I wanted to wait until the dust settled. I woke up in a cold sweat from a dream of moist soil being scattered on my face and chest. It was more of a nudge really from warm tears streaming on either side of my face while my arms felt weary from pushing up in prayer and pushing back all suggestion of what I must do to stay safe. My name is Kanyisa, you know me as 1 in 3, understood to be every 26 second and recently recognised as #AMINEXT.
There is everything disconcerting about living in a world that throws about statistics of how much danger you are in and proceeds to do nothing. The World Health Organisation can say a third of the world’s population is likely to be sexual or physically assaulted by an intimate partner or someone they know and absolutely nothing shakes. I already know the answer – because it’s women. Who cares what happens to that species anyway? We are shouting from all silenced corners breathlessly- gagged, maimed, raped, forced to marry, forced to carry pregnancies, under paid, sexualised and oh so exhausted for generations.
Numbers of how a person who shares my identity is killed every 26 seconds are met with NOT ALL MEN. Reports of how someone like me was kidnapped and killed in Khayelitsha are met with STOP KILLING OUR WOMEN. Spinning this insidious war against women to have the face monsters, the childish, the irresponsible anything but the identity of “real men” It is precisely this outlook that refuses ALL MEN an opportunity to see just how complicit they are. It is REAL men who, rape, kill and physically abuse women. It is GOOD men who are silent when their friends sexualise young girls. It is ALL MEN who think of women as possessions and respond to women’s call for action against violence with a “don’t touch my stuff” mind set –because God forbid it be your wife, mother or sister who cares if a woman you don’t know is harmed.
The beginning of September had us all sprung. The arrival of Spring shook us with the coldest breeze - #AMINEXT. There is no such thing as an average day. You could be hanging your clothes to dry in your backyard and your body is hacked and left for dead. Again, we take to the streets and cry out for help and we are met with water cannons. We take to social media to name and shame that everyone know that monsters are REAL men and we are met with lawsuits. Our struggle to stay alive is met with a sentiment of tiresomeness – siyasokolisa for forcing you to see the people harming us. Good MEN because #NOTALLMEN - are of the same view as Luyanda Botha who raped and killed Uyinene Mrwetyana “… undisokolisile la mntwana.” There is an atmosphere inconvenience since WE WILL NOT DIE QUIETLY.
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