When love kills: constructions of masculinities within the intimate femicide crisis in Botswana
Date
2021-03
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Gender based violence towards women is a human rights issue and a social crisis that is pervasive across countries, including Botswana. The extreme consequence of gender violence is women ultimately getting killed by men, including their intimate partners, which comes as a result of women’s vulnerability and oppression in a patriarchal, sexist, and violent society. This phenomenon, termed intimate femicide, is not sufficiently documented in Botswana. Although men have been identified as predominantly perpetrators in these incidents, the way in which they become men and centralise violence in their lives, sometimes ultimately killing women, remains a lacuna in gender studies. Using thematic analysis and a feminist theoretical perspective, this exploratory qualitative study aimed to develop an understanding of how men make sense of their manhood and intimate femicide, and to explore some of the normative ideas they have about masculinity. This was done by identifying and unpacking how those ideals might contribute to an environment in which violence against women is normalised and perpetuated. Normal expressions of masculinities in a normative context were interrogated, to explore how pathological expressions of masculinity become possible. The study utilised focus group discussions with a sampled of men recruited from a social sporting setting where they socialise as a collective. It was found that participants’ aspirational performances of being successful men and idealised behaviours found expression in the notion of a ‘real man’. Furthermore, due to being located as subjects within a continuously changing environment, performing being a man is not reflective of a fixed category. To make sense of the contestation and tension that comes with this, participants’ discourse was mainly characterised by a sense of shifting and locating the blame of a violent masculinity elsewhere, particularly on other forms of masculinity, other cultures, the media, women, and feminism as an ideology. There exists a need to interrogate and document how to re-(create) positive masculinities devoid of toxicity and violence to curb gender-based violence in our society. This study adds on to the limited research on masculinities and intimate femicide in Botswana and the continent.
Key words: Gender Based Violence, Intimate Femicide, Masculinities, Feminism
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AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar nie.
Description
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2021.
Keywords
Gender based violence -- Botswana, Femicide, Masculinity, Feminism, Violence in men, Women -- Crimes against -- Botswana, UCTD