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The Economic Vulnerability of Women and Links to Gender-Based Violence

10 December 2020 | Story Gcina Mtengwane and Andiswa Khumalo | Photo Scott sa ha Molefe (Scott Photography)

Gender-based violence can be understood as violence that is perpetuated as a result of normative role expectations associated with gender, power, and culture. It takes different forms. The most common forms are physical, emotional, psychological, verbal, domestic and socio-economic violence, to mention a few.

It is a profound, widespread, and pressing matter in South Africa and beyond its borders. In its entirety, gender-based violence is a threat to the economy, society, and humanity, as it creates emotional, social, and economic unrest that prohibits the growth and success of individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole. More than 30% of women in South Africa suffer from gender-based violence in the form of harassment, rape, femicide or domestic violence. Although women and young girls are the worst affected by gender-based violence, the term and act apply to both genders, including men and young boys.

Economic vulnerability of women

Notwithstanding the fact that gender-based violence happens to both genders, it is worth noting that women are the worst affected. There is a myriad of reasons for this. This article puts its focus on the economic vulnerability of women as both a cause and a propellant of gender-based violence. What we argue here is that there are structural socio-economic differentials that create and perpetuate the vulnerability of women to gender-based violence. We further posit that unless these vulnerabilities are addressed, gender-based violence will be a persistent problem for generations to come.

Our starting point is that women in South Africa generally have a higher unemployment rate than men. Additional to this, women struggle to ascertain livelihoods outside employment. This means that even in cases where women are employed, they will earn less than men. Furthermore, women also struggle to succeed in entrepreneurship. This can be associated with the ‘unpaid normative duties’ of child-rearing and household maintenance. This makes them vulnerable to abuse, as they cannot exercise their independent social and economic existence outside the confines and control of the male partner. It is worth noting that black African women are the most vulnerable, with an unemployment rate of more than 30%.

More worrying is that more than four out of every ten young females (15-34) are not in employment, education, or training (NEET). This further exacerbates the vulnerability context across all ages. Females consistently record a higher headcount; however, they remain behind in social, political, economic, and cultural matters. To amplify this, Statistics SA (2020) reports that 39,2% of female-headed households in South Africa do not have an employed member of the household.

Another point of concern is that there is a ‘social class and income link’ associated with gender-based violence. Gender-based violence is more prevalent among less-educated women than those with secondary education or higher. Additional to this, wealth/income is a key factor in the prevalence of gender-based violence. To that end, Statistics SA (2020) reported that the prevalence of physical and sexual violence decreased with the wealth quintile. In other words, the higher the wealth/income, the lower the prevalence of gender-based violence.

Overcoming economic vulnerability

Over and above all of this, the bigger question is, ‘how do we overcome the economic vulnerability that subjects poor women to gender-based violence?’ Here are a few contemplations:
1) Empowerment of women and economic justice. It may be good to take more deliberate and decisive action to capacitate women to a point where they are able to support their own livelihoods outside of economic dependence on a male.
2) Unlearning the outdated gender roles. Research suggests that more and more women are exiting the ‘nurturing and child-rearing’ role. This is because of the rising cost of living. Technology has made paid work less labour intensive. This then eliminates physical traits as a requirement for high-paying employment opportunities.
3) Socio-cultural re-engineering. This speaks to unlearning outdated cultural norms and dictates. While noting that every society, ethnic group, and culture has gender role expectations, these can also change over time. Perhaps now is the time for those expectations to change. If its existence is tantamount to abuse and even death, then certainly we need to unlearn the toxic and outdated and learn the forward-looking and solidarity-inducing doctrine.
4) Women as spearheads in women’s issues to inform legislation, policy, and practice. As the adage goes, ‘one is the master of your own condition’. This means that a person’s awareness of her/his condition allows them to be better suited to make the best inputs to liberate herself and those in like conditions.

A lot more than what we suggest can be done to uplift women from the economic vulnerability that subjects them to gender-based violence in the household and elsewhere. We do not hold a monopoly on gender-based violence and the solutions therein. Our only hope is to spark a conversation that will contribute to feasible real-life solutions to one of our biggest and far-reaching challenges as a nation – gender-based violence and its socio-economic roots.

News Archive

Media: ANC can learn a lesson from Moshoeshoe

2006-05-20

27/05/2006 20:32 - (SA)
ANC can learn a lesson from Moshoeshoe
ON 2004, the University of the Free State turned 100 years old. As part of its centenary celebrations, the idea of the Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture was mooted as part of another idea: to promote the study of the meaning of Moshoeshoe.

This lecture comes at a critical point in South Africa's still-new democracy. There are indications that the value of public engagement that Moshoeshoe prized highly through his lipitso [community gatherings], and now also a prized feature in our democracy, may be under serious threat. It is for this reason that I would like to dedicate this lecture to all those in our country and elsewhere who daily or weekly, or however frequently, have had the courage to express their considered opinions on pressing matters facing our society. They may be columnists, editors, commentators, artists of all kinds, academics and writers of letters to the editor, non-violent protesters with their placards and cartoonists who put a mirror in front of our eyes.

