“Women are loose” and “Men are irresponsible”

- Images of contested domination, spousal witchcraft accusations and violence

By Cecilie Jacobsen

 

 

Violence against women exists all over the world and takes place in many forms. Amongst which can be mentioned sexual violence, such as rape, and mental and physical abuse. South Africa has been mapped as one of the countries with extremely high rates of violence against women.[1] Most of this violence takes place within the domestic sphere, which indicates that the home is one of the most dangerous places for a woman and it is estimated that one in every four women are assaulted by their husband or boyfriend every week.[2]

 

In the South African lowveld, where I conducted ethnographic fieldwork on domestic violence, violence against women can be linked to witchcraft accusations made against women, here in particular wives. Several women in the Timbavati village section are accused of being witches by their spouses and subsequently punished through the use of various forms of violence. In this respect violence against women and witchcraft is interconnected in this sense that the effects of witchcraft accusations somehow legalises domestic violence. In the light of this, anthropologist Isak Niehaus, who has worked with the issues of witchcraft in the lowveld for more than 20 years, mentions that witchcraft is a way of experiencing the world and that it has multiple meanings to multiple people. Yet witchcraft accusations, taking place in the domestic sphere often works in a way that is directed at people that somehow belong to subordinate or suppressed groups of people, such as elderly dependants and women who are considered a burden to their dependants. Niehaus thus emphasise, that it is possible to view witchcraft accusations in the lowveld as a mean to defend, protect and reinforce social inequality.[3] It is here important to pay attention to the way in which witchcraft is grounded in structures of domination, may be shaped by political agendas and can perpetuate the subordination of certain categories of people. Witchcraft accusations should not be understood as an expression of social tension or the break-down of a social order (anomie), but rather a social phenomenon that constitutes part of a given social order. Witchcraft is thus not a consequence of an oppressive system such as Apartheid, even though an oppressive system might foster relations of inequality which can be maintained through witchcraft accusations.[4]

 

In this article, I would like to focus on structures of power in domestic violence and its linkage to witchcraft accusation by focusing on gender relations and a changing socio-economic context in South Africa. I would like to draw attention to data from my own research in the lowveld by pointing at some contextual factors, such as migrant labour and unemployment which according to local contextualisation has made marriage a very fragile institution. These contextual factors do, however, reflect the general situation in South Africa and can thereby shed some light on the interconnected issue on the use of violence on women and the accusations of women as witches in South Africa.

My central argument is that there are several contextual factors which have fostered a situation in contemporary South Africa where men are finding it difficult to live up to the provider role associated with masculinity and women increasingly are expressing resentment towards male dominance and omnipotence by drawing on discourses on women’s rights. I will argue that men turn to violence and witchcraft accusations in situations where they are to fulfil their role as provider in order to maintain fantasies of power. The ambiguity that is imbedded in both men and women’s gender roles does in this respect play an important factor in understanding local contextualisations of gender relations. These point towards strong gender antagonisms between men and women and give shape and form to violence against women and witchcraft accusations making this an expression of particular problems at a particular time in history in South Africa.

I do not wish to claim that witchcraft accusations are only made towards women. Nor is violence involved every time a woman is accused of being a witch or when a husband and wife are experiencing disputes in their married life. My argument is, however, that there are some common denominators which link witchcraft and violence against women which shall be found in the way women and men are constructed as well as in the way both genders are portrayed in contemporary South Africa. My point of interest is to create an understanding of the violence women are experiencing as wives and how this links up with accusations made against them as witches in the domestic sphere.

 

Gender constructs

I have through an analysis of everyday life in Timbavati discovered that there exist some very overall ideal gender constructs which reflect what it means to be a man or a woman and a good mother or husband. These ideals are ascribed to gender categories and are expressions of a hegemonic discourse which defines “a good woman and man”. In Timbavati, the “good” woman is the one who does not quarrel and knows her place is under the man; she does not go with men other than her husband and she must respect everyone and she must also plan for the future and be sensible with money her husband gives her. A man, on the other hand, must provide for his family, pay school fees and make sure that his family does not need anything. The good man is not “really” supposed to have any mistresses or any more than one wife; it is important that if he does, he should provide for them all and his other children if he is to be respected by others.

