As I mentioned in post #140, in Caster Semenya’s 2023 memoir, "The Race to Be Myself", Semenya chose to include a very revealing photo of Semenya taken on high school class trip to the beach in Durban in 2007 - the same year the teenager got a South African birth certificate for the first time and the BC stated that Sememya’s sex is female. In the photo, Semenya is totally bare-chested, wearing nothing but the kinds of bottoms known as swim trunks.
If any of the adults in Semenya’s life genuinely thought Semenya was female at the time when that photo was taken, there’s no way they would have allowed teenage Semenya to go to to the beach bare-chested, especially not on a high school trip with a whole bunch of randy, red-blooded, rowdy, hard-to-control teenagers - and not to a beach in Durban, where it was and still is illegal for girls and women to go topless at public beaches.
If anyone at Semenya’s school and in Semenya’s community though Semenya as a girl back in 2007, Semenya’s decision to wear only swim trunk bottoms at the beach would have gotten Semenya in a heap of trouble and led the teenager to suffer a world of hurt.
Any genuine girl who went topless on a high school trip to the beach in South Africa when Semenya did - or any other time in history - would almost certainly have been been mobbed, mauled and sexually assaulted by the high school boys on the trip and maybe by some grown men too; shunned and slagged off by the girls from school, who would have called the girl who went topless a shameless tramp, hussy, sl*t, tart, floozy, wh*re, b*mbo; and condemned by the whole community as a wanton, depraved bad girl of “loose/low/no morals” who was “asking for it."
South Africa’s written constitution and colorful nickname give the impression that the so-called “rainbow nation” is an enlightened land where equality and diversity are so prized and prioritized that there’s little in the way of sexism; misogyny; sex discrimination; male supremacy; male violence against girls and women; homophobia; animus towards lesbians; or requirements, expectations and/or subtle social pressures for females to try to appear and act “feminine” and males to try to appear and act “masculine” - and therefore girls and women growing up in SA in Semenya's youth and today had/have total freedom to dress, behave, love and live however they wish without any negative repercussions.
But the reality of life on the ground in South Africa is very different. Under black leadership and white rule alike, South Africa has always been and today remains a patriarchal, traditionalist and homophobic society where people of all races - including (and some would say especially) black people in the rural provinces - hold very sexist, conservative views about the roles, behaviors, and place in the social pecking order considered appropriate and acceptable for males and females.
The South Africa Caster Semenya grew up in was and continues to be a place where black girls and women are subjected to sky-high rates of sexual harassment, abuse, assaults and sexual crimes by boys and men of their own race and ethnicity. And schools In SA are one of the places where this kind of mistreatment is rife.
For girls and young women attending K-12 schools and colleges and universities as well , being sexually harassed, preyed upon, groped and even raped by male students and by male teachers, administrators and coaches are part and parcel of ordinary life. Rape of girls in schools in SA is such a big problem that in 2013 the SA government instituted a program called the Stop Rape Campaign specifically for schools.
The dire situation and dangers girls attending schools in South Africa have long faced as part of their everyday lives was detailed in “Scared at School: Sexual Violence Against Girls in South Africa,” a report published in 2001 by Human Rights Watch. From the introduction by Kofi Annan, then the head of the United Nations:
On a daily basis in schools across the nation, South African girls of every race and economic class encounter sexual violence and harassment at school that impedes their realization of the right to education. This report examines the barrier to equal educational opportunity posed by the South African government's failure to adequately address the gender violence prevalent in the South African school system.
Education is lauded by world leaders as a key solution to the social ills plaguing many nations and a means to gender equality, but school environments present a major problem that has not received sufficient scrutiny.
Many girls who surmount the numerous barriers that block access to school meet discriminatory treatment once at school. Girls are required to provide cleaning and maintenance services for the school, while teachers and boys use the time for academic work, sports or leisure. Girls are made to sit at the back of classrooms. Girls' self confidence may be further eroded by teaching materials that portray women and girls as inferior.
Girls are disproportionately the victims of physical and sexual abuse at school. Girls are raped, sexually assaulted, abused, and sexually harassed by their male classmates and even by their teachers. In South Africa, some girls have left school entirely as a result of their experiences with sexual violence
From the body of the report:
One of the most significant challenges to learning for many children is the threat of violence at school...violent crime, a major social issue in South Africa, poses a threat to school safety
South Africa's written submission to the World Education for All Forum, an assessment of the state of education in the country, identified the possession of weapons by students, sexual abuse, the use of alcohol and drugs on school premises, and burglaries as having a debilitating effect
Although girls in South Africa have better access to school than many of their counterparts in other sub-Saharan African states, they are confronted with levels of sexual violence and sexual harassment in schools that impede their access to education on equal terms with male students.
South African girls too often encounter violence in their schools. South African girls continue to be raped, sexually abused, sexually harassed, and assaulted at school by male classmates and teachers.
For many South African girls, violence and abuse are an inevitable part of the school environment.
Sexual violence and harassment often go unchallenged and today constitute a significant hurdle to equal opportunity for South African girls.
The sexual violence that has infiltrated South African schools is prevalent in South African society at large. South Africa reportedly has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world.
Seventy-seven percent of women in South Africa described sexual violence as "very common" in their areas. Sixty-eight percent of women said they had been subjected to some form of sexual harassment at work or school at some point in their lives.
One in four young men questioned reported having had sex with a woman without her consent by the time he had reached eighteen.
Societal attitudes toward women and girls also contribute to a higher incidence of violence against them. According to a recent Gauteng area study, eight in ten young men believed women were responsible for causing sexual violence and three in ten thought women who were raped "asked for it." Two in ten thought women enjoyed being raped.
Among male youth who knew a woman who had been raped, 7 percent said they thought she must have enjoyed it and 24 percent thought she "asked for it."
Nearly half the males surveyed said they had sexually violent male friends. Three in ten men said they could be violent to a girl.
Nearly 50 percent of male youth said they believed a girl who said "no" to sex meant "yes."
Nearly a third of both men and women surveyed said forcing sex on someone you know is not sexual violence.
Some girls even responded that they did not have the right not to be subjected to sexual violence.
While the majority of men thought "jack-rolling" ("recreational" gang rape) was "bad," young people between the ages of fifteen and nineteen years old were the most likely to say it was "good" or "just a game." Eleven percent of fifteen-year-old male youth thought jack-rolling was "cool," with a leap in male opinion in favor of jack-rolling between the ages of sixteen and seventeen.
Youth attitudes regarding violence against girls help perpetuate violence. To date, the education system has not been effective in changing attitudes or teaching students to control aggression; rather, schools are spaces where violence remains prevalent in part because it is not effectively challenged by school authorities.
figures from the South African Police Service (SAPS) Child Protection Unit and the Victims of Crime Survey [show] rape is the most prevalent reported crime against children, accounting for one-third of all serious offenses against children.
Because those who commit acts of sexual violence can also be very young, girls may have real reason to fear the threats and taunts of their classmates.
