A RECENT incident of revenge porn has brought into sharp relief the humiliation women often endure at the hands – whether beating or smartphone-tapping – of their ex-lovers and boyfriends. The episode may not represent anything new or an increase in the occurrence of such materials or behaviour.
However, it became a public matter because the police took the bold move to condemn it. What makes it surprising is that on an issue which merits the condemnation of every Namibian, one reads the statements of a gay activist which appeared to diminish the issue, stating “What is so important about these women?”
His remarks were part of the criticism about police allegedly turning a blind eye to occurrences of same-sex revenge porn recently (Police warn against the spreading of revenge porn, The Namibian, 27 January 2017). While the activist was justified in highlighting double standards (considering that violence against trans-women is not officially gender-based violence in Namibia), his comments exemplify a parochialism of sorts.
Here, I want to bring to all our attention that revenge porn is indicative of a larger assault on both heterosexual women and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
To understand my point, you need to appreciate that legal prohibitions of same-sex activity often accompany attempts to legislate on women’s bodies. As scholar Barbara Boswell states, sodomy laws – which make homosexuality a crime – are the other side of the coin of laws that bar women from donning mini-skirts, hotpants and the like (Fear of the Feminine Recurs, Mail & Guardian, 15 May 2015). A brief survey of African countries with legislation pertaining to women’s dress – Uganda, Nigeria and Zambia – reveals that all of these countries enforce sodomy laws.
And what about Namibia? Boswell cites the 2013 incident in which police arrested scores of young women at Rundu for wearing hotpants as an example of Namibian authorities policing women’s bodies. We know the solidarity protests that gender activists held in the capital led to the chief of police retracting his statements concerning decency in public. To date, Namibia has had no further arrests for supposed indecent dress. Nor have there been any arrests under the apartheid-era sodomy law. Still, had the police not capitulated to the pressure of gender activists, would the situation have been different for women and LGBT people?
Revenge porn is violence. It exacts emotional violence on the victim, who may have escaped a lover who would have preferred to coerce her into staying with him, the consequences of which we know all too well.
For many years, the link between HIV and gender-based violence remained unclear. Now, we know that this violence enables HIV infection. Women who cannot negotiate when and if they are to have sex with their partners are clearly constrained in terms of safe sex.
In Uganda, the decline in HIV prevalence that heralded the country as one of the successes in the AIDS fight had much to do with empowering women (Was the “ABC” Approach Responsible for Uganda’s Decline in HIV?, PLoS One, 2006). The evidence shows the fall in infections probably resulted from women exercising the right to refuse sex, limiting their opportunity for infection.
Actions at the societal level which empower women will then aid in reversing the toll the HIV epidemic has had on our continent. Considering what we have learnt, the dismantling of chauvinism and misogyny should also be seen as ending the anti-homosexuality laws that exacerbate the epidemic. As we know, places where it is criminal for two men to express their love for each other cannot expect declines in HIV infections amongst these men.
Even if we ignore the accumulated data which demonstrates men who have sex with men are more likely to be HIV infected in countries with such legislation than countries that do not, we cannot ignore one simple truth – when something is illegal, people who practise it go underground. The incidents of men accused of “sexual immorality” on the grounds of possessing condoms or personal lubricants in Zambia in 2013 and Cameroon in 2016, are telling. Gay and bisexual men in those countries are perhaps more secretive and out of reach of HIV interventions than ever before.
The coalition of LGBT and women’s rights activists who marched on Washington on the heels of Trump’s inauguration (including Melania Trump, who elegantly traversed the long walk to the White House in a pair of stilettos), presents an example for us in Namibia.
Only through a united front will we succeed in achieving the emancipation of women and LGBT people. So, to answer the question, “what is so important about these women?”, I would say they are human beings whose worth is immeasurable, just as that of any other. And we need to call out all violence against them, because hatred towards them is just a reflection of hatred towards all of us who are not virile, heterosexual men.