An elderly female informant says:

“A good women must do good things for her husband. She must cook for him, wash for him and do everything. Even if he comes home at midnight and says, “I want food”, you must wake up and give him food. A man, meanwhile working in Johannesburg, he must make sure that his wife looks nice, build her a house, give her money and do good things for her”.

 

The attributes assigned to gender categories are thus based upon conceptions of what men and women do/should do, for instance, in through the division of labour. This means, that men should ultimately be providers and women should be provided for. Failing to live up to expectations and obligations that are ascribed to ones gender can result in social disapproval and sanctions such as, for instance, beatings, divorce and witchcraft accusations. This means that it is not just sufficient to be a father or a mother, husband or wife, but it is also important how one fulfils the social functions attached to these expectations and obligations.

However, relatively few man and women live up to these social constructions of gender in reality in contemporary South Africa and in this sense there are strong discrepancies between ideals and social reality.

Before population removals and “villagisation” in the 1960s, households in the Timbavati village section were to a large extent built up around patriarchal relations. While white farm owners granted land to African men, it was mainly women who were responsible for the agricultural production. Jeff Guy has, in a Southern African pre-colonial context, argued that women, in fact, were the sole providers on which society rested; both in relation to production and reproduction. Thus women were very important in terms of the value of their ability to work as well as to produce children. Re-productive and productive skills were therefore one of the main reasons that men felt such as an urge to control women.[5] Before population removals in Timbavati both labour tenancy and share-cropping was practised and both arrangements were characterised by a respectful union between farm owner and tenant, one based on maleness and seniority, where wages were paid directly to men giving them direct control over the subsistence of the household.[6] While women carried out the work both in the fields and the homes, men supervised and managed the production. As heads of households men were therefore able to get wives, daughters and sisters to labour for their own objectives, which was a great source of pride. According to oral accounts of especially elderly men in Timbavati, these times were considered as good, where money was not needed, food was plentiful, children and wives many. An elderly male informant is in relation to this, expressing his frustration with regard to providing for his family:

“Today a man will have one wife and two children and he will fail to support them, because there are no jobs. Men would like to have many wives but it is too expensive. For example a man down there [pointing to his right] he had five wives and even 29 children and he supported them all”.

 

Before the population removals, migrant labour contracts were often short. Many young men went to work in the mines or on white-owned farms in order to raise money for bridewealth, but remained in close contact with the homestead. Thus, when the male head of the household migrated, he would often attempt to retain close bonds with the household. Very few women participated in migrant labour. Their place was in the rural homesteads and with the children. Few had, however, seasonal work on white-owned farms.

 

After the reallocations in 1972, there was as mentioned considerably less land available in rural areas. One of the greatest consequences for the family and gender relations was that both senior and young men were forced to become migrant labourers and thus had to leave their families behind. The result quite often was that only women, the elderly and children populated entire villages. Migrant labour should thus be seen as a response to a declining economy and as a consequence of the homeland’s ecological breakdown.

The wage labour economy resulted in the fact that many young men became the ‘breadwinner’ of their families and consequently men often find that their grandparents, parents, wives, children, brothers and so on are financially depending on their income.[7] This meant that wife and husband increasingly became interdependent on each other because it was impossible to survive without both the income from the migrant labourer and the production of the agricultural plot.

