ZONGILE NHLAPO: UKZN's compulsory GBV module laudable, but let's address root attitudes too
Institutions are at the tail end of the learning and socialisation process, and if UKZN's compulsory module is to achieve the desired effect, the teaching has to be at ground level too, writes Zongile Nhlapo.
UKZN campus. Picture: @UKZN/Twitter.
Earlier this year, the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) announced it was set to commence with a new and compulsory module on gender-based violence (GBV), racism, and homophobia - the Critical Social Justice and Citizenship Module - for its first-year students in the 2024 academic year.
The university said the course was initially developed in response to the high number of GBV and femicide incidents in the country and across university campuses, but was later expanded to include a much broader subject framework due to GBV's intersection with other social issues.
I remember coming across a post on X that encompassed at least in part my stance on this: that in some places, this teaching should already be in place at primary school - at least to try to address some problematic root attitudes.
I must’ve been about 8 years old, in then-Standard 1 now Grade 3, in Ulundi, northern KwaZulu-Natal where I grew up, when I first encountered questionable treatment from a group of boys who must’ve been about 9 or 10 years old. For a long time, I neither had the name nor the language for it.
What started as seemingly small “teases” – catcalling here and there - escalated to groping and nasty jokes that need never be repeated.
This is also the only time I’ve ever been slapped by a boy or two.
I was forced to partake in a Q and A “chesa mpama game”, where getting the wrong answer resulted in a slap across the face. In another one, a bucket of water would be poured over your head if you got the answer wrong. The questions, mind you, were nothing related to the Grade 3 curriculum.
This happened back in the days of corporal punishment, where, depending on the teacher’s mercy, a light pipe – and I’m being forgiving here, or a stick was used to inflict punishment on your non-dominant hand, or back, or wherever they pleased, to be frank.
It so happened that the ringleader of this group of boys was, unbelievably, appointed class prefect, who then took it upon himself to exercise “punishment” for the “noise makers” in the teacher’s absence (yes, at times we were left unsupervised). Naturally, one would sneeze and be on that list.
He and his gang would then take turns inflicting this punishment.
On a given day, my little hand would swell just enough from the pipe hits, but not enough to raise suspicion. Some days, my cheeks would bear the finger marks from the slapping, but eventually they would fade. My hair and school uniform would be wet enough, but not so drenched that it would raise suspicion.
Notably, there was another classmate, a girl who must’ve been about the same age as me, who would wait for me at the school gates every day after school with one question: “Are you gonna tell anyone?”
It dawned on me much later in life what her role was.
If only she knew that she never needed to ask, because my 8-year-old self was paralysed with fear.
Moreover, the ringleader would let anyone who would care to listen that he was from a part of Ulundi that never hesitated to unleash terror on whoever they deemed as opponents; "asesabi muntu thina" (we don't fear anyone), dashed with the occasional “and I know where you live”.
This thing went on for the better part of the year, and one day my ‘I have a headache, stomach bug’ excuse at home eventually resulted in me speaking out.
“It was probably boys just being boys”, I remember my teacher casually saying at a subsequent family-teacher meeting.
Long story short, I never returned to that class or the school; and I remember my mom chillingly asking, almost rhetorically, if I needed to be taken to our local clinic.
Ironically, the primary school's name was Mbhasobheni, which means “beware of”. Little did I know the ones I needed to be wary of were some 9 to 10-year-old boys who did the dreaded work of introducing an 8-year-old girl to what UKZN today is attempting to correct and help spread awareness about.
One has to commend the institution for the compulsory module effort.
It is blatantly clear that tackling GBV and problematic root attitudes in South Africa requires something of a multi-pronged approach.
Yet, we must also acknowledge that these institutions are at the tail end of the learning and socialisation process. Never mind that statistically, people who go to institutions of higher learning, at least in South Africa, are a small group.
There is a long streak of learning opportunities - at home, in the community, at primary or high school - before people ever set foot in a university.
So, with all its good intentions, the UKZN module will most likely be coming up against years of socialisation and well-established norms, attitudes and behaviours that are fundamentally problematic.
By the time some boys are 9 or 10 - as is specific to this context - unsettling ways of thinking and behaviour prevail. And in some girls, too, having possibly normalised this treatment inflicted upon them and those around them.
Maybe if we decisively dealt with certain behaviours, before and as soon as they manifest - and not dismiss it as "boys being boys" or laugh off kids groping each other's body parts as "oh, he/she must want/like/love you" or encourage children to brush off someone's "no" and read it as a "maybe", we'd help fight this monstrous battle early on.
Worryingly, there is research that establishes a connection between, for example, schoolyard bullies who grow up to become abusive partners.
Now this is not to suggest that there is (always) a direct correlation between some early-presenting questionable attitudes and GBV and femicide. Neither is it to say that people aren't adaptable and cannot self-correct.
Yet, horrific scenes play themselves out daily in South Africa, where despicable harm continues to be inflicted - in attitude and action, towards women everywhere. Sometimes from people we assume should "know better".
So UKZN's compulsory module is a much-needed step, albeit one, and one can only hope that this effort will be multiplied, and trickle down to spaces outside the university - at home, at schools, workplaces, and in our friendship spaces, so that it yields the desired results.