It is so good to be back in Swaziland. After being in the 1st world for two whole weeks and not receiving a single marriage proposal I thought I had lost my touch at attracting men. But no worries, I arrived to the airport in South Africa and even before I could make it to the khumbi that would take me home to Swaziland I was proposed to. Whew! I was getting nervous there for a minute with the lack of male attention I had recieved in the last week.
Ok, I must admit that I got a lot of attention while in America, but it was a different kind of attention. You all in America asked me questions and had genuine interest in the answers (unless we were talking about my bathroom situation!). Unfortunately quality conversations between Swazi men and me are generally few and far between.
While I was in America, current events in Swaziland included a group of young women who protested the harassment they receive in the bus rank by marching through the bus rank in their miniskirts. So now it is up in the air whether a woman can lawfully wear a miniskirt. The law makes obvious sense, right? Because when a man sees a women wearing a miniskirt he finds it impossible to control himself and as a result this impulse may force him to rape the young woman. She deserved the unwarranted attention, harassment, or rape and essentially asked for it when she decided to wear that miniskirt. The police commissioner, a woman, confirmed these facts too. (No lie, check out the Sunday Newspaper.)
After a conversation about the miniskirt law, a male counterpart of mine also confirmed this train of thought that it is the woman’s fault for the unwarranted attention because her attire is asking for it. Then a female counterpart told me that in fact, a man cannot control himself and he has no choice but to follow his impulses.
“I don’t wear miniskirts, why then, do they harass me too?” I asked. “They like you because you are white,” my counterparts told me. (What an epiphany!) So I conclude that my white skin is a signal to men that I want them to harass me just like the girls who wear fashionable clothes that are shorter or more fitted than their mother’s clothes. They basically told me that its not the mens' faults who harrass me, its my fault because I am white.
Another event that happened last month was Swaziland’s traditional ceremony called Incwala “First Fruits Festival.” It is a month long traditional ceremony with many parts to it, most of which are shrouded in secrecy and performed out of the public eye. (You have to check out this other blog.) During the lead up to the big part of the festival the King’s regiments (soldiers) travel around the country policing the traditional values of the citizens, particularly targeting women who wear pants or paint their nails (scandalous!). If a woman is caught wearing trousers or breaking any of the other multiple traditional rules she must pay a fine right then and there, and if she doesn’t have the money to pay they can basically hold her prisoner until she finds means to pay the fine.
So after these series of unfortunate current event stories and the conversations that ensued following them, the worst part is the ease at which both Swazi men and women I talk to blame the harassment on woman rather than on the culture that promotes female subservience. It is a culture where a woman cannot say “No” to a man and at the same time it is a country that can’t seem to figure out how to curb the spread of HIV and has the highest HIV prevalence in the entire world.
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