Let’s be honest and admit that in Tanzanian societies, it is very normal to attack and abuse women under various guises and justifications. In fact, many of the programmes taken at the national level to combat violence against women in the country lack correspondence with women’s daily realities on the ground.
Our societies normalise violence against women, undermining national and global efforts to eradicate the scourge. There are certain norms and behaviours perpetrated by mainly male members of society, sometimes even by women themselves, that seem casual superficially but, in the long term, entrench stereotypes against women and subsequently justify violence against them.
Look at some descriptions assigned to female members of society who have chosen to live a different life than what is considered “normal” in society. If you’re unmarried and above thirty years old, they call you Msimbe, a term many women find to be offensive and disrespectful. A new designation, Lishangazi, has recently developed to describe old, successful, unmarried women. Li in the word denotes superlatives!
Perhaps no place is as notorious for the application of these terms to describe women as in social media, where male social media users casually throw these designations at their female counterparts, especially during debates, as a way of silencing and demoralising them. No wonder many women find social media unfriendly in Tanzania.
Direct physical attacks
But normalisation goes beyond justification for verbal attacks against women. It also involves direct physical attacks against women that male members of society think have allegedly gone “astray” from socially accepted norms. These include how a female member of society should wear and behave or which jobs are most appropriate for them.
On more than one occasion, male members of society, sometimes with blessing from their female counterparts, from across the country have been seen harassing, abusing and attacking women who allegedly wear inappropriate dress. We have seen men subjecting these distressed, innocent and unsuspecting women to despicable treatment, including attempting to undress them in public.
These incidents are recorded in men’s smartphones, who subsequently share them online with glee as other male social media users continue to attack the woman in question, congratulating their fellow men for occasioning what they did, justifying it by blaming the treatment on the victim as she shouldn’t have dressed inappropriately.
Frequently, these actions go unpunished, thus fueling their preeminence in societies, making women fearful and totally unfree to live their lives independently without risking their personal safety and security. Many women, for example, are unafraid to go to Kariakoo, which is notorious for such practices, for their shopping needs for fear of being subjected to such horrible practices.
Female informal workers
The normalisation of violence against women is also very prevalent in the informal sector of Tanzania’s economy, a sector which employs many country’s women. The problem is particularly worse for Mama Ntilie, or informal female food vendors and waitresses. Male members of society, who frame their treatments as “jokes,” subject these women to sexist and abusive practices, making some women fearful of establishing careers in those areas.
Unwanted touches and unwanted sexual advances are normal in these businesses. The story gets worse for women who are working as barmaids or waitresses. In bars and nightclubs, it is like a girl has no right over her body. It is like slavery to work in bars.
It is for this reason that some women fear doing some of the jobs for fear of being harassed. This increases the problem of unemployment, but it is sexual unemployment.
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Women in many Tanzanian societies do not enjoy the rights and freedoms their male counterparts do. While this is true in many aspects, I want to point out one particular freedom many women do not enjoy: expressing their opinions.
It has become a norm in many societies that a woman worthy of marriage, the one colloquially described as “wife material,” is the one who learns to keep quiet and avoid sharing their opinions on many things, no matter how those things affect her as a woman or a citizen.
Women who speak their minds are branded as not “wife material.” This is like being worthy of marriage, a woman must forgo her right to speak. A woman expressing her opinions freely and confidently should never be a reason for her to face attacks or criticism. She has a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right to voice her thoughts.
The issue goes even to women who have been divorced or left by the men who impregnated them. No man is blamed for the broken family; women are blamed for this. Thus, single mothers are being attacked and judged as not women to be married and sometimes ridiculed for not keeping the family together.
Disrupting harmful norms
For efforts to combat violence against women to succeed, we should join forces in addressing and attacking this normalisation, which is the breeding ground of many problems that women in our societies face regularly.
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The best place to start is at the family level, where parents and guardians have to create spaces for children to learn about the peaceful co-existence of men and women without being prejudiced against one another and no one allowed to live at the expense of the other. Secular and religious schools can also play a role towards that goal.
It is also important to shift our perspectives in the collective efforts we take at societal, national and global levels in addressing violence against women. Instead of paying attention only to the victims, which are disproportionately women, we need also to focus on the perpetrators, which are men.
Enough efforts are undertaken towards women in an attempt to address the problem of gender-based violence, but not very much so towards men, who data show to be the leading perpetrators of gender-based violence.
Male members of society need reorientation that would allow them to change their perceptions and thinking towards women. They have to be part of the conversation to end gender-based violence, as their appreciation of gender equality and equity will go a long way towards reducing the problem of gender-based violence in our communities.
These efforts should also be accompanied by accountability for the perpetrators of violence against women. Accountability is important as it will no longer allow people to attack women based on their life choices or what they wear. Impunity breeds lawlessness. That is true for everything, and violence against women is no exception.
Esuvath Daniel is a freelance journalist based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is available at esuvathdaniel1978@gmail.com. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.