There is a remarkable story of how Moshoeshoe dealt with Mzilikazi, the aggressor who attacked Thaba Bosiu and failed. So when Mzilikazi retreated from Thaba Bosiu with a bruised ego after failing to take over the mountain, Moshoeshoe, in an unexpected turn of events, sent him cattle to return home bruised but grateful for the generosity of a victorious target of his aggression. At least he would not starve along the way. It was a devastating act of magnanimity which signalled a phenomenal role change.

"If only you had asked," Moshoeshoe seemed to be saying, "I could have given you some cattle. Have them anyway."

It was impossible for Mzilikazi not to have felt ashamed. At the same time, he could still present himself to his people as one who was so feared that even in defeat he was given cattle. At any rate, he never returned.

I look at our situation in South Africa and find that the wisdom of Moshoeshoe's method produced one of the defining moments that led to South Africa's momentous transition to democracy. Part of Nelson Mandela's legacy is precisely this: what I have called counter-intuitive leadership and the immense possibilities it offers for re-imagining whole societies.

A number of events in the past 12 months have made me wonder whether we are faced with a new situation that may have arisen. An increasing number of highly intelligent, sensitive and highly committed South Africans across the class, racial and cultural spectrum confess to feeling uncertain and vulnerable as never before since 1994. When indomitable optimists confess to having a sense of things unhinging, the misery of anxiety spreads. It must have something to do with an accumulation of events that convey the sense of impending implosion. It is the sense that events are spiralling out of control and no one among the leadership of the country seems to have a handle on things.

I should mention the one event that has dominated the national scene continuously for many months now. It is, of course, the trying events around the recent trial and acquittal of Jacob Zuma. The aftermath continues to dominate the news and public discourse. What, really, have we learnt or are learning from it all? It is probably too early to tell. Yet the drama seems far from over, promising to keep us all without relief, and in a state of anguish. It seems poised to reveal more faultlines in our national life than answers and solutions.

We need a mechanism that will affirm the different positions of the contestants validating their honesty in a way that will give the public confidence that real solutions are possible. It is this kind of openness, which never comes easily, that leads to breakthrough solutions, of the kind Moshoeshoe's wisdom symbolises.

Who will take this courageous step? What is clear is that a complex democracy like South Africa's cannot survive a single authority. Only multiple authorities within a constitutional framework have a real chance. I want to press this matter further.

Could it be that part of the problem is that we are unable to deal with the notion of "opposition". We are horrified that any of us could become "the opposition". In reality, it is time we began to anticipate the arrival of a moment when there was no longer a single [overwhelmingly] dominant political force as is currently the case. Such is the course of change. The measure of the maturity of the current political environment will be in how it can create conditions that anticipate that moment rather than ones that seek to prevent it. This is the formidable challenge of a popular post-apartheid political movement.

Can it conceptually anticipate a future when it is no longer overwhelmingly in control, in the form in which it currently is and resist, counter-intuitively, the temptation to prevent such an eventuality? Successfully resisting such an option would enable its current vision and its ultimate legacy to our country to manifest itself in different articulations of itself, which then contend for social influence.

In this way, the vision never really dies, it simply evolves into higher, more complex forms of itself. If the resulting versions are what is called "the opposition" that should not be such a bad thing - unless we want to invent another name for it. The image of flying ants going off to start other similar settlements is not so inappropriate.

I do not wish to suggest that the nuptial flights of the alliance partners are about to occur: only that it is a mark of leadership foresight to anticipate them conceptually. Any political movement that has visions of itself as a perpetual entity should look at the compelling evidence of history. Few have survived those defining moments when they should have been more elastic, and that because they were not, did not live to see the next day.

I believe we may have reached a moment not fundamentally different from the sobering, yet uplifting and vision-making, nation-building realities that led to Kempton Park in the early 1990s. The difference between then and now is that the black majority is not facing white compatriots across the negotiating table. Rather, it is facing itself: perhaps really for the first time since 1994. It is not a time for repeating old platitudes. Could we apply to ourselves the same degree of inventiveness and rigorous negotiation we displayed up to the adoption or our Constitution?

Morena Moshoeshoe faced similarly formative challenges. He seems to have been a great listener. No problem was too insignificant that it could not be addressed. He seems to have networked actively across the spectrum of society. He seems to have kept a close eye on the world beyond Lesotho, forming strong friendships and alliances, weighing his options constantly. He seems to have had patience and forbearance. He had tons of data before him before he could propose the unexpected. He tells us across the years that moments of renewal demand no less.

This is an editied version of the inaugural Moshoeshoe Memorial Lecture presented by Univeristy of Cape Town vice-chancellor Professor Ndebele at the University of the Free State on Thursday. Perspectives on Leadership Challenges In South Africa

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