In Crime and Conflict, No. 8, pp. 9-12, Summer 1997.

Lisa Vetten is the former Manager of the Gender Programme at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

South Africans' response to sexual violence is far from consistent. The rape survivor may be labelled either as a 'good' or 'bad' victim with serious implications for how women are treated by the police, courts and medical profession. This article aims to understand the factors creating and contributing to our rape-prone society.

In 1988 a total of 19 308 rapes were reported to the South African Police Service (SAPS). By the close of 1994, 42 429 rapes had been reported to the SAPS. This figure jumped yet again in 1996 to an all-time high of 50 481 reported rapes (see box). But the official estimate of the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO) suggests an even more disheartening picture.

NICRO has calculated that only one in 20 rapes is ever reported to the police, leading them to state that a rape occurs in South Africa every 83 seconds. The SAPS has recently put this figure even higher, estimating that only one in 36 rapes is reported, or that a rape occurs every 35 seconds.

At the risk of stating the obvious, there has never been a greater need to understand those factors creating and contributing to our rape-prone society.

Some explanations

Over the years a number of theories have been put forward to explain rape. Summarised briefly, these include:

• The biological: men have combustible sexual urges which, once aroused, are uncontrollable

• The evolutionary: a mating tactic used by men unsuccessful in climbing the social ladder

• The psychoanalytical: women are innately masochistic and seek out experiences causing pain – the work of Helene Deutsch is an example.

Taken as a whole, all three imply that sexual violence – rather like death – is inevitable. This leads to the conclusion that there is no point in preventing rape – either women will go out and seek it, or men will be driven to it.

But whatever the biological basis for sexuality, it cannot even begin to provide a satisfactory explanation for the enormous variation in rape rates across different societies.

As Table 1 demonstrates, the incidence of reported rape varies tremendously across societies. Countries such as Australia, India and England and Wales – with individual populations larger than that of South Africa – all report significantly fewer rapes. Part of this variation may be explained by the diversity of reporting practices and the circumstances influencing women's decisions to report a rape.

Table 1: International comparisons of the number of rapes reported to the police

Still, it seems unlikely that South African women are more likely to report rape than women elsewhere in the world. So whatever the role of biology may be in rape, its influence is outweighed by socio-cultural beliefs that shape not only the incidence of rape, but also its likelihood of being reported.

Socio-cultural factors

Anthropologist Peggy Reeves-Sanday (1989), drawing on her own fieldwork as well as that of other anthropologists, has attempted to identify some of the correlates associated with rape-prone and rape-free societies.

In rape-prone societies women hold limited power and authority, and males express contempt for women as decision-makers. In such societies, 'masculinity' is predicated on an ideology of toughness and an acceptance of interpersonal violence.

In rape-free societies by contrast, women are respected and influential members of the community, and the maternal features of nurturance and childbearing provide a basis of human interaction. The attitude towards the environment is one of reverence, rather than dominance and exploitation, while the relationship between the sexes tends to be symmetrical and equal.

Finally, rape is regarded with abhorrence and treated very seriously. In West Sumatra, for example, a man who rapes has his masculinity ridiculed and is considered to have demeaned himself and everyone associated with him. He faces assault – if not death – and may be driven from his village, never to return.

This description of rape-prone and rape-free societies explains rape as the outcome of a number of societal beliefs about the differences between men and women. Societal attitudes to rape are also important – ultimately, as a playing out of socio-cultural scripts based on an ideology of male dominance.

Female authority

Political structures in South Africa, like those in the rest of the world, illustrate quite clearly the degree to which female power and authority is (not) accepted by the general populace.

Prior to the 1994 elections, South African women were largely excluded from the previous National Party governments. The multi-party negotiations conducted at the World Trade Centre which led to South Africa's first democratic elections, presented one of the first challenges to this tradition.

Under pressure from women's lobby groups, it was finally agreed that at least one of the delegates from each political party/organisation's negotiating team had to be a woman. But while women may have been present at the Kempton Park negotiations, they were not necessarily welcome.

