February 2018 Cosmopolitan: A Mini Bible of Sexual & Gender Diversity

We should all be contributing towards making South Africa a better country for all who live in it. Our contribution towards the building a just and democratic society takes many forms, and this is why we can all play our part, no matter how small, to build a prosperous nation. I think the February 2018 issue of Cosmopolitan does its part in contributing towards a more open and more tolerant South Africa.

Although I am a magazine junkie, don’t usually buy Cosmopolitan magazine. I bought the February 2018 issue of Cosmopolitan because it has Laverne Cox on the cover. Laverne Cox is an actress, an Emmy-winning producer, and a transgender activist. Laverne Cox is the first transgender woman to be on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. She is the first because transgender women have been, and continue to be discriminated against in many societies around the world. Publications like Cosmopolitan have not regarded trans women as women. So her being the first does not mean transgender people have not existed before, they were largely ignored by beauty magazines.

In the interview, Laverne Cox speaks about her favourite things, her favourite people, and the new projects she is doing. Buy the magazine for the full lowdown. Two things stand out for me in the interview, that is her message to readers and the way she describes gender. She says to the readers:

“Let’s live a more fun, fearless life by embracing love for ourselves and each other and connecting to a purpose bigger than ourselves.”

When she describes gender she says:

“(Gender is) The spiritual experience of one’s gender as male, both or neither and simultaneously the social and cultural constraints that organise around a set of expectations. Cultural expectations and the individual, spiritual experience of our gender can be in conflict.”

Holly Meadows, the editor of Cosmopolitan South Africa, says that with this issue “we wanted to do our small part in providing a platform for visibility for the LGBTQI community.” I will assure you there is nothing “small” about this Cosmopolitan issue. It is big. Having Laverne Cox on the cover of this issue is a small part of a really amazing issue that celebrates sexual diversity while simultaneously providing some much needed education. All done in the beautiful “fun-fearless-female” language that Cosmopolitan is famous for.

The issue is packed with useful information about transgender rights, gender identity, and sexual identity. Early on in the magazine you read a discussion about coming out at work. One writer takes a pro coming stance while another rejects coming out at work and they share their reasons. Both sides of coming out are shared from a personal experience, and also what other people have gone through. The issue of coming out is relevant, and it will be relevant as long as people have to come out because society takes heterosexuality as the standard norm.

Coming out is something that was relevant in my research on same-sex marriage, because even though South Africa has same-sex marriage, people still struggle with coming out to family and friends. This tells us that LGBTI people continue to live under pressure to stay in the closet. What is revealed by same-sex marriage, or the process of marrying is that the coming out process is not a linear process, and it differs from person to person, and how marriage somehow facilitates a kind-of coming out process for some LGBTI people.

In the South African climate where LGBTI people are still in the peripheries representation continues to be important. So this issue of Cosmopolitan recognises that and throughout the issue some of South Africa’s LGBTI icons, artists, celebrities, activists, and sports stars are featured. It showcases the important work done by activists, but also the contribution of artists and other celebrities to South African cultural life. The magazine highlights some of the contributions by LGBTI South Africans to the nation.

In the issue there is a “The Rainbow List” which really chronicles the historic LGBTI moments in South Africa post 1990. With all the negative headlines mostly about violence towards LGBTI people in the newspapers, it can be easy to forget the amazing gains made in post-apartheid era. The magazine provides a little LGBTI history and some of the historic television moments, including that controversial same-sex kiss between Thiza and Thabang in Yizo Yizo. I remember the conversation that kiss caused and how excited I was to witness the scene. This Cosmopolitan issue takes you down LGBTI memory lane in an easy and accessible way. Of course, the little history depicted in the issue is not exhaustive, but some of the moments that were important, moments that caused all the conversation and had an impact on the South African consciousness.

I really appreciate the “Gender What” section, where a number of people talk about their gender identity and their gender performance, and generally how they see themselves and their sexuality. The people featured in this section speak candidly about the limited societal conceptions of gender and how there’s so much more to people than “male” and “female.”

