Blood On Our Hands

Local celebrity Siv Ngesi poses the question: In a country where over a trillion rand has been illegally wasted by the elite in a single decade, are free sanitary products too much to ask?

- Siv Ngesi

As an actor and media personality, I get to talk to many people about a variety of social issues. I have learned that some of the biggest challenges in our country today are made worse because people cannot, or will not, even name them, let alone speak openly about them.

Religious and cultural bias means that so many perfectly natural things are seen as shameful and taboo. While South Africa has come a long way in recent times towards becoming a more progressive nation, we still have a long way to go.

Gender equality has been a burning issue for decades, but despite a brilliant constitution on paper, we still do not treat women with the dignity and respect they deserve. A 2009 Medical Research Council (MRC) survey, publicised by Amnesty International, revealed that one in four men in South Africa have admitted to committing an act of rape. This is the despicable reality.

It’s easy to condemn society though, without taking an honest and brutal look at the way in which we form part of that society and its culture. I have become increasingly aware of the powerful role that I play in challenging my peers, my elders, and boys, with regard to gender equality. As fathers, brothers and sons, we have to work toward creating a world where women are not the victims of male power, but equal shareholders. We must start by looking within, for how can we change the world, if we do not change ourselves first?

ENTRENCHING INEQUALITY

Our society perpetuates gender inequality in a number of ways:

• Body shaming women through idealistic and misogynistic media campaigns

• Blaming the way women dress instead of the criminal behaviour of sexual offenders