Martheanne Finnemore, a Democratic Party delegate to the negotiations, conducted a survey of men and women's perceptions of the appointment and performance of women delegates. She described how one male delegate would walk out every time his female counterpart spoke. Similarly, one of the survey respondents noted how 'some male delegates determine what, when and whether their female delegates can speak'.

This dismissive attitude was far from being confined to the male delegates at the negotations. SATV's logo illustrating the negotiations initially showed men in ties alone as participants – a situation rectified only after a media conference organised by the Women's Caucus.

After the 1994 elections, 117 women – representing slightly less than a third of the total number – were appointed members of parliament. This was one of the highest degrees of participation in the world. This representation was not matched in the subsequent local elections: only 19% of elected positions in local government are currently occupied by women (IDASA-LOGIC Gender Unit 1996).

Some changes for the better – no matter how grudging – have occurred. But as these brief examples suggest, the presence of women in political structures is still remarkable rather than usual, and a subject of disparagement.

Male culture of violence

Given the rate of crime generally in South Africa, it is something of a truism to speak of South Africa's 'culture of violence'. What we need to ask though, is whose 'culture of violence'?

In terms of the 1995 Correctional Services Report, women currently make up 2,3% of the prison population (Munnik and Naude, Crime and Conflict 6, 1996). This suggests that women's involvement in violent crime is generally low – a speculation borne out by Munnik and Naude's study of 135 white female criminals.

According to their findings, most crimes committed by women are for financial gain. Rarely do women commit murder. As women are less likely to commit murder than men, so are they less likely to be the victims of murder.

Of the 89 192 deaths recorded by the Central Statistical Service's 1994 October Household Survey as the outcome of accidents, poisoning and violence (external causes), approximately 71 196 victims were male. Such a gender disparity suggests that men's involvement in violent behaviour - either as victim or perpetrator – is integral to 'masculinity' in South Africa.

Social responses

South African society's response to sexual violence is far from consistent, betraying rather a deep ambivalence on the subject. One set of stock responses expresses outrage, shock, horror and condemnation – while yet another set uncritically takes the side of the accused. This group claims that women provoke rape through their behaviour and dress or, alternatively, make false accusations against men.

The effects of this ambivalence are multiple. For the rape survivor, it may mean being compressed into the crude category of either 'good' or 'bad' victim. This has serious implications for the treatment women subsequently receive from the police, courts and medical profession. For the rapist, this may result in his conviction when the woman is a 'good' victim and an acquittal when she is 'bad'.

The 1994 case of State v Camroodien offers a clear example of a magistrate who divided women into 'innocent' – and by implication – 'guilty' victims: A businessman, Mr Abdulaief Camroodien, was convicted of raping a prostitute at gunpoint. Magistrate Marais found it bizarre that a man of Camroodien's calibre could act in such a manner. In sentencing, Magistrate Marais commented as follows:

If the complainant was an innocent young woman, I would not have hesitated to send you to jail for a very long time.

Camroodien was fined R8 000 with two years suspended for four years.

Once the categories of 'good' and 'bad' victim are established, they are compounded by a whole set of misleading stereotypes around sexual violence. Typically, people believe that 'real' rape is committed by deranged strangers in unfamiliar surroundings, or that women wearing 'provocative' clothing 'asked for it'.

A further variation claims that drunken women who pick up strange men also have only themselves to blame for rape. Consequently, rape appears to be the only crime where we judge the offence by the victim instead of the offender.

Historical factors

No understanding of sexual violence in South Africa is complete without reference to South Africa's apartheid history. The impact of this past will be considered in relation to a specific form of gang rape: jackrolling.

The term 'jackrolling' was coined to describe the forceful abduction of young women by a gang calling themselves the Jackrollers. The gang operated during 1987/88 in the Diepkloof area under the leadership of Jeffrey Brown. Abduction and rape were specific features of the gang's activities but as this practice spread and became fashionable, anyone who participated could be termed a jackroller (Mokwena, 1991).

