Ending Gender-Based Violence

"Since the 1994 democratic elections, South Africa has been celebrated internationally for the remarkable advances of women in political office. The country continues to be near the top of global rankings for the number of women in parliament, and women are increasingly serving in local government, provincial parliaments, and educational institutions, which has inspired sweeping and progressive legislation dealing with women's advancement. Yet, despite these gains, South Africa continues to fall short, as the country is plagued by remarkably high levels of sexual assault, rape, and intimate-partner violence. This gendered violence is acted out time and again in public forums, like the trials of Jacob Zuma, the then-deputy president of the ruling party, who was accused of rape, and later Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympic track star who shot and killed his girlfriend. Hannah Britton argues that the discrepancy between women in political power and gendered violence illuminates the limitations of carceral approaches to feminism, which attempts to solve social problems like gender-based violence by arresting, prosecuting, and punishing perpetrators. Based on fieldwork conducted over twenty years in nine South African communities, Britton has identified accelerants of gender-based violence, traced how gender-based violence is part of larger social inequalities, and delineated what policies are working and what are failing. The book analyzes how street-level bureaucrats, community activists, feminist advocates, traditional leaders, and religious leaders are working to build networks to address the gender-based violence in their communities. She finds several key characteristics that enable communities to engage with anti-gender violence politics: police, as leaders and partners; people, as individual leaders who will break with patriarchal norms; points of contact, which provide victim services; and place, or the proximity to these services. These characteristics illustrate that the ultimate success or failure of the movement to end gender-based violence starts with communities"--