 20 10 . Un iv er si ty o f Wi sc on si n Pr es s.

Al l ri gh ts r es er ve d. M ay n ot b e re pr od uc ed i n an y fo rm w it ho ut p er mi ss io n fr om t he p ub li sh er , ex ce pt f ai r us es p er mi tt ed u nd er U .S . or a pp li ca bl e co py ri gh t la w.

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I was shocked. I did not want a boyfriend because I knew my uncle would

beat me to death. Also, I wanted to be a nun.

When we were collecting firewood and the weather was hot, we normally walked bare-breasted. On one of these days, two young women, Ntombi and

Nomusa, confronted me.

“Why are your breasts so straight?” Nomusa asked.

“That is just the way they are,” I answered.

“You mean to tell us that you have not slept with a man since your first

period?” Ntombi asked. (Sleeping with a man meant thigh sex. Sexual inter-

course is not sanctioned for young women before marriage.)

“Of course I have not slept with a man,” I answered. I did not know what

the breasts had to do with sleeping with a man. They squeezed my breasts and

both confirmed that they were hard, so it meant no man had slept on them.

They looked at me with eyes of disapproval.

That painful experience left me feeling confused and ashamed of myself.

It taught me that to be a woman of my age and accepted in my community,

I needed to have a boyfriend; otherwise I was in trouble with my peers, and

perhaps with my parents too.

I was afraid of being rejected. So I started to think whom I would choose of all the young men who were proposing love to me. I was afraid of any young man

who was much bigger than me in case I would not be able to defend myself if

he wanted to have sex with me. I decided to get involved with Vusi, who was five

years older than me. Now was the time to practice all the things the iqhikiza

(the older girl who is the advisor to girls in the village) had taught me about

relationships. It was the time to learn to love and why to love.

Control was awakened in me at this stage. The iqhikiza had taught me the

rules of being with a man. “When you sleep with him, you always sleep on your

left arm. That is to make sure that you will be able to defend yourself easily if

necessary, using your right arm, which is powerful. Put his penis between your

knees and the middle part of your thighs, not more than that because you can

get pregnant. Wipe yourself downwards to avoid pregnancy.”

The first day I had thigh sex with him, I forgot all those rules. I slept on the

wrong side. That was bad because he could have interpreted that as a sign that I

had previously had intercourse and it was difficult to change the habit. But

luckily Vusi told me I was on the wrong side. I felt very embarrassed. But there

were many other things about boy-girl relationships that I learned from him. I

was eighteen years old. The nine years I spent in that relationship were full of

moments of learning, awakening, questioning, and action. The learning stage

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was when I learned to deal with peer pressure and community expectations. At

that time I did what my community expected me to do.

Vusi had other girlfriends. That was allowed in the community. It was accept- able for the girls who were sharing the same man to be friends since it mini-

mized conflicts. It was the man’s pride to have many girls and maintain them as

virgins. But for a woman to be found with more than one boyfriend was taboo.

She was insulted and called isifebe (loose woman). If the two young men dis-

covered that they were sharing the same girl, they would take her to the Um-

zimkhulu River in the middle of the night to wash her private parts as a way of

removing ubufebe (promiscuity). They would insult her for hours while she

was washing, saying, “Tonight you are going to take your ubufebe out. You are

a dog. You are a pig and a bitch. Your vagina is insatiable.” If the girl could not

use up the bar of soap in the freezing water (it was sometimes minus four or

five degrees Celsius), they would beat her.

I learned to like some of Vusi’s other girlfriends because they were good, but I hated others because their values did not match mine. I accepted the other girl-

friends for some time. but then began to question why I was tolerating the situ-

ation. It was 1996 and I had started to work for the Women’s Leadership and

Training Programme as a center worker in Centocow. I was beginning to realize

that there was more to my life than being a housewife whose purpose was to

serve her in-laws. Those were significant times, when I followed my feelings

and wisdom. I realized that I had been pleasing my boyfriend so that he could

have a high status in the community.

