Rape Linked to Manhood in South Africa

Male sexual assaults on women in South Africa are "deeply embedded in ideas about manhood," according to a survey presented Thursday at a sexual-violence conference outside Johannesburg. Nearly 28 percent of men surveyed reported they had forced a woman or girl to have sexual intercourse against her will. The survey included interviews with 1,700 representative households from a cross-section of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.

Rape was "significantly associated" with childhood trauma and family breakdown, said Rachel Jewkes, lead researcher for the government-funded Medical Research Foundation (MRF) study. Just one-third of men reported their fathers were often or always home, though two-thirds said their mothers were.

"Rape is an expression of male sexual entitlement," said Jewkes. "South Africa is an immensely patriarchal society. The history of the country has shaped the dominant forms of South Africa's racially defined masculinities."

"Apartheid made violence an instrument of control and violence became the norm," said rights activist Mbuyiselo Botha. "Men would feel emasculated," he said, turning their anger and frustration upon women and children.

"If more men would stand up and say 'This is wrong,' the better we can fight this carnage," said Dumisani Rebombo, who performs community outreach with the Olive Leaf Foundation to prevent HIV and sexual abuse. While counseling unemployed mothers about HIV prevention in Johannesburg in 1996, Rebombo was stunned by the number of women recounting abuse.

"That forced me to do my own introspection," said Rebombo, who as a boy was taunted as unmanly and goaded into raping a village girl. Years later, he sought out the woman, who accepted his apology. "She told me: 'Maybe you could teach other men out there not to do the same thing,'" he said, adding that the MRF survey "tells the story of many boys, of many men."

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