Altogether, the Bantu Acts of “villagisation” and resettlement have deprived and changed many Africans of their means of income, changed family structures and in this respect caused issues of envy and misfortune in interpersonal relationships. This is well reflected in an increase in witchcraft accusations, witch-hunts and violence carried out against witches since the 1960s, taking place for instance between neighbours and in conjugal unions. These increases and especially the violent means in which witches are dealt with should also be seen in the light of the Bantu Authorities Act of 1958, which prevented tribal authorities from intervening and settling witchcraft accusations between accused and accuser.[8]

Today uunemployment rates are high at an estimate of 60-75% in the rural village section of Timbavati where I conducted fieldwork.[9] Some men are still migrant labourers, but a large majority is unemployed. Women are still at home cultivating the domestic agricultural plot even though this is far from enough to provide for an entire family today. This has forced many women into the labour market, as domestic workers, hawkers or other forms of wage labour. Indeed education for girls is thus becoming attractive because it enables women to become self-providing but education costs money and it is estimated that only 3% of students reach tertiary education. However, in times of overwhelming economic despair, both women and men are seen wandering the streets, hanging about on street corners, drinking at the Shebeens,[10] smoking “Dagga”[11] and issues of AIDS, crime, unemployment, promiscuous sexual behaviour and women’s rights are consequently great topics for discussion.

 

Antagonistic relations and ambiguous meanings

In this contemporary setting, I found that men and women are expressing strong antagonistic relations towards each other by drawing on narratives on a sexual promiscuous behaviour that is out of control, on the break-down of marriage, drunken husbands, loosing respect, and violence. Through local contextualisation a construction of modern life is blamed for where gender equality and rights for women have been placed high on the agenda in the New South Africa. This stands in opposition to a construction of an imaginary traditional life where idyllic relations existed and where spouses respected each other. The opposing categories of the modern and the traditional represent a construction which is used to explain the world, account for social change and functions to relate to desirable and undesirable circumstances.[12]

 

Men are discontent with these women of today, these modern women, who only make demands on men. A young man is expressing his disgust for women, marriage and equal rights:

“The woman will say go and make your own tea. We have now got a lot of divorce in SA, it is because of this. There is also no respect from the woman, why should I have to marry if I want something from my wife she will tell me this and that. Why should a man marry, I can make everything on my own. I don’t need a woman. There are a lot of kids in the street because a lot of girls get pregnant and the boys don’t like to marry. Women’s rights and the democratic government is killing the culture.”

Women of today are believed to be lying and deceiving individuals who will only hassle men, make demands and spend all their money and engage in extra-marital sexual relations. They have in other words become uncontrollable.

Women on the other hand, believe that times are changing in the sense that women should enjoy equal rights to men. It is men who are drunken individuals who run from their responsibilities. A woman says:

“I am against modern life because if a man can marry you and build a nice house and leave you there and go to Johannesburg to work….The man has not got the right to abuse you and he does not own you. Most males in our culture still believe that the man is the head of the family and that he has got all the rights and he can decide everything. Even if he goes out of his way, he expects you not to say anything, because you are a woman…this should change we are no longer an old generation”.

 

Through the construction of modern life, new definitions of what gives social value have emerged which especially women favor. This implies that men should no longer have mistresses and should start acting like responsible husbands and women should not be breaking with the “traditional” moral codes for good female behavior when practicing infidelity and “abusing men”. Overall, modern life is blamed for having brought about changes where new social values and functions are embedded into the meaning of being a man and a woman, but this seems to be interpreted differently by men and women. Thus the old seem to come into conflict with new reflected in fact that women no longer live up to men’s expectations and vice versa.

Marriage is in this respect considered to become a fragile institution that has undergone severe transformations. Aspects of “traditional marriage”, such as the institution of polygyny, lobola and the extended family seem to have persisted but they have changed form. While lobola is still valued but often not paid, the issue of polygyny is not popular in Timbavati especially not among women. However, polygyny seems to have survived in a version where both men and women continuously engage in extra-marital relations. Infidelity, divorce and choosing not to marry at all are considered as playing an important part in the destruction of marriage. Changing values ascribed to men and women, discourses on gender equality and economic hardship have thus brought about a situation of conflict, ambiguity and paradoxes, which have had serious consequences for the institution of marriage and for the gender relations.