In 1997 I ended the relationship. I told my grandmother and my brothers

and sisters. It was a great moment to be on my own. I was free from pleasing him

or from having to live up to the expectations of other people and my peers. My

eyes had been opened to other possibilities and new ways of enjoying myself.

Unfortunately that freedom did not last even a month. One afternoon we were on our way back home from a traditional ceremony. I met a young woman

friend who asked to accompany me on my way home. My home is next to many

dongas (dry gulleys) and I was using a path to avoid meeting Vusi. Suddenly

Vusi appeared between two dongas with a friend. They told me that one of my

friends had told them that I was accusing them of a number of things. I was

very angry. They told me to go with them back to the road so that we could

meet the friend and solve the problem. I agreed, but when I asked where he was,

a car drove up and they forced me into the car. I cried a lot. I cried about many

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things—the people I was going to meet that evening and my feeling of power-

lessness. I did not want to leave my home. I cried because I was going to miss

my freedom and space. I thought it was the end.

I arrived at his home and some herbs were put onto hot coals, and I was forced to inhale the smoke. Vusi told me he was not going to make me lose my vir-

ginity because he had abducted me to pay lobola (dowry) to my family. And I

should stop thinking that I was free to get involved with other young men. The

following day I was told to write the letter that the negotiators were going to

take to my home.

My first letter was written like this: “My grandmother and uncle, I am here

at Vusi’s home and I want to come back home. It was not my will to be here.

Your daughter, Sibongile.”

They told me that they could not take that letter home because they were

going to be beaten up. They tore up that letter. I was confused about what to

write next, but the second letter was written like this: “My grandmother and my

uncle, I am here at Vusi’s home and I want these people to come and negotiate

lobola with you.”

That was not true in some ways, but when I talked to Vusi, he told me that he

was willing to stop being involved with other girls. He promised to be faithful

and to respect me, and I thought that he was serious. They went to my grand-

mother and uncle and returned with the news that they had been accepted at

home. I was very sad to hear that. I had hoped my relatives would request that I

come back and tell them in front of the negotiators if it was really my will to get

married to Vusi. They knew that young women were often forced to write those

letters. I felt very powerless. I was left with no option but to accept Vusi’s apolo-

gies and my parents’ decision to accept the money from the negotiators.

On my second day in Vusi’s home, my grandmother came. I heard her talking outside. “Where is Sibongile? I want my child. Even if you are paying lobola,

I want her home today.” She kicked open the door where I was and said, “Si-

bongile, stand up. Let’s go home.”

I was very happy. My power came flowing back and I stood up and followed

her. Other women from Vusi’s family told her that they were going to accom-

pany me home. That evening I slept at home. It was a relief. At least I was still

going to attend workshops and continue with my work, and I was hoping to

learn to love Vusi again. I had the space to think and adjust.

But Vusi did not keep his promises. Things went from bad to worse. He con- tinued to have girlfriends all over, including some of the group members I

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was working with. I felt that he was not respecting me. By the end of 1998 I

knew that I was not going to stay with him. But I was afraid of what people

were going to say if I broke off the relationship. I tried to talk to my mother

about it.

“Ma, what will happen say if I decide not to marry Vusi?”

“That will be very bad. People will think you are crazy. After all who is going

to pay back the lobola?”

One of my relatives told me, “To get married is a sign of good luck these

days. People will think you are mad if you do not get married.”

I knew that I was on my own and that my family could not understand my

feelings of dislike for Vusi. In October 1999 I attended a Grail formation work-

shop where I realized that I had to face up to the situation and act. (The Grail is

an international women’s organization founded in 1921 that I still belong to

today).

In December I went to a week-long training class of health workers in Pieter- maritzburg. When it was time to go home, I told my colleagues that I was going

to visit some people and was not going back home with them. I went to stay

with a friend in Durban, and then in January 2000 I went to Kleinmond, where

I lived with a Grail member for six months.

That was a very difficult time for my grandmother, my mother, my brothers

and sisters, and some friends. Vusi harassed them so they would tell him where

I was. Of course it was fortunate that they all had no idea where I was. I did not

tell anyone. I was on my own in that decision and I could not trust any person

in Sibizane. My grandmother got very sick for the first time, and I was worried

that she was going to die. A close friend, Gugu, was insulted and accused of

knowing where I was.

