JOIN USCaster is a hero, but all is not well in SA
The quiet bustle of Johannesburg’s OR Tambo airport gave way to a riot of noise and colour on Tuesday as more than 1,000 people welcomed their new sporting heroine. They sang, danced and waved posters proclaiming: “Our golden girl” and “Caster you beaut!”
The patriotic pride in Caster Semenya, the women’s 800m world champion ordered to undergo a ‘sex verification test’, was fierce and charged with historical grievance. South Africans rallied around her on websites and invoked the ghost of Saartjie Baartman, an 18th-century Khosian woman dubbed the ‘Hottentot Venus’ who was brought to the UK on account of her large backside common to the Khosian people and paraded naked for colonialists to prod her genitals with their umbrellas. The defiance went all the way to the top. President Jacob Zuma defended the 18-year-old against accusers who had seized on her androgynous appearance, deep voice and sudden improvement in form, and told her: “Walk tall. We’re proud of you. We love you.”
The fact that a man notorious for ‘macho politics’ was so quick to celebrate Caster may be political opportunism. But it also speaks to the paradox of a country where women hold significant positions of power yet challenges to notions of femininity are still violently suppressed — and where rape is a national epidemic. And Caster might have been embraced with adulation this week, but another sportswoman who transgressed gender expectations has met a very different fate.
Last year Eudy Simelane, who captained South Africa’s women football team, was gang-raped and beaten, before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs. This week, as Caster was praised by her countrymen, three men went on trial for Eudy’s murder. Gay and lesbian activists said that Eudy — a 29-year-old politically active lesbian of supposedly ‘butch’ appearance — was just the most high-profile victim of so-called ‘corrective rape’. That is the rape of a lesbian by a man to punish or ‘cure’ her sexual orientation.
Marlow Valentine of the Triangle project, a leading Southern African gay rights organisation, says: ‘It is mostly ‘butch-presenting’ women who are targeted and Eudy Simelane was seen as someone who challenged the normative ideas of what gender is. She was brutally murdered because she chose to live her life as a proud, visible and confident gay woman. Her life was taken because a group of men believed she was ‘other’.”
Shocking research published last year by ‘Triangle’ revealed that 10 cases of ‘corrective rape’ are reported in South Africa every week. An astonishing 31 lesbians have been reported murdered in homophobic attacks since 1998 but only two cases have made it to the courts and there has been only one conviction.
On paper, South Africa is progressive. Women MPs make up 44.5 per cent of its parliament, the third-highest representation in the world after Rwanda and Sweden. In 1994 it became the first country in the world to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in its constitution. It was also the first country in Africa to legalise gay marriage. Yet the reality is very different, says Phumi Mtetwa, executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project. “There are women in leadership roles but they don’t necessarily advance a female agenda. Let the ANC (African National Congress) produce a campaign in which we celebrate different gender identities.”
Sissies and butch
The criticism has been echoed by academics and activists in South Africa who, in a recent joint letter about Caster, said the country is still in thrall ‘to deeply held dominant ideas about what is ‘female’ and ‘male’. They added: “It is these ideas and actions that promote gender discrimination. This leads to men, who in societies’ terms do not look ‘masculine enough’, being called ‘sissies’ and women who look not ‘feminine enough’ being labelled ‘butch’.”
So how has Caster escaped South Africa’s gender policing? Is it a case of patriotism trumping prejudice — would she be defended so passionately if she had finished 12th in her race?
When the Guardian visited her home village in a remote rural area of Limpopo province, it found friends and neighbours who watched her wear trousers, play football with boys and shun talk of boyfriends — and who still accepted her unquestioningly. Dean Peacock, co-director of the Sonke Gender Justice Project, says: “Her parents have been very supportive. It doesn’t conform to the particular stereotype of rural families in Limpopo. I think Caster’s father is the unsung hero of this story.”
Recent research by the Sonke Project found traditional views of gender deeply entrenched in South Africa. Men said they felt a deep sense of shame when unable to fulfil the role of provider and protector, with male violence a possible consequence of feeling that their manhood is threatened. Working women are accepted but are still expected to take the majority of domestic and parenting responsibilities. Peacock finds the Caster episode encouraging, however. “It’s fantastic how supportive people have been of a bold and courageous young woman. She could easily have been the butt of jokes and homophobia but there has been none of that. She’s determined to resist conformity and be who she is, and that’s inspiring in a country where there isn’t a lot of space for complex gender identities.”
The Caster story has been complicated by racial politics, with leaders such as Malema and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela citing the struggle against apartheid and accusing the West of ‘imperialism’. In this case it is Europe, not Africa, that has proved intolerant and illiberal with its prurient commentaries and bookmakers taking bets on whether Caster will be found to be female, male or hermaphrodite. At the centre of it all is a shy teenager having the core of her identity assailed.
Vytjie Mentor, a female MP for the ANC, describes the events of the past week as a ‘milestone’ that stands in contrast to the murder of Eudy. “It looks like we are leaving that sad chapter behind,” she says. “This must be defended and multiplied.”
“Last night I watched a TV programme about young girls in Eastern Cape being forced into marriage. There was a 13-year-old girl who had been made pregnant against her will. So we cannot say we have arrived.”
Vytjie concludes: “There are a lot of contradictions in South Africa today, but the Caster case gives us hope.”
The Guardian