We Say No: Stop Womens’ Abuse in SA

Guest Editorial: Michael Shackleton – South  African newspapers are carrying disturbing headlines and horrifying reports of how over the years large numbers of South African men have been brutalising their women.

Statistics are provided but these make little impact in comparison with the heartrending stories from the victims themselves. These are women of all backgrounds and cultures, teenagers, girlfriends, wives and mothers.

The spotlight is particularly on this scourge now because of an unusually high number of reported cases of women being humiliated, abused, raped or murdered by their men.

The minister of police, Fikile Mbalula, in reaction, has told journalists that he wants to ensure that no abused woman will be turned away from a police station in future. He wants them to be attended to with sensitivity and efficiency.

Women are finding it increasingly hard to live a dignified life at this time. Our society has become fragmented. The conventions and courtesies that once saw to it that women were treated with respect have been widely ditched. Because the elderly are frequently regarded as unproductive, too many are shunned or excluded from families and society. They live alone because no one cares.

Many of our female citizens are disenchanted and frustrated. They have come to distrust men, even members of their own families.

Has our society become blind to the fierce attacks on our own women? One might presume so, because there is so much distrust everywhere, generating pitiless apathy. This is not normal.

Womanhood and manhood are complementary, essential to the divine plan of creation and salvation. Woman and man possess the same dignity, created equally “in the image of God”.

In earlier times, when knights were reputedly paragons of virtue in their observance of manly courage, fearlessness, self-discipline and upholders of right conduct, their respect for women was a legendary part of their code of honour. It is said that much of this had its source in devotion to Mary, virgin and Mother of God.

As a spinoff from this, the gentlemanly convention of standing when a lady entered a room or standing back to let her pass first, became a common practice in much of daily life.

In a homily he preached on texts from Genesis and the Gospel of Mark, in the chapel of his residence in Rome earlier this year, Pope Francis told his listeners that it is women who teach us to caress, to love tenderly and who make the world something beautiful.

He said: “If exploiting people is a crime harmful to humanity, then exploiting a woman is all the more so, because it is destroying the harmony that God wanted to give the world.”

Discussing the creation of man and woman, in his own gentle and warm manner, Pope Francis remarked that with the creation of man it seems that everything is finished and God rests. But something is missing.

God recognises that man is lonely and it is not good that he should be alone.

God brings every beast of the field and bird of the air to him to see what he would call them, but these are not enough to provide true companionship. There is no helper fit for him.

Pope Francis makes the point that with the creation of such a helper, woman, the man finds something different. She brings richness and harmony to his life.

The exploitation of women, in Pope Francis’ understanding, is the same as the destruction of the harmony God wills for the world.

South Africans, especially Catholics, must take heart from these words. Mary, virgin and mother, the epitome of womanhood, gave birth to the man Jesus Christ, the Son of God. A new harmony has been divinely established in Christ.

In our preaching, teaching and good example, we can help one another to show respect for all, and particularly respect and protection for all women, the bringers of tenderness and harmony on earth.