Most men recognize that polygonous unions are a thing of the past. A frustrated male informant says:

“It [having many women] was accepted before, but today you cannot do it. Women will be angry”.

However, the attraction of practicing extra-marital relations is still present even though this is considered a morally non-normative practice.[13] In Timbavati both men and women engage in several extra-marital affairs however for different reasons. For men it is indeed associated with pride, respect, success and a desirable macho image. Marysol Ascencio has, in this respect, pointed to the fact that among Puerto Rican adolescents, “macho” is linked to power and masculinity. A “macho” is a man who stands for honour and respect. While he must try and control his females (wife, daughter, sister and mother), he must also seduce other females in order to earn a reputation as a “cool” guy.[14] Women, on the other hand, keep lovers for financial purposes since money transfers or even food are obligatory benefits associated with extra-marital affairs. This is considered immensely attractive in a time of economic hardship where many women are facing to burden of providing single-handily for an entire family.

While migrant labour provided men with an identity as “breadwinners”, it is fair to argue  that increasing unemployment has somewhat emasculated men since they are no longer able to provide for their families. A consequence today is that many men simply do not return to their wives from migrant labour or that they choose to elope with other women. Thereby they often neglect their first wives by refraining from paying maintenance. The inability to fulfil on masculinity does perhaps make men turn towards the other. Anthropologist Henrietta Moore has, in this respect, pointed to the fact that is too much at stake in terms of self-worth and that is why men, in times of economic hardship, often choose to abandon wife and children, only to start new families elsewhere.[15] What is at stake here is that men are facing contradicting and conflicting forms of masculinity. The sexual promiscuous male resides next to “breadwinner” masculinity. Thus while these forms of masculinities may be conflicting and contesting each other, they also reside side and by side making it something every man has to relate to.[16]

 

I found that the contradictions imbedded in the conflicting gender discourses are linked to both witchcraft accusations and wife-beatings:

 “Aihua is 52, a domestic worker and a single parent with 7 children to feed. She receives 400 rand a month and is finding it impossible to make ends meet. Once she was married to a man who paid bridewealth for her, but with a child born every year and lacking work, he was finding it more and more difficult to provide for the entire family. He did not bye clothes for the kids, pay for their school fees so Aihua’s mother has to see to everything. The marriage was not good because the husband was always drinking, beating her and going with other women. Meanwhile he was refusing to give Aihua household money, saying:’you have got lovers so I am not going to give you anything’. One day the man met another woman who he decided to make his second wife. He started calling Aihua a witch saying that she bewitched him. His proof of her witchcraft was that every time they had sex. He said that his stomach was giving him problems and that he was becoming sick from sex with his wife. He beat her up so that she could not walk for 3 days and he left her with no money because he believed she was a witch. Today he lives with his second wife far away and Aishua has not received any maintenance since 1990 where she got 40 rand.”

 

A wife’s extra-marital relation is totally unacceptable since it indicates that a husband is unable to control his wife and that she has no respect for him. Yet it is quite common for especially the younger generation of women to keep lovers in Timbavati. In this sense, Aishua’s husband accused her of sleeping with other men and thereby justified that he would not provide for her. However, divorce is considered a morally unacceptable way to terminate a marriage. For most women who are financial depend on their husbands, divorce is only an option to the woman if she is a wage-earner. Meanwhile, in the case of Aishua, the husband enforced and justified a separation on the grounds of accusations of witchcraft[17]. Witchcraft accusations made it possible for Aishua’s husband to terminate an undesirable relationship, where demands where made on him he could not meet. Being unable to fulfill his breadwinner role, he expressed the masculinity of the promiscuous male who by resorting to force and accusations controls is wife.

