By MASIMBULELE BUSO and JONATHAN CAMPBELL
Gender-based violence (GBV) refers to any harm or violence perpetrated against a person because of their gender. This violence occurs against a person’s will, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether in public or private. This violence negatively impacts the person’s physical and psychological health.
GBV has its roots in gendered power inequities and culture and norms that exploit distinctions between males and females. An imbalance of power exists between males and females, which tends to favour males. This, in turn, creates opportunities for violence against women to occur. Men and boys are also victims of GBV, which should not be overlooked. However, the number of such cases is much smaller than violence against women.
GBV functions to humiliate and make disempowered individuals or groups of people feel inferior and subordinate. This violence is both a human rights and public health issue that affects individuals and impacts families, and communities in the short and long term.
In sum, GBV is violence against a person because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. GBV is extremely complex and manifests in many forms, including physical, psychosocial and sexual abuse. Because of the multifaceted nature of GBV, it is not unusual for a person to experience different types of GBV concurrently.
Sadly, GBV in its various forms has become so commonplace in South African society that most readers should be able to quickly identify instances of GBV that they have witnessed or become aware of.
Different forms of GBV
GBV occurs in different ways, including:
- Physical violence includes beating, burning, kicking, punching, biting, maiming or killing, or using objects or weapons.
- Verbal violence, which includes actions that are specific to a person, such as putdowns (in private or in front of others); ridiculing; the use of swear words that are especially uncomfortable for the other; saying bad things about the other’s loved ones; threatening with other forms of violence, either against the victim or against somebody dear to them. Abusers often consciously and deliberately target these actions in a way that is painful, humiliating and threatening to the victim.
- Psychological violence is withholding information, disinformation, isolation, and threatening behaviour. It includes conduct which lacks physical violence or verbal elements, for example, actions that refer to former acts of violence or purposeful ignorance and neglect of another person.
- Sexual violence includes engaging in non-consensual vaginal, anal or oral penetration with another person by the use of any body part or object; engaging in other non-consensual acts of a sexual nature with a person; or causing someone else to engage in non-consensual acts of a sexual nature with a third person.
- Harassment is unwanted direct or indirect conduct that is said to occur to violate a person’s dignity and create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
- Sexual harassment is where any form of unwanted verbal, nonverbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature occurs, with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
- Socio-economic abuse includes restricting access to a person’s financial means, taking away the victim’s earnings, not allowing them to have a separate income, or making the victim unfit for work through targeted physical abuse. Socio-economic gender-based violence contributes to women becoming economically dependent on their partners. Such a relation of dependency then offers someone with a tendency to be abusive in their relationships the chance to act without fear of losing their partner.
(Source: Adapted from Gender Matters – Manual on addressing gender-based violence affecting young people)
Gender-based violence, in its more subtle and insidious forms, can take place in seemingly harmless but damaging ways. Consider how verbal and psychological abuse could unfold from these everyday scenarios:
- A husband returns from work in a drunken state and finds that the food that his wife prepared is cold.
- A male manager is welcoming to his office a female intern that he finds particularly attractive.
Although communities have made strides in developing an understanding of GBV and its effects on individuals and families, not much action has been taken towards eradicating GBV. It is the responsibility of all of us to be aware that any gendered unconscious attitudes we hold do not manifest in conduct that is harmful to others, whatever form this harm may take.
Masimbulele Buso is Manager: Harassment, discrimination and gender harm at Rhodes University and Jonathan Campbell is director of the Rhodes University Law Clinic.
