“If you bring women together and you give them one goal, greatness will happen.” – Suné Luus
Telford Vice | Cape Town
WHILE Faf du Plessis was holed up in a Karachi hotel room on Saturday his compatriots were taking on Pakistan in an ODI at Kingsmead. Not that they were dressed like a South Africa team. They were all in black, as if they were a New Zealand white-ball side. But their names gave their nationality away: Laura Wolvaardt, Mignon du Preez, Marizanne Kapp, Shabnim Ismail, et al.
Why the change from the usual green gear? Because of the evil men do, and an effort to combat it. “Black Day” is a CSA initiative to raise the alarm about gender-based violence (GBV), an epidemic in South Africa. The World Health Organisation says femicide — the murder of women and girls because of their gender, and almost always committed by men — accounts for the deaths of 12.1 out of every 100,000 women in the country every year. That’s more than four-and-a-half times the global average of 2.6, and it’s only one of the shocking statistics on the apparent addiction South African men have to GBV. Another is that a woman is murdered every three hours in this country. Still another that someone is raped or sexually assaulted in what Interpol calls “the rape capital of the world” every 25 seconds.
“From a male perspective it’s really important that we create awareness on this,” Du Plessis told an online press conference. “It’s something I don’t take lightly. It’s not just a women’s problem in our country. It’s an ‘us’ problem in South Africa. Especially as males, we need to be better. If you look at the stats on gender-based violence in South Africa it is insanely ridiculous. It’s one of the most important things in our country that we as males need to do better; that our country becomes more aware of what’s actually going on and how bad that situation is. I’ve had lots of conversations on this specific topic. I want to learn as much as I can. The more you speak about it the more your jaw drops because of what’s going on in South Africa. This is something we as the men’s team can get involved in on a much higher scale.”
Suné Luus, who captained South Africa on Saturday in the absence of the injured Dané van Niekerk, told an online press conference last week: “This is such a big day for us, to help educate the people of South Africa and whoever is watching all over the world. That we as the Proteas and CSA stand against this is an important message. We’re trying to help wherever we can and make a difference. If you bring women together and you give them one goal, greatness will happen. That’s the vision for Black Day.”
Women’s Criczone, an online magazine, quoted Mignon du Preez as saying: “We have an opportunity to speak up against GBV and we want to really break the silence about violence and abuse. We know it’s family, friends … mothers, daughters [who go] through this. We really want to encourage men out there to also stand up, have a voice and be gutsy to speak up about it as a very sensitive topic. We need to take the lead and be role models and set good standards for our kids and encourage them to continue to live a life of respecting women.”
A CSA release quoted Mary Makgaba, the chief executive of People Opposing Women Abuse, a non-governmental organisation, as saying: “A nation which undermines the rule of law and does not protect women and children from acts of domestic violence, sexual violence, emotional violence, financial violence, physical violence and femicide is not a winning nation.”
That a high profile man should speak on the subject is at once right and part of the problem. Du Plessis is correct to say men are central to eradicating this tendency among South Africans. Misogyny, driven by cultural and religious prejudices, is rampant in all communities and at all socio-economic levels of the country’s deeply patriarchal society. South Africa’s constitution enshrines equality, but the document has little impact on the daily reality of the citizens whose lives it purports to govern. So it is sensible to enlist men in the fight against a scourge of their own making.
But some will wonder whether men will only take the issue seriously if a man demands their attention. They will point to the violence of another kind meted out to Candice Warner at St George’s Park during Australia’s tour in March 2018 — when spectators wore masks depicting a former lover’s face to try and bait her spouse, David Warner — as evidence of dangerous attitudes and behaviours in South African cricket. If those men could so brazenly abuse a woman they had never met, what would make them not beat up, rape and murder the women and girls in their lives?
Questions like that are a long way from being asked, nevermind answered. But at least Du Plessis has joined the conversation.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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