What is crucial to note here is that the husband could survive economically upon separation, but Aishua who was already economically dependent was totally deprived of any financial income. The witchcraft and the violence Aishua experienced then confirmed and maintain the gap of social inequality between genders. Without a doubt nuisance and undesirable wives is easy target of witch-craft accusations since these offer special opportunities to defend oneself against the demands of needy spouses and to eliminate experienced misfortune.[18] But the witchcraft that Aishua was believed to posses also confronted her husband with the moral significances of his actions. Being unable to provide for her and their children, keeping mistresses, using violence and in the end eloping reflects failure of the “good husband” ideals. It is however, important to note that accusations of witchcraft are not reflections of ulterior motives. Therefore the emic status of witchcraft must be recognized as a reality.[19] Thus there are real social practices and emotions linked to, witchcraft which means that there are real consequences for the involved such as in the case of Aishua and her husband.

 

While men are believed to resort to violence and in marital relation often act as the accuser of witchcraft, women are on the contrary, believed to posses mystical powers which have potential of being turned into evil and destructive witchcraft. Witches/women pose a real danger and threat to the social harmony of a society. But what is it about women that are considered so threatening, mystical and secretive? Tina Hamrin-Dahl mentions that women perhaps are seen as secretive due to their absence from the public speaking arena.[20] However, women’s sexuality are also considered dangerous and something that should be controlled through disciplining and physical reprimand. One older man says in relation to this potential danger and to men’s “natural” sexual appetite: “women today are tempting men badly …women just tease a man”. The “loose” woman is convenient if she is a mistress. A more serious problem appears if the “teasing and loose” woman is a wife. What is at stake here is that active female sexuality is threatening a male active sexuality and thus undermining the macho-image men have of themselves as all omnipotent.

In a setting where women increasingly are forced to become sole provider of their families and rights for women are a dominant discourse in everyday life, men fear that they are loosing control:

“We don’t want women to leave their side and come over to our side. They put on trousers and she will forget that she is a woman and she starts acting like a man. As longs as women remain women”.

Because the powers of a woman/witch are difficult to control, but need to be controlled, they are accused, denounced and punished. My main point is that in order to understand why men urge to control women i.e. through the use of violence and witchcraft accusations, one need to turn to structures and relations of power. What seems to be at stake here is that the constructed imagined image men have of themselves as being all powerful. These constructions and thereby the identity as man is being diminishing and challenged by modernity ( as ways of organizing everyday life) and it thus seems important for men to keep alive this imaginary fantasy of being all powerful to restore harmony and their masculine identity. I here find that anthropologist Henrietta Moore’s theory of the complex interconnectedness of gender identity and interpersonal violence can shed some light. She suggests that domestic violence can be seen as a response to a situation where men are unable to uphold fantasies of power (what they desire to be and how they desire others to see them).[21] Moore’s concept of “thwarting”, as the inability to take up a gendered subject position (meaning one certain way of being a woman or a man), can result in a crisis, real or imagined, of self-representation and social evaluation. Contradictions can arise if a person invests in several subject positions in which the person cannot live up to these multiple expectations or if another person (i.e. a spouse) refuses to take up the subject position in relation to oneself and thus calling one’s self-understanding into question. Moore stresses that as a crisis in self-representation occurs, individuals may resort to interpersonal violence. She writes:

”The inability to maintain the fantasy of power triggers a crisis in the fantasy of identity and violence is a means to resolving this crisis because it acts to reconfirm the nature of a masculinity otherwise denied.”[22]

In relation to my own research and to the argument put forward in this article, I argue that men are experiencing a crisis in representation as engendered individuals and thus that the social phenomena of domestic violence and witchcraft accusations can be understood in a context where men attempt to restore lost or contested fantasies of power. Indeed violence against women and witchcraft accusations are not part of a pathological social order. Catherine Campbell has, in this respect, called for attention to the “crisis in African masculinity” and therefore to issues such as identity and self-realisation in a changing social reality.[23] Men should be seen as agents in the violence, witchcraft accusation and in maintaining the gap of social inequality (and are therefore held responsible) but this takes place in a changing social reality may contest male authority. The result is then that men can resort to violence in order to re-claim male power and violence thus still functions as a resource men can choose to resort to in order to obtain power. Witchcraft accusations and violence are thus effects of a process by which powerful person legitimises and maintain their powers by accusing less powerful people.[24]