Of course, this is a magazine; so all of this amazing gender and sexuality talk exists amongst advertisements of perfume, lip gloss, and all kinds of fashion items.

The section that focuses on different people with their different genders and sexual orientations is very powerful. It showcases people from all walks of life who note some of the ways they experience life in their non-normative genders and sexuality, and most importantly they all describe what love means for them. They give us quotable quotes about love, and what emerges from this spread is that love is important to all of us. The spread is a rainbow of people with different takes on love. People from all walk of life with different sexualities and genders but connected by a desire for love and wanting to share love.

This is a wonderful issue from a mainstream magazine like Cosmopolitan. It gives one hope about a different world where the porousness of gender and sexuality will be common knowledge and celebrated. Where an issue of Cosmopolitan with a transgender woman on the cover will not necessitate a write up like this one. Well done to Holly Meadows and the Cosmopolitan team for a fun and fearless issue that really demonstrates that not only do #TransLivesMatter but that #TransIsBeautiful and that we can #SayYesToLove in all its different varieties.

Thabang Setona And The Ongoing Gender Violence In South Africa

South Africans have become desensitised to violence. At times it feels like violence is everywhere. Many men in South Africa feel like and act like they are entitled to be violent. Growing up as a queer kid I moved around feeling like violence is imminent. Many parents use violence when raising their children. Sometimes teachers at school enforce discipline by beating children – despite the fact that this is illegal. They do not call it assault. Instead, they call it “spanking” or “giving a hiding” and sometimes they call it corporal punishment. We are a society in which physical assault is often viewed as normal, as something that should be expected and accepted.

Like many people, I read about and watched in disbelief the scenes of violence outside Luthuli House this past week. There has been an urgent need for us as South Africans to think differently about violence, all kinds of physical violence. Considering our violent history, colonisation and then apartheid, you would think there would be many community initiatives, an array of government policies and initiates, violence reduction education programmes, all aiming to reduce the violence in our society and the damage that it does.

The woman, Olivia Makete, being kicked by Thabang Setona, and the other women being bitten with sticks was a disturbing sight. There has been collective outrage about the scenes of violence, rightfully so, and the ANC even suspended Thabang Setona and he gave himself over to the police. But what many fail to understand about the scenes of violence outside Luthuli House is that they are not isolated. They are part of the way South Africans are in the world. We are a people conditioned to believe that physically harming another person solves problems. We are a people that talk about violence boastfully and at times jokingly. We have all kinds of euphemisms to talk about violence as if it’s a nice thing.

Many people in South Africa believe that children should be beaten when they misbehave. Recently the beating of children has been rejected by the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural‚ Religious and Linguistic Communities in South Africa. Parents are urged to find different ways to make children understand right from wrong.

Many have rallied against the groundbreaking court ruling that beating children is unconstitutional, citing that the court is overreaching. This argument is interesting because many people agree that the government must intervene when children are being abused or mistreated at home. At the same time, they do not believe the state should intervene when parents assault their children as a way of enforcing discipline. Many have argued for corporal punishment using all kinds reasoning to substantiate the continued use of violence. Some of the reasons are about culture, and the potential collapse of society if children are not beaten for misbehaving. Wessel van der Berg does a good and clear job of deconstructing the myths surrounding corporal punishment in a piece published by News24 in 2016.

I am talking about corporal punishment here because there is a link between corporal punishment and violence. I am also talking about corporal punishment because there is a link between gender violence and corporal punishment.

Violence affects boys and girls differently because we treat girls and boys differently, and often boys and girls are punished for different reasons. Boys who experience violence end up perpetrating violence, like we saw Thabang Setona and the other men who had sticks outside Luthuli House.

Girls who experience violence grow up accepting that violence is something that happens to women and that’s just how it is. When we beat boys we condone violence, we say to boys beating someone up will solve a problem. When we beat girls we condone violence, we say to girls being beaten is part of their life and they must accept it. Gender violence is ubiquitous in this country because we are raised to think that men beating women is an inevitable part of our gendered natures. This is something we have constructed, and this is something we have the power to change.

