Corrective Rape and The Bodily Stakes of Discourse

The average South African woman is more likely to be raped than to complete secondary school.  Human rights organizations estimate that over 40% of South Africa’s female population is raped at some point in their life (Middleton, 1). Moreover, in Capetown, the nation’s largest city, these organizations estimate 10 corrective rapes, or rapes aimed to cure victims of their homosexuality, occur each week(Middleton, 1). In describing the rationale motivating these crimes, Jody Kollopen, the former head of the South African Human Rights Commission, states, “"The rationale would be that a woman who chooses to be lesbian has surely not had a relationship with a man, and therefore, if she has a relationship with a man, even if it's a violent, forced one, that will surely convince her that the lifestyle she chose is inappropriate’”(Gim, Schapp 1).  Though South Africa is not the only setting to heinous hate crimes of this nature, it is certainly the most visible battleground, as condemnations of corrective rape’s prevalence in this region and widespread cultural acceptance of these crimes have emanated from an array of news outlets; everyone from Newsweek to ESPN has covered this traumatic aspect of the nation’s culture. (If you would like to do some reading on the issue you might try http://articles.cnn.com/2011-10-27/world/world_wus-sa-rapes_1_lesbians-sexual-orientation-cape-town?_s=PM:WORLD ,http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/news/story?id=5177704 , or http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2057744,00.html).

This tragic state of affairs is paradoxical to say the least, as South Africa’s laws regarding gay rights are some of the most progressive in the world.  In 1994, South Africa legalized homosexuality and prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation within their post-apartheid constitution, acts of tolerance several nations throughout the world have not yet undertook. Furthermore, in 2006, the nation legalized gay marriage.  This disconnect between the nation’s progressive laws and the barbarism lesbians of South Africa face reveals that tolerant words must be backed up by tolerant thoughts to truly craft an environment in which queer individuals are respected and do not face insidious trauma as a subjected group. The danger of ingrained homophobic thought manifested within this situation reveals the incredible importance of queer theory’s effort to alter the discourse of sexuality.

The discourse surrounding these tragic occurrences inevitably reflects ideas explored within texts of queer theory.  In reflecting on her trip to the police station to report her experience of corrective rape, a South African woman named Fana relates, "They say, 'She deserve everything. How can she pretend to be a guy. Why, she's a girl. There's no such thing as gay. A woman is a woman, and a man is a man.'(Gim, Schapp 1).  The dangerous nature of the conception of the categories of man and woman as rigid and unambiguous, and, moreover, rooted in sexual behavior, revealed by this violence raises the stakes of Butler’s argument that the juridical systems of power which operate to establish identities we often assume precede discourse “produce what it claims to merely represent” in a troubling manner (Butler 3). If our ultimately baseless systems of signification allow people to justify bodily violation of other human beings, it seems legitimate to assert these categories are in serious need of re-evaluation.  Butler’s argument becomes a bit more tangible and increasingly urgent upon examination of the tragedy of the rhetoric she critiques and its relation to bodies. The importance placed on distinct aggressive and passive sexual roles many texts we have studied explore similarly becomes more ominous within this situation.

The plight of South African women also both poses questions to Cvetkovich’s exploration of trauma and provides evidence of the many layers of the traumatic she investigates. Though Cvetkovich chooses to focus on insidious trauma, or trauma which is tangential to the clearly horrific events the conception trauma is often rooted within by discourse seeking to pathologize and individualize the experience, the plight of South African lesbians blends the boundaries between these distinctions.  Though all queer women of the nation are affected by insidious trauma as members of a subjected group which faces not only the widespread rejection of their sexual identities but the threat of violent erasure of their sexuality, many have also directly experienced rape, a personal and clearly definable experience of trauma. Can their experience of homophobic attitudes and violence be reconciled into either of these experiences of trauma? The point at which trauma becomes a matter of everydayness or the result of an incident seems difficult, if not impossible, to sort out, and it seems viable to claim that all trauma is rooted in direct experience at some level.  The complex nature of this trauma becomes more apparent within one columnist’s sentiment “In other words, the men who are perpetrating this violence believe that by raping a woman they can turn her into a “real African woman,” as the fact that the trauma of the rejection of sexual identity leads to broader experience of complete cultural exclusion, provides a concrete example of the intricate relations and transferences of traumatic Cvetkovich seeks to legitimize (Price 1).    

The prevalence of corrective rape is horrifying, and it is understandable to hope atrocities of this nature could not occur closer to home, or are an “African problem.”  It is certainly more comforting to use this tragedy as evidence that our nation is making a drive toward equality and tolerance, and is certainly further along in such a process than South Africa. The inherent flaw of any assumption of a natural drive toward more progressive thinking is undercut by the dynamics which led to the proliferation of corrective rape and its relative acceptability within cultural consciousness, as  “New York-based Human Rights Watch recently conducted interviews in six of South Africa's nine provinces and concluded ‘social attitudes towards homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people in South Africa have possibly hardened over the last two decades ( Mabuse, 1).  A drive toward the tolerance of queerness requires a clear and active alteration in thought, thus queer theory’s act of generating a new form of discourse is incredibly important. In wallowing through theory it is easy to forget the real bodies which these ideas are attempting to redefine and, in many cases, save.  The South African women whose sexuality has been deemed something in need of “correction” or has been actively “corrected” are obvious embodiment of the importance of this type of study.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge Classics. 2006. Print.

Gim, Beein and Schapp, Jeremy. "Female athletes often targets for rape" ESPN E:60. 11 May 2010. 29 October 2011.   http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/e60/news/story?id=5177704

Price, Carolyn E. "Corrective rape a growing trend in South Africa" Digital Journal. 29 October 2011. 29 October 2011. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/313566#ixzz1cCTKBBu5

Mabuse, Nkepile. "Horror of South Africa's 'corrective rape'" CNN. 27 October 2011. 29 October 2011.http://articles.cnn.com/2011-10-27/world/world_wus-sa-rapes_1_lesbians-sexual-orientation-cape-town/2?_s=PM:WORLD

Middleton, Lee. "'Corrective Rape' Fighting a South African Scourge" Time. March 2011. 29 October 2011. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2057744,00.html