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This study contributes to the broader discourse on gender-based violence and the media can be utilised in positively supporting the survivors and changing public perceptions and responses to both the survivors and perpetrators.
By THOURHAAN MUSSON
I recently submitted a Masters dissertation inspired by the #MeToo movement. In the dissertation, I investigated the narratives of Muslim women’s sexual coercion as reported in Muslim Views and The Daily Vox between 2019 and 2022. Since then, there has been no other information.
Sexual coercion, post-#MeToo, is understood as the objectification of an individual to reduce them from human beings to what their sex is. Sexual coercion includes an array of sexual abuses insisting on an enforced sexual encounter by a perpetrator forcing someone to act through manipulation or threats which can encompass various forms of sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse.
Sexual intercourse with women or non-pubescent girls, through verbal and physical threats, psychological flattery and intimidation while she is unconscious, asleep, drunk or drugged is also regarded as rape.
We are all familiar with sexual harassment as an unwelcome sexual advance that leads to sexual coercion. There is an obvious power disparity between the perpetrator and the victim. The perpetrator’s behaviour would include bribes, blackmail and threats aimed at receiving sexual cooperation from the vulnerable victim.
Society must remember that women are entitled to change their minds, be reluctant and refuse (emphatic NO) to continue to the stage of sexual intercourse, which is when the perpetrator will use physical pressure, alcohol, drugs or force the victim to ensure that his intended sexual contact is realised even if it is against her will.
The findings highlighted many red flags that cannot be ignored but must be vigorously attended to, to avoid and stop the continual hurt, trauma and pain that our children and women are experiencing daily.
The study showed that the public declaration is only done when the victims are adults. Is it correct for our young daughters (for example, aged five) to suffer and be traumatised every day right under our radar? Communities, including our Muslim community, how vigilant are you? Dr Eshaam Palmer (Muslim Views, December 2020) gave guidelines to prevent this sexual coercion from continuing. Are his and the guidelines of Penny Appeal’s director (Muslim Views, January 2021) working? Yet, there is an awkward silence.
Silence is violence as Jasmine Khan (Muslim Views, December 2020) so rightfully reminds us. With this silence, is it implied that no sexual coercion exists in our communities? Muslim Views had only reported on the three survivors. Where are the other survivors? Are they silenced victims, struggling to voice their situation? The survivors reported by Muslim Views stepped out of the ‘safety’ where they found themselves, shedding their cultural passivity of accepting objectification and moving away from the false comfort of silence.
A conscious decision must be made by known and silent survivors to change from being an object to being the subject, and that is best done through the action of their narratives in the language (communication) of the dominant verbal exchange.
The interpretation of what and how the survivor would claim her freedom is by assuming the subject role, since she was forced into an objectified role. She needs to personally claim her freedom and place the perpetrator as the social victim. The survivors in the study have made major inroads to achieving this in that they now control the narratives.
With media exposure, including its different platforms, the survivors must become the dominant communicator within the choice of context at the expense of silence. This would shatter society-enforced ‘social laws’ of ‘not to bring shame to the family’, or when victims speak about their sexual coercion and violation, the answer is ‘have sabr (patience)’, or ‘you are creating fitnah (disrupting the peace in the community)’. These social laws are weaponised against women who are calling for accountability and justice. These are a few of the many social laws which have offered a comfortable status quo more to the perpetrator than to the survivor. Intimacy is both the site of women’s objectification and also an area where relations can be re-framed, conceptually and linguistically for freedom and equality concerning the survivor’s narrative and not just the alleged perpetrators’ narrative.
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Furthermore, the study revealed that the objectification of women, the abuse of trust relationships, and the socially afforded male privilege allowed perpetrators to uphold their status and positions in society without any remorse, indirectly affording them more victims to be sexually coerced.
This study further confirmed that sexual coercion often occurs in ‘private, familiar domains’ and with persons whom they have trusted. While the home, academic spaces and religious schools are supposed to be places of protection for women, they have become a silent battlefield for some women.
The findings reveal the damaging, torturous nature of sexual coercion enhanced by structural silencing of victims, highlighting the need for societal and institutional accountability. Silence is complicity! Complicity is understood as one who allows; or stands by knowing what is happening yet allows the unlawful and immoral activity to continue. Yes, society and institutions are held accountable for allowing the culture of tolerance and complicity to persist.
This study contributes to the broader discourse on gender-based violence and the media can be utilised in positively supporting the survivors and changing public perceptions and responses to both the survivors and perpetrators. As a woman, I validate the emotional experiences of the victims, which are key to my research and within the theoretical framework of Islamic feminism. The marginalised voices, especially Muslim women’s voices, challenge the existing male structures’ rhetoric by shattering the silence.
Thourhaan Musson is a Masters student in the Department of Religion at the University of Johannesburg.