South Africans beat children when they misbehave, to demonstrate right from wrong, and to show who is the adult. Men beating grown women operate on the same axis, in that men see themselves as adults who teach women right from wrong, correct misbehaviour, and demonstrate who is the adult, thereby demonstrating who has the power in relationships. So gender violence is ubiquitous in South Africa because as a society, particularly men in this society see women as children and therefore deserving corporal punishment. The scenes outside Luthuli House are disturbing, but great illustrations of this. Outside Luthuli House you see men – young men, beating women – older women, with sticks, in the same manner, many adult South Africans beat children. The infantilisation of women is palpable.

Perhaps we use violence so much because we are broken. Perhaps we use violence because we feel powerless. Perhaps violence is a sign of not being in control of one’s destiny. Perhaps men feel small and inconsequential – a smallness that is a product of patriarchy, and by beating women they can feel better about themselves. If any of this is true, then the onus is on us to change the way we raise boys, to consciously construct different ways of being a man in the world, and to unequivocally reject violence in its many manifestations.

I was also taken aback by the outrage over the scenes outside Luthuli House. The very “outrage” that many were showing over violence emphasised the “vulnerability” of women. Many emphasised how women should be protected instead of focusing on how men should STOP perpetrating violence. Violence is what needs to stop.

How we think about violence, as a way to solve disputes is what is the problem. The structured power that men have over women is the problem. The “vulnerability” of another human being looks different if you are not looking to physically assault them. Many talk about the vulnerability of women as if it’s natural, but men manufacture the vulnerability of women in South Africa by continuously perpetrating violence against women. If as a society we eliminate physical violence towards women, women immediately stop being “vulnerable” to violence.

The violence outside Luthuli House comes after I received a message from my mother, that my cousin has a court appearance because he physically assaulted his wife. The parents of my cousin, my uncle and aunt, apparently were begging the girlfriend to withdraw the charges she made against him. I told my mother to advise her not to drop the charges. Eventually, she dropped the charges because my aunt and uncle pressurised her to do so and she relented. When I saw the scenes outside Luthuli House, and I thought about my cousin’s wife, the injustice of it all was overwhelming. As I said, at times it can feel like violence is everywhere.

It is turning out to be a horrible year for women and it is only February. Just like last year was a horrible year for women. And the year before that was a horrible year for women. Officially, the Demographic and Health Survey 2016 from Statistics South Africa paints a grim picture of the prevalence of violence in South Africa. One in five partnered women has experienced physical violence by a partner. 10% of women aged 18-24 experienced physical violence from a partner in the past 12 months. Partner violence is the highest in the Eastern Cape with about 32% of women reporting being violated.

This is the province that has rallied behind the closure of cinema’s showing the provocative movie Inxeba, a movie that speaks to some of the violent tendencies contained in Xhosa cultural practices. Something I have written about elsewhere. If only the people in the Eastern Cape rallied against gender violence in the same manner they rally against Inxeba. Crime Statistics from the South African Police for the 2015/2016 year show that there were 164, 958 common assaults and that there were 182, 933 assaults with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm. These are the recorded assaults. There are thousands of unreported assaults. How many of those assaults do you think were perpetrated by women?

The problem with the situation of my cousin, and many other physically violent men in South Africa is that with silence, with covering up, with withdrawing of charges, by turning the other cheek, with ignoring the signs, by not believing women, by silencing kids who are victims, by encouraging boys to be violent, by expecting girls to accept violence, by infantilising women, we make it safe for men to continue to perpetrate physical and other kinds of violence on women.

We have to make it unsafe in South Africa for men to perpetrate violence. James Baldwin once said, “Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.” What James Baldwin is alluding to here is the need to forsake ourselves and all that we have been taught about gender. We need to be aware of the ways that masculinity functions in our society and device strategies to create an equal society, starting with bringing up girls and boys who are not defined by their anatomy and are not taught violence as a way to teach right from wrong.

We all have a role to play, particularly men, in making South Africa a country where violence, gender violence doesn’t exist. That begins with us making it unsafe for men like Thabang Setona and his ilk to perpetrate violence against women.