Conclusiones

From a gender perspective, the political changes that followed the abolition of apartheid in the early 1990’s, resulted not only in the empowerment of women but also in a situation where previous masculinities no longer had a place in the new democratic political setup, and its implications. So drastic was the political shift that it infiltrated class structures to affect not only the “top dogs”¹¹¹ of the apartheid politicians, but also the “under dogs”¹¹² of its subjugation.

106 Morrell’s book, Changing men in Southern Africa (2001), is aimed at optimizing this potential depth of

‘multiple masculinities’ in Southern Africa.

107 Deborah Posel (2005) puts the phenomenon of baby rape and the more general phenomenon of sexual violence into historical perspective, highlighting the manner in which sexuality, particularly male sexuality has become politicised in contemporary South Africa. She tracks the emergence of public scrutiny of sexual violence in media reports and argues that it was the rape of infants that “focused the spotlight of shame squarely on men” and evoked a sense of moral panic. Rape cases, particularly those involving babies and young children, are highly publicised and become the yardstick by which the ‘moral fibre’ of the nation is measured. In this discourse of moral shame, Posel shows how it is men – fathers, brothers, sons – who are blamed.

108 Walker (2003) examines young men, perpetrators of abuse, who have joined an organisation that provides support and counselling to men who want to change. Her analysis of their testimony reveals their struggle to remake themselves in contrast to past versions of manhood which they interpret as oppressive (Walker 2003: 23). Careful to avoid rigid and premature categorisation of the efforts these men make to come to terms with the process of change, Walker nevertheless suggests the rise of new notions of masculinity.

109 Reid and Walker’s (eds.) book Men behaving differently (2005) takes up the challenge of examining the relationship between sexuality and social transition, in different institutional and geographical locations, and look at new masculinities which have been forged in post-apartheid South Africa. The essays in this book reflect on masculinity in a state of flux, reconfiguration and change. “This includes immediate and tangible changes in South Africa’s political landscape, transitions in academic enquiry into gender and sexuality, and also emerging possibilities for alternative sexual and gender identities.” (Reid and Walker 2005: 2)

110 The researcher uses the racial category ‘black’ referring to an apartheid classification. It must however be noted that the racial classifications of coloured, black, white (and Indian) are used to assist in the understanding of the South African social context, and not to essentialise or discriminate against (groups of) people.

111 These “top dogs” refers mainly to so-called white Afrikaner (heterosexual) middle-class and upper-class men.

112 These “under dogs” refers mainly to so-called black (African) and coloured men (and women) in lower income groups.

In describing the political transition in terms of masculinity, Thokozani Xaba (2001) terms the reigning masculinity of young African males during the apartheid era ‘struggle masculinity’, and that of men in contemporary society ‘post-struggle masculinity’. In the previous era, African township youth who were trained in the use of military weapons in order to protect their communities from the state and clandestine forces, suddenly found their skills no longer needed in the post-apartheid regime.

‘Struggle masculinity’- denoted by opposition to the government system, political militancy and a strong anti-authority posture – which became dominant among young Africans during the struggle against apartheid, has found no place in South Africa’s current democracy. It is a democracy which propagates respect for law, order and state institutions, as well as for co-operation with the police force.

Previous ‘comrades’ and ‘exiles’ who voluntarily interrupted their education in order to dedicate their lives to the liberation struggle are currently socially, economically and even politically isolated in a system where their skills, and even more importantly, their reason for training is no longer relevant. This means that men who were moulded into a masculinity characterized by status, honor and social respect (that could be ‘earned’ within the community through the exercising of violent acts), are now expected to take on a non-violent, non-sexist, peaceable masculinity. But this was strange territory to them since the masculinity that they knew and lived was one born out of the harsh environment of apartheid ideology (Xaba 2001: 112).

Young ‘comrades’ and ‘exiles’ became more and more isolated in this democratic South Africa where they don’t have much formal education, making it nearly impossible to find work – without which there is no legitimate means of attaining the luxuries of life that they feel they deserve. In addition to this, women who were previously deemed subordinate were now being equated to men by the gender politics of the new ANC government which emphasizes gender equality. Thrown into troubled waters in terms of their understanding of their masculinity, these men – who found no affirmation of their masculinity from this new dispensation in society – have become desperate to cling onto that which was familiar to them. As a result, they sought affirmation from each other and started operating like a close-knit supportive family. This family

generated its own codes, separate to those of society; codes that demanded the maintenance and respect of one’s honor; codes that reaffirmed their masculinity.

Such ‘survivalist’ groups of ‘comrades’ and ‘exiles’ often incorporated members of criminal gangs, and some themselves form part of these gangs¹¹³ in an attempt to survive this unfamiliar, alienating system within which they found themselves. They turned on the communities that they were trained to protect and used their skills and weaponry against community members in order to extract resources from them. In a backlash to the authority of the new state, these men resorted to criminal acts that ranged from assault to rape and murder – activities that were sometimes justified in a previous era but not in this one (Xaba 2001: 114). Finally, because they have been left behind socially, politically and economically, these men created (for their own benefit) spheres in which their word is law.

But this was not the only masculinity that suddenly found it self facing a foreign political and social context in the 1990’s. Afrikaner masculinity was also caught unaware in the newly defined environment of a democratic state and politics. Henceforth, attention will be given to its recent developments.

113 In another related study on gang-type masculinity Benita Moolman (2004) explores the construction of heterosexual masculinity in relation to gang rape on the Cape Flats. She examined how the political and economic marginalisation of coloured men under apartheid influenced the construction of a violent, sexualised masculinity linked to gang membership in this area. Moolman (2004: 121) emphasised that collective rape helps gang members construct and affirm their heterosexual masculinity and group identity. According to her (2004: 119) values such as domination, power, control, conquest, achievement and competition contribute to this masculinity - which are then encoded and shaped by gang rape in particular ways. The political-economic marginalisation of masculinity on the Cape Flats happened in relation to the dominant white masculinity. Moolman concludes that in the South African space all other masculinities – black, sub-economic and working class, homosexual and so forth – became subordinated to the dominant masculinity and thus needs to be examined in this context. See also Luyt and Foster (2001) who investigated the relationship between gang processes and differing forms of masculine expression. As a comparative exercise they attempted to explore differences in masculine performance, between areas either embedded in gang culture or those removed from its everyday occurrence, assessing the impact of omnipresent gang processes on masculine understanding.