Who owns a woman?s body?

How do women even begin to gain equality if they cannot control their own sexuality and bodies? Women should be able to freely exercise choices about who they want to be, what they want to look like, and who they want to love or not love.

When I was at school, one of the speakers for our cultural sessions spent four hours teaching us how to dress, put on make-up, get into cars and eat asparagus. She informed us that one should never step out of the door without being properly made up, because you never know who you might meet even on your morning jog.

A whole industry exists bent towards keeping women wrinkle-free and young looking. Women are valued more by how they look than how they think. But the question is who are women attractive for, themselves or for men? Many of the misogynist practices in all societies however clearly suggest that what men are ‘attracted’ to is the power to dominate women and their bodies.

Society is outraged and offended when women try to take control of their own bodies and minds. For example, when women choose a sexual orientation that is devoid of men, a woman loving another woman is quickly seen as an abomination and unspeakable. Homophobia and discrimination against gay men is deeply embedded in the Southern African region, but the African psyche also cannot even begin to comprehend women enjoying each other’s bodies.

When women have no choice but to enter into commercial sex work to survive, again society begins to take the moral high ground and declares that the providers of this service, mind you not the clients, should be criminalized. What society finds most objectionable is that a woman should call sex work and be bold enough to demand payment for it. What we would rather not face is that expressions of sex in societies are often based on some material exchange or another. Even within what is considered ‘acceptable’ (marriage or partnerships) heterosexual relationships, a woman endures a man’s sexual attentions and even bears children in exchange for being taken care of economically.

The right of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy—or again to make decisions about her life and take control of her body – is another minefield. In all the countries in Southern Africa, except South Africa, women do not have the right to freely choose to abort except in restricted circumstances. In fact, when one listens to the arguments based on religion, culture or whatever against abortion, they finally boil down to the fact that in society’s view, the unborn child is still far more important than the woman.

The sexual and reproductive rights of women are not only just violated, but they are not even recognized in the minds of many as being worth anything to talk about, complain about or even march about, since same sex relationships between women, the decriminalization of sex work and abortion are even shied away from in the African feminists movements.

How do women even begin to gain equality if they cannot control their own sexuality and bodies? The struggle for women’s autonomy is at the base of women’s freedom from the clutches of patriarchy. Women should be seen as more than beauty aids and sex objects who can be tossed around and violated violently. Women should be able to freely exercise choices about who they want to be, what they want to look like, and whom they want to love or not love.

Sarudzayi Njerere is a lawyer and feminist activist.

This article is part of the GEM Opinion and Commentary Service that provides views and perspectives on current events.

janine@genderlinks.org.za for more information.