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Like really, who does that?

Opinion & Analysis
I have been amazed at the amount of damaging social media making the rounds on WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube.

I have been amazed at the amount of damaging social media making the rounds on WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube.

Grace Chirenje

A number of these videos have to do with women and some were taken by women themselves thus the sister-on-sister violence, some by loved ones and they “suddenly” went viral plus a plethora of others.

I was just wondering how this could be since each woman has a right to privacy, protection and prevention of abuse plus security.

I can never surely understand the depth of the damage of such videos, but I do cringe with each video forwarded to me. With each received forwarded message begins an internal debate of: Should I forward to others or not?

Would this be sisterly or am I now also a perpetrator of violence against women? The latest for me has been the video making rounds on WhatsApp about a sister who went to visit a man and was supposedly “caught red-handed” by the woman who expressed to be the sole lover of the man.

What follows is a series of gruesome exploitation of the sister who was being accused of “stealing” this man. Attention here: Men are not buns that can be stolen. They actually decide to be with someone. Hmmmmmmm . . . let’s reflect on that a while. Men are not buns

Imagine being young and in love. Do you recall the butterflies, the sleepless nights, the passion, and the letters, oh my, whatever it is that makes your heart skip a bit? Now imagine that loved one who causes you to smile at just a thought and almost climax by just a mere recall being with another and yet they did promise you the world?

Painful, of course! Maybe to the extent of even death for some of the women who have been through this?

However, some have chosen to stay alive and cause untold suffering to the woman who “steals” their man. They name-call and trust me I will be exterminated by my church if I dared repeat these names. I have always thought it strange to go on an attack campaign against the sister whom my man chooses to be with.

Relationships by nature are complex and we may do a whole thesis on why man cheat, but attacking the sister is a totally whole new level of drama whose cast I dread to be part of and if I chose to be part of not in public alright let alone social media.

So this woman in the WhatsApp video of topic was taunted, stripped, made to lie down on her back and the worst for me was one of the women taking a plastic wrapper used for bread and analyse her female anatomy while she was clearly on her menses.

Like seriously sisters, how low can you stoop? It is bad enough you have stripped her, called her names and all sorts but this – hell no! And the one that was actually holding the phone and taking the video, who does that? Like seriously? The lesson here sisters is that this man actually chose to hook up with this other sister for reasons best known to himself.

Yes, the sister could have given signals for availability or even outrightly pressured him into it. Why he did not step out and defend me the poor lover as I was being tortured during that time is a discussion for another day. Note to self as women – man choose their actions and no sister can take responsibility solely for whatever action a man takes.

A man is not like a bun from Lobels (Lobels because once I worked at a growth point supermarket for my aunt in the 80s as a young person and these buns sold like crazy!) that can be stolen, bought or grabbed.

Men actually decide where they pull down their pants and do stuff whether legal, illegal, paid, unpaid and so on. Why we continue to abuse each other as women at the expense of our souls when the supposed cheater goes scot-free baffles the mind. Sometimes I am at war with sisters who team up against the man, Hmmm. But for now, I say woman-on-woman violence is one of the worst kinds of violence ever and this just does not rock at all so simples: stop it and stop it now, Please!

Love gone wrong – brain vs heart matters

Dude/stud/hunk/man takes his woman a video semi-nude, nude having sex and so on. This video ends up on Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube or whatever social media this world offers. Sisters, is this a publicity stunt?

Well if it is then bravo to you, but in most of the cases I have had to handle, refer and assist it is purely an innocent while-we-are-in love exploration that eventually goes wrong.

The other year a young female high school student from a private school was victim and it was rather bad when the video went viral. Social media has got to be one of the coolest things to ever emerge in this our 21st Century, but to what end?

Many homes have broken, many women’s lives have been destroyed, relationships ended, hearts tattered, souls bruised and the damage caused as lovers pull a fast one on each other to cause grievous harm. The word, sisters is that, be careful what you do with these your phones and be in control of what information on you goes out there.

Love is sweet and when as a woman you let your heart lead at the expense of your brain then there might be a challenge. It is blissful to be in love, but let not your brain be on shutdown mode such that you end up in regret for the rest of your life.

I do acknowledge that there is Photoshop and all sorts of applications that can make one look like they are part of some game when essentially they are not. That is there, given.

We could also be responsible enough to take care of ourselves and stop deliberately falling victim by being careless. Some lovers are full of nonsense and so let us be aware of that so that we err on the side of caution. It might save our face one day when we want to reach for the moon and we remain haunted by our past naivety and mischief.

The end game

In some of our feminist circles we declare openly that we are our sisters’ keeper. Yes some sisters are more difficult to look out for than others but we do what we can as we cannot be God to anyone.

As a responsible Zimbabwean sister, brother, mother, wife, husband, lover, girlfriend and the list goes on, how about we become the police of ourselves and others?

We can stop abusing others through the social media and this has been deemed cyber bullying in some circles. We can stop this by whatever means that’s within our reach. Ask yourself before you forward any abusive material on a woman if this is worth it. This could be my mother or sister, would I like this? Before you take on the responsibility of cameraperson during an abuse – can you stop the abuse in real time or would you rather take the photo or video so that you become the source of abuse?

Entirely yours and my choice as we strive for a safer Zimbabwe for women and girls, it is possible if we hold hands and say no to violence against women each day, every day and all the time. Let’s do this!

Grace Chirenje writes in her personal capacity and would be excited to hear from you. You can contact Grace on [email protected], follow her on twitter @graceruvimbo or like her Facebook page Grace Ruvimbo Chirenje.