Mary Mabaso, a community activist in Soweto, traces the origins of jackrolling to the unrest in Soweto that began on June 16 1976, and lead to the closure of Soweto schools later that year. By the time schools reopened, many students were too old to return to school, having passed the age limit of 22 set by the National Party government. Unqualified for many jobs and unable to obtain work, some of these young men turned to gang activity.

Resentful of those who continued their schooling, some gangs began targeting young women at school. Rape was seen as a means of making young women pregnant – and so effectively ending their education. Young women were thus reduced to the same circumstances as the gangsters.

Steve Mokwena's (1991) research supports and extends Mary Mabaso's explanations. He states that many victims were originally chosen by the jackrollers because they seemed unattainable. Such women were termed amahaiza (snobs) as they seemed to enjoy better class and status than the gangsters. Rape was then deliberately used to keep women within their (jackroller designated) place, as well as to destroy women's opportunities.

Police and courts

Although the criminal justice system – represented by the police and courts – does not cause rape, it plays no small part in aggravating the problem. This may be through insensitive, judgemental behaviour that deters victims from reporting. It may also be through their inability to arrest and convict offenders, or through the reinforcement and perpetuation of the stereotypes referred to earlier (see Webster in this issue).

Consider, for example, the cautionary rule around sexual assault. This rule states that a trier of fact should 'show awareness of the special dangers of convicting upon the evidence of the complainant in a sexual case'. It is not even necessary for there to be any evidence of a motive for a false charge. The mere existence of the cautionary rule allows a judge or magistrate to freely exercise his/her imagination around possible motives.

Hoffman and Zeffert in the 1993 edition of the South African Law of Evidence speculate that:

distinct and peculiar dangers abound in the form of hysteria that can cause a neurotic victim to imagine things that did not happen; spite, sexual frustration or other unpredictable emotional causes; financial considerations when the complainant is pregnant or the wish to protect a friend or to implicate someone who is richer than him.

Clearly the judiciary believes that women are prone to laying false rape charges and that the real victim is the innocent man falsely accused.

The injustice of this belief lies in the fact that no research exists to support this opinion. In fact those studies that have been done conclude that the percentage of false rape charges is no greater than the percentage of false charges laid for any other crime.

Rape has one of the lowest conviction rates of all serious crimes. This factor, in combination with inconsistent sentencing and a high degree of under-reporting can only suggest to potential rapists that rape is a high reward, low risk activity.

Sexually aggressive

Rape is an extreme end point of a whole continuum of sexually aggressive behaviours, beginning with sexual harassment and ending in rape-murder. This understanding is a useful reminder that sexually aggressive behaviours are often just an extension of what frequently passes for 'normal' sexual behaviour.

Sexual harassment is often – and mistakenly – dismissed as nonsensical political correctness, which denies its relevance to rape. Rape's genesis lies in sexual harassment for at least two reasons. As the milder and less visible cousin of rape, its effects and implications are often overlooked. For it is in those grey areas that rape begins.

Rape is not a simple problem requiring simple solutions. As a complex social phenomenon, it has multiple causes which require a range of prevention strategies. Condemning an individual rapist's behaviour may have its uses – but must also be accompanied by a careful analysis and change of the social support for rape.

References

Mokwena, S (1991). The Era of the Jackrollers: Contextualising the Rise of Youth Gangs in Soweto. Paper presented at a Project for the Study of Violence Seminar, University of the Witwatersrand.

Russell, D (1991). Rape and Child Sexual Abuse in Soweto: An interview with Community Leader Mary Mabaso. Paper presented at an Africa Seminar, the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town.

Sanday P R (1986). Rape and the Silencing of the Feminine. In Rape, an Historical and Social Enquiry (eds) Tomaselli, S and Porter, R. Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

Vetten, L (1994). Calling for Change: A Discussion on Some Aspects of the Laws and Procedures Surrounding Sexual Violence in South Africa. Unpublished memorandum accompanying Johannesburg Rape Hearings.

© Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation