Men Behaving Differently?

Abstract

Men Behaving Differently: South African Men Since 1994
by Graeme Reid & Liz Walker (eds.)
Double Storey Books, 2005, 236 pp., ISBN 1919930981, ZAR 154,-.

More than ten years after the first democratic elections in South African history, violence against and abuse of women and children would unfortunately appear to be as endemic as ever in South Africa. But, as pointed out by Posel in her contribution to this book, it is not clear whether this is a function of changed legislative environments, higher expectations with regard to legal protection against violence and abuse on the part of black South African women, or an actual increase in violence against South African women. Niehaus’ contribution to this volume would seem to point to the latter, as he identifies highly publicised rapes in his fieldwork site in the province of Mpumalanga as a function of the increasing marginalisation of men through unemployment and crime (a pattern replicated elsewhere in South Africa, as unemployment among unskilled black men has increased dramatically as a direct result of the policies of trade liberalisation pursued by a neo-liberal ANC since 1994).