Raising a Daughter in a Femicide Nation

Gender Based Violence in South Africa is at its peak (or maybe the cameras have just chose to give it a little more spot light now). Every other week a headline reads about a female that has been murdered. As a young mother, a mother to a daughter these statics have me worried. I am worried for my child and how she will grow up.

Figuring a balance between being unapologetically herself, knowing that she is not the problem, that it is her right to feel safe but at the same time be careful in what she does, how she does what she does and with whom so as to not leave herself vulnerable and susceptible to an unforgiving partriachal society that will pounce on her in whatever form it may. Finding this balance is the hardest.

She may not grow up being told what professions she can pursue because as society we have moved forwards when it comes to that but we still have a long way til she can wear whatever she wants or consume whatever she want, wherever without fear. This is one of the reasons why I wrote Who Is Minding Our Men? We need to make feeling safe a norm. So she doesn’t have to think about what she wears or how she is going to get where she needs to go before she leaves the house, routes and all, the way I have to before I leave the house.