 

Challenges for a new South Africa

During my fieldwork, it become clear that my informants expressed an image of themselves and each other as frustrated men and women, who were presently living in extremely antagonistic relations with each other due to changing political and socio-economic circumstances. With the dismantling of the Apartheid regime, an agenda was set which saw that those disempowered during the many years if racial segregation have now got rights, rights to vote, rights to better living circumstances and the right not to be abused etc. It does, however, seem that the construction of the New South Africa, as my informants present it, is now a place where deep frustrations over poverty and a somewhat racial segregation still exists, at least with respect to the distribution of financial income. This dilemma is reflected in a context where changing and conflicting definitions of what it means to be a woman and a man exist, reflected in a traditional and modern life dilemma. I suggest that these somehow can provide an image of the shape and form violence against women and witchcraft accusation that takes place in the domestic sphere have at the present time in South Africa.

 

The Apartheid regime’s racial segregation politics has left behind deep inequalities in a system which ranked groups of people according to their “race”.[25] Since the election in 1994 which saw ANC to power there has certainly been efforts made to trying to forge a shared national identity by drawing on discourses that aims at uniting “multiple colors in one rainbow”. In this a constitution has been drafted up that preaches democracy and equal rights for all South Africans regardless of “race”, religion, sex etc. Apart from trying to advance the black population which was suppressed during the Apartheid regime, rights for women and gender equality has also been placed high on the political agenda. Yet what happened to all the promised economic development, infrastructure, and availability of consumer products etc. as well as overall improved living standards for the black population? According to my informants all modern life seems to do with its women’s rights is to cause a destruction of marriage and family values and yet all these rights also have the potential for creating a more equal South Africa. As anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen suggests there seems to be locally perceived gap between the lifestyle ideals and social reality.[26]

 

As I have tried to stress in this article, the on-going conflict seems to be taking place between men and women in a small village section in South Africa and the antagonistic relations they seems to live are indeed reflected in the traditional/modern dilemma. In this it seems that women, to a large extent, formulate their gender identity around a construction of the modern life because it allows them rights in relation to men, rights which previous were preserved for men in the traditional life. Furthermore, women might indeed also favor constructions of modern life because they no longer can depend on men to provide for them.

Men, on the other hand, are appropriating the construction of the traditional life and “culture” because in this they derive and gain access to powers; being the head of households, having the right to use violence over women etc. When these appropriations are challenged and contested in a changing socio-economic context, I have shown how men can resort to violence and witchcraft accusations. Violence and witchcraft accusations are then social phenomena that carry a distinct set of meanings, reflecting a changing socio-economic context.

With such diverging and conflicting versions of what a New South Africa should be about, the task of building a South African nation can indeed be difficult since the collectiveness has no breeding ground. Yet a New South Africa that lives up to its promises does not come overnight in a country which still has such deep markers of social inequality and such diverging and oppressive histories co-exist. Indeed conflict mounting to witchcraft accusation and violence against women seems almost unavoidable and perhaps part of a necessary process of building a new South Africa where conflict and divergence are found. I believe that economic empowerment for all will certainly improve circumstances, both so that men can provide for their families, but also to advance women’s possibilities for earning an income and to provide for themselves. But this is not sufficient. It is also about changing more fundamental attitudes and perceptions about violence, women, witches and gender relations. This is an imperative. What needs to be altered is the “traditional” construction of women and men, but an alternative constructs needs to fit social reality and thus diminish the present gap between conflicting expectations and social reality. Thus creating a South Africa free of violence (against women) and South Africa where collectiveness and prosperity co-exist is indeed a long process. South African author Nadine Gordimer says in relation to this:

“I am an optimistic realist… It is amazing how the U.S.A, England and all the other old democracies expects us to create a wonderful democracy in just nine years. It has taken them more than a 100 years and they have not all gotten that far”.[27]

 

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