The tip of the iceberg: Remembering the slain and confronting the men who look like us

It always pains me that despite the fact that countless people, including activists, have spoken against gender-based violence, the scourge continues unabated. It is as pervasive as ever. The maiming of women, their permanent psychological scarring and, worse still, the termination of their lives through murder continues with no end in sight.

Women suffer all of this at the hands of men. Men who – in a substantial number of cases – are supposedly in loving relationships with the women. What needs to happen to remove this savage streak from the guilty men?

What must be done for these men to stop this barbarism? What must be said for these men to see women as human beings deserving of living their lives in dignity? Will a time ever come when these men will stop objectifying women?

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If, as a man, you saw a woman as a human being just like you and not as an object, I do not think you would do to her the dastardly things that you do. Women are our grandmothers, our mothers, our aunts, our sisters, our nieces, our daughters, our wives and our girlfriends. It boggles the mind that people who are so close to us are sometimes suddenly seen as trash or animals that must be attacked with all sorts of weapons.

It defeats logic that children will turn against a mother who carried him for nine months or a grandmother who raised him and did not kill him when he was young and weak. The fact that innumerable killings of women as a result of GBV are widely reported does not help. The killing spree continues.

Here are few examples of which some – if not most – of we are all aware: the killings of Precious Ramabulana, Tshegofatso Pule, Ntokozo Xaba, Karabo Mokoena, Zolile Khumalo, Nompumelelo Tshaka, Siam Lee, Jesse Hess, Meghan Cremer, Uyathandwa Stuurman, Lindelwa Peni, and Uyinene Mrwetyana. I should not be misunderstood. This figure does not even begin to tell us what is happening out there on the ground.

I am merely giving a few examples of some of the killings that received wide publicity. No man and woman with a heart and conscience should separate themselves from the pain all the slain women suffered. No one should – as is so often unjustifiably done – point fingers at them or blame them.

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