Later that year, in September 2000, I decided to come back to my home dis-

trict. I began working for the Women’s Leadership and Training Programme at

Reichenau. I was not able to visit my home because I was scared of being ab-

ducted again. In July 2001 my uncle, Vusi, and two of his cousins came to my

work place to take me home. I agreed to meet them with Sister Virginia Didi,

Marilyn Aitken, and Mbali Khathi protecting me.

Vusi and his two cousins said, “Sister-in-law, we are here to take you home.

Whatever the problem is, it needs to be resolved.”

I replied, “I am sorry, but I am not going home with you. I am at work and I

have already told Vusi that I am no longer interested in him and will not marry

him. I am sorry that he has brought you here. He knows that I do not love him

anymore. I am telling you the truth even if he has not told you.”

I told them I was not Vusi’s wife or girlfriend and that they should go to my

home and fetch the gifts and cash they had given my family during the lobola

negotiations. My grandmother had given me the strength to be very firm when

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she told me, “There is no way we can force you to marry him if you don’t like

him anymore.” She was with my elder sister and my mother when she told

me this. She was very brave to advise against the cultural norm by setting me

free from the bondage of marriages that are the result of abduction and unfair

cultural practices.

In August 2001 I went to a story-telling event at Centocow with other people from Reichenau. I saw Vusi and he asked me to talk to him about how they were

going to get their lobola back. I saw a car parked next to the office where we

were and two men walking toward us. I realized that they were going to try to

abduct me again and I tried to run away. But they caught me and forced me

into the car. I cried and fought off the three men. When some people tried to

intervene, Vusi shouted, “I am going to stab anyone who tries to help her.”

Forty women of all ages stopped and watched the “show.” I bit Vusi’s hand

until he let me go. One of the men said “Let’s leave her, before they call the

police.” They were indecisive, and I managed to escape.

I was so angry that I tore my clothes while I continued to scream hysteri-

cally. When I reached the office nearby, I fell down and cried so loudly that

I could not hear anything. The police came and told me there was no case

because he had not hurt me. I felt powerless again. What kind of system is this

that does not protect women? What kind of system is this that waits until

women are hurt before taking action? Soon after that, I sought a protection

order against Vusi to enable me to visit my home. A woman official of the

Women and Child Protection Unit in the Pietermaritzburg magistrate’s court

told me “There is nothing we can do because he has paid lobola. He is looking

for his wife. You just need to hide from him or go to the tribal authority.” I was

shocked to hear her say that because South Africa has very good laws to protect

women and children.

I was very angry and pursued the matter in other ways. I went to the Hime-

ville magistrate, who listened to me and believed me. He called Vusi and told

him that if he touched me, or people close to me, he would be immediately ar-

rested. He made him sign all the papers. That was the end of the saga in one

way. At least I knew someone was listening to me and that justice had been

done. It was sad that we were not able to talk and resolve our conflict without

including the magistrate, a foreign system for both of us. There could have

been other ways to resolve the conflict, but Vusi had been unwilling to admit

that he was wrong.

Some members of his family accused me of being a rude, cruel woman. They stopped talking to me and spread many stories about me in the

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community. Other people blamed the workshops I was attending for making

me “uncontrollable.”

I became a free woman again. I learned to live like a normal human being,

not having to hide and run constantly. I continued with my work on gender,

environment, and leadership training. I travelled to countries in Africa and Eu-

rope, as well as to the United States. In the meeting I attended at Rutgers Uni-

versity in 2002, I learned that women from Pakistan, India, Costa, Rica, Brazil,

Nicaragua, and the United States were all encountering problems of male dom-

ination, as well as cultural or religious oppression. I knew I was not on my own.

I was in the midst of women fighting for their human rights and their dignity

as citizens. I have learned a lot from these experiences, and I am now able to

share the light with other women who are searching for their own ways in dif-

ferent cultures and circles.

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