Dela Gwala and Priyanka Naidoo examine how UCT is dealing with the "rape culture" on campus.
Dela Gwala (@indie1activist) tweeted: “UCT never condemns the constant acts of sexual violence that happen here. If they speak now we will know why.”
The answer to this question of “why?” lies in the fact that three days ago #RapeAtAzania was trending nationally on Twitter. If there is anything that pushes UCT management to take a stance on any issue, it’s bad PR.
Survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment started tweeting their experiences of sidelining and silencing at the institution unfiltered. One survivor spoke of having to take a leave of absence in order to not encounter her rapist on campus grounds daily.
This is one of the “protections” UCT has in its policy – you can go, but the rapist gets to stay.
Others have tweeted about the serial offenders and cases that have recently come to light at UCT. One of the students spoke of the case of a pastor, who runs a Christian organisation on campus, who has been reported for sexually assaulting nine female students. Several years ago, the pastor in question had been reported by three students for sexual harassment and had been subsequently banned from campus.
Last month, about a 100 students protested on Hiddingh Campus against the lukewarm institutional response from UCT when these cases are brought forward. The students raised their voices and placards after a first-year student had been sexually assaulted by a male student in a bathroom. The perpetrator is a known serial offender with numerous complaints already lodged against him.
This seems to be an alarmingly common trend at UCT. A blog called UCTSurvivors (http://UCTsurvivors.wordpress.com) details a few stories brought forward by survivors, of reporting their perpetrator and then finding out that this person has been reported multiple times – yet hasn’t been disciplined.
Survivors also detail their decision not to move forward with the charges due to lack of faith in the systems and structures in place, and the knowledge that the university really doesn’t do much to protect them from retaliation from the perpetrator.
The office that deals with these cases, The Discrimination and Harassment Office, is understaffed, under-resourced, ineffective and currently under review.
Patriarchy Must Fall as a movement exists because of UCT’s secretive and tight-lipped approach to dealing with the rape culture that exists on its campus. During the mobilisation that birthed this movement, students stood up and told stories of the fear and threat that comes with living in UCT’s residences. Womxn* spoke about what it feels like to inhabit a space where some of the students in male residences sing about raping womxn until they’re dead. Others spoke of choosing to starve rather than eat in the allocated dining halls in male residences. Some spoke of the degradation that happens in O-week – having condoms thrown at them when they attend an event. Furthermore, various pubs within male residences have misogynistic names like the “Puss & Pint” at College House.
When protesting against these issues at one of the male residences, Leo Marquard Hall, students had eggs thrown at them. At a march a few days later, a male student turned on his music to drown out the protesters who had gathered to share their experiences of sexual violence.
There’s immense power in the fact that one of our members came up with the hashtag #RapeAtAzania. We were cautioned by many people about circulating the picture of the perpetrator. However, many people don’t realise that this is a silencing mechanism and plays directly into rape culture. We took the decision not to sugarcoat what happened by using words like “allegedly”. “Alleged” is a manifestation of the pervasive culture where occurrences of rape are never believed, because womxn are “overly sensitive liars”. There exists a victim-blaming mentality in the subtext of “alleged”, forcing the survivor to go to great lengths to prove that it was “REALLY” rape.
Azania House was meant to be a safe space for all black bodies on campus who are constantly confronted by the institutionalised racism and structural oppression of UCT. It is thus painfully ironic that this happened here.
As Dela Gwala (@indie1activist) has said on Twitter: “We are done with ‘liberation spaces’ where we are told to swallow violence for the sake of unity. The patriarchy will fall NOW #RapeAtAzania”
The issues of hyper-masculinity and patriarchy have been sidelined by issues of race and class in these student movements; by now it has become overtly clear that race, class and gender are very much intersectional, especially in the South African context.
This means that these issues are interconnected and these discussions need to happen simultaneously. As #PatriarchyMustFall (@UCT_PMF) tweeted: “Why do student movements think it’s legitimate to outsource their intersectionality?” It has become clear that UCT does not prioritise gender-based violence and neither do liberation movements.
Everyone is complicit – your silence implicates you. This is especially true in an institution such as UCT, which cares more about its public relations than the lives of students who are subjected to violence – something they don’t tell you in the Brochure.
* Intentional spelling. “Womxn” is transgender, gender non-conforming and gender non-binary inclusive.
** Gwala, Naidoo are with UCT’s #PatriarchyMustFall movement
***The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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