SALON

Thursday, Mar 6, 2008 7:50 PM UTC

Take back the mini!

South African women protest violence using their heads -- and their legs.

By

Topics: Broadsheet, Love and Sex,

Take back the miniskirt! Sometimes, to fight violence against women, you have to show a little leg. Living in a land with the one of the highest incidences of rape in the world and a culture that condones random groping of women in public can’t be a walk in the park. If women turned hopeless and humorless, who could blame them?

So the way several hundred South African women decided to protest a recent case, in which a group of taxi drivers and street hawkers attacked a young woman and tore off her clothes, because she’d allegedly dressed too provocatively, struck me as particularly brave and brilliant. They held a miniskirt march. Like the Take Back the Night marches of the 1980s, this one demands that society not blame women for what they are wearing or what dark alley they happen to walk down.

Silly? A knee-jerk recourse to the mantra that sex sells even feminism? Maybe in the U.S., it would be a little over the top. But context is everything. Some of the women quoted in the article explain that they never dress up because they are afraid of ever-present attacks from gropers.

Some men quoted seem to agree that a short skirt is ample excuse for an attack. One taxi driver (apparently getting attacked by taxi drivers is far from uncommon) told Agence France-Presse that “if you are wearing a miniskirt, you give the impression you want to be raped. You respect yourself when you wear a longer skirt. We respect women who respect themselves.” Another guy watching the protest explained, “It is difficult when women are naked. That’s how some men end up raping women.”

It’s refreshing to see that even if they have to dress defensively day to day, South African women haven’t internalized this atavistic view of their bodies. Unfortunately, the problem of rape in South Africa is far deeper and more intractable than a simple matter of horny men and sexily clad women. Rapes in South Africa affect girls and women of all ages — from infants to old ladies. In the end it will take a lot more than a bunch of skirts to create a taboo around rape and offer all girls and women some modicum of safety from sexual attack. But in the meantime, it may take more than a big mouth to make a loud point. It may take a little extra leg.

Carol Lloyd is currently at work on a book about the gentrification wars in San Francisco's Mission District. More Carol Lloyd.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 20 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations