al-m zan Newsletter of the Claremont Main Road Masjid ° No. 21
Mawlud 1439 November 2017 °
Gender-Based Violence & Toxic Masculinity Mujahid Osman
dignity in our society. This is the real structural gender-based violence.
Over the last few years there have been a number of well-documented gruesome cases of gender-based violence in our country. For a time, it has flared societal outrage, protest and collective introspection. We then live in a moment of hope. Hope for renewed moral courage in which we will tackle this epidemic. But nothing really does change in a country marked by unusually high levels of rape, femicide (killing of women and girl children) and gender-based violence. There are a number of factors which perpetuate gender-based violence and if we seriously want to tackle this epidemic, we need to, firstly, acknowledge the failure of our current models and start creating new ways of being human, in which our humanity is not dependent on the violation of the dignity of others. The media has often singled out murder and rape as the only or most prevalent form of gender-based violence. However, genderbased violence manifests in many ways. In this regard, other forms of gender-based violence are also direct consequences of our patriarchal society in which gender-based violence manifests in our homes, masajid, schools, work places and sports fields. Here, I am talking about the ‘silent’ or ‘structural’ violence that often happens in a home, when men verbally or emotionally abuse women through powers of control and manipulation. These are behaviours that are endemic of our patriarchal culture that inflicts violence on women by making us believe that men’s ‘needs’ and men’s ‘voices’ are more important than women’s rights, freedom, safety and
In our communities, many men are guilty of these forms of gender-based violence and this is much more prevalent as opposed to rape and murder. When we keep referring only to rape and murder, men think they are not guilty of gender-based violence. The dignity of women is impugned in such controlling or ‘abusive’ behaviours, and yet, we, as a male-dominated community, often tolerate it.
“We learnt how to be cold, unemotional and dominant. We can learn how to be warm, compassionate and caring. i.e. we can learn how to be different men.” One of the main contributing factors to the scourge of gender-based violence is what activists are calling “toxic masculinity.” What this understanding of toxic masculinity or ways of performing “manhood” or “being a man” displays is that to be a real man “is to be dominant, powerful, unemotional, rational, entitled to respect and sex-obsessed. But on top of that, this masculinity is always cast as the opposite of anything deemed feminine or queer” (Jameel 2017). While this limited understanding of manhood is harming to other people, it is also detrimental to men themselves (Jameel 2017). In this regard, “toxic masculinity casts a vision of a human who is not allowed to feel, must bear the brunt of all their problems alone, is unable to express emotion and must at all times conform to a very narrow ideal of what it is to be human. It’s very limiting – and this kind of existential repression can lead to serious mental health issues” (Jameel 2017). The thing about “toxic masculinity” is that
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it is a learnt behavior. We learnt how to be cold, unemotional and dominant. We can learn how to be warm, compassionate and caring. i.e. we can learn how to be different men. What this crisis has shown is a particular failure of our models to be human beings, more particularly, gendered human beings. The violence in this world is a product that we have created. In April 2013, A/Prof. Sa’diyya Shaikh made an astute point about this very same topic and said: “We cannot think of the problem as out there. We are not separate from the people and the things that take place in our society. The dehumanisation of human beings around us, is the dehumanisation of each of our own beings. Each of us is intimately connected with each other’s life around us in ways that are both subtle and evident.” She then goes on to indicate that while we might brand these men as monsters, evil and others, we also need to take note of the fact that these men were also created and are part of the society that we allowed to be fashioned (Shaikh 2013). While these men have decided to sink, to what the Qur’an (95:4) describes as the “lowest of the low” these human beings are part of our society. What this crisis shows is the failure of our current ways of being. Ways that are destructive. Greedy. Self-indulgent. Violent. Ways that mimic broader structural injustice of racism, classism, homophobia, capitalism, ableism, and environmental destruction. Gendered violence, is among other things a failure of our own moral capacities to imagine, demand and live with a vision of human flourishing which is premised on social justice (`adl), compassion (rahma) and human dignity (karama). Our current situation is both a time of crisis and a time of opportunity. [This is an edited version of a khutbah delivered at CMRM on Friday 4 August 2017]
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www.cmrm.co.za 2017/11/20 10:54 PM