There is a need for a second opinion on the misdiagnosed social ill that is gender-based violence (GBV). Particularly intimate partner violence (IPV), which accounts for the overwhelming majority of GBV cases, or interchangeably GBVF as expanded.
Our inability to find a cure to this intractable scourge may be down to government, society, and us individually, having got the pulse of the problem wrong.
First up, the government, which frankly is doing less than nothing to arrest this scourge.
The government’s harebrained “National strategic plan (NSP) on gender-based violence & femicide 2020-2030″ does not seem to have any solutions.
The plan on GBVF is fodder out of “new dawn” Ramaphoria from the first Presidential Summit on GBVF that took place in November 2018.
It is gathering dust at the Union Buildings.
The permanent national council on GBVF, the custodian of the national plan and its implementation, is yet to be appointed, let alone parliament pass a Bill (introduced in November 2022) on its establishment.
President Cyril Ramaphosa had hoped it was going to be constituted at the beginning of the 2020/2021 financial year.
This year marks five years from its deadline, with this year also supposed to be its first five-yearly review.
The NSP seems to, at the very least, acknowledge enablers, drivers and exacerbating factors of GBV but attributes the root to one sex.
To find anything close to a solution in preventing and eliminating intimate partner violence, we must first strip the psychosexual monster of its genitalia.
Notwithstanding disproportionality, and emotions, we must first accept that both men and women are perpetrating violence towards their intimate partners to the extent of murdering them.
In his century-old seminal paper “Social change with respect to culture and original nature”, early 20th century American sociologist William Fielding Ogburn first introduced the concept that he called “cultural lag” in social evolution.
This concept can be applied to the problem of GBV today, as the cultural lag between social change or evolution and social norms (cultural evolution), manifests itself in disconnect and conflict between the sexes, and intergenerationally.
Ogburn cogently summarised material culture as lived realities such as laws and technology and non-material culture as traditional cultural values, such as family and religious rules and values.
As it were, women and the young benefit most from material culture, while men and the elderly hold back or maintain most of the non-material culture status quo.
Civilisation and changes towards women-friendly laws (material culture) to empower and protect women in relationships and marriages and the workplace, are happening at a rapid rate now more than ever as opposed to non-material culture.
This lag puts stress on the power dynamics between the sexes and exacerbates the default conflict between generations.
To demonstrate the deluge of advancement in material culture in SA over the last two decades, I will cite a number of examples.
These include progressive legislation for or against abortion and adoption, medical reproductive technological advancements and innovations on fertility and delay such as IVF (in-vitro fertilisation), egg/sperm donation and surrogacy, and egg/sperm freezing.
Also, female condoms and emergency and injectable contraceptives, gender re-engineering, DNA paternity testing, women/men health interventions and sexual performance enhancers.
Progressive social norms, social media and dating apps, paid parental or maternal/menstrual leave and equal gender pay, access to housing and land (including title deeds, and in traditional authorities), co-living, co-parenting and remote work opportunities and other economic opportunities.
Others are divorce and marriage law regimes, spousal or child maintenance and custody laws, abuse, intimidation and abandonment of children, protection orders and access to safe houses/shelters, GBV hotlines and EMS e-panic buttons.
Also, food delivery and e-hailer services, HIV pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis, medical and life covers and social grants.
All these developments contribute to GBV. GBV is where the idiom “we are victims of our own success” rings true.
Material culture in developing countries such as ours has resulted in a wider cultural lag, compared to smaller lags for both developed and underdeveloped economies, albeit at different ends of the scale.
The corollary of these developments is the heightened crisis of GBV.
And now enter uncertainty on how disruptive artificial intelligence, robots and machine learning, decriminalisation of sex work, and other advances of material culture may become.
Having a man get married and/or starting a family is no longer an urgent priority over other things such as career and education.
In the South African context, cultural lag is aggravated by a widening class divide and badge of dishonour as the most unequal society in the world brought about by the conflict between the poor and the rich, and the educated and the uneducated.
This has resulted in the well-to-do and the educated, mostly men (across race), using this power dynamic and dogmatism as currency to enter into relations or aggravate GBV.
It’s no coincidence the cases of GBV generally, though still under-reported to the SA Police Service, have shot up in the last 20 years or so.
To further simplify this irreducible concept as it pertains to psychosexual relationships and resulting strife, cultural lag speaks on how one relates to a sexual partner today is conditioned or informed by what they’ve learnt in their environment in their formative years of dating or interpersonal integration.
This lag can drag stagnantly for more than 10 years.
Meaning a 35-year-old today relates to the opposite sex on their experiences as they were between the years 2005 and 2010.
This generational divide — sometimes by as much as four decades — offers plenty of scope for misunderstanding.
Consent and rape had different interpretations then.
Buying someone drinks or offering them a ride may have been an implicit sexual proposition, and similarly accepted with that understanding.
Ogling and wolf-whistling weren’t incredulous sexual harassment as they are today.
There are many salutary examples that come to mind if you look around.
This realisation has been borne on the successful prosecution of high-profile historical sex cases in the West.
People enter relationships with unrealistic expectations of each other.
They have scenarios locked in their heads.
When they realise they have been scammed, made fools of or had their time wasted in relationships and marriage, it becomes a bitter pill to swallow — leading to resentment.
Survival instincts kick in to maintain the status quo or push back or demand, promote and advance changes.
This is when each person will draw on their intractable disposition, temperament and personality traits, some of which are genetic.
GBV and IPV is further aggravated and exacerbated by factors such as drugs and alcohol, mental health, insidious materialism and greed, cost of living (economic), misandry and toxic masculinity, and past experiences.
Yet the government has been pulling in an opposite direction instead of addressing or militating against the impact of both material culture and exacerbating factors.
Truth is, if any government in the world claims to be doing enough in the war against gender-based violence, it is either misleading the population or displaying a poorly disguised helplessness.
Thus the problem of GBV cannot be down to one thing, intrinsic to a specific sex. Because if it were, it would be easy to solve.
There is a nexus between cultural lag and GBVF.
The harsh reality is we are in a period of unprecedented development and evolution and progressive laws and constitutionalism that unfortunately stretch cultural lag and have an impact on GBVF.
As it’s difficult to predict, pre-empt and plan for the future, or be receptive to uncertain change, the storm will only be over at holy grail equilibrium.
Thus, until this phase of growth equalises, slows down or passes, we’ll just have to weather the storm of high GBVF figures.
Makgwathane Mothapo consults in the crisis and reputation management space.
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