Some — not all — women are bad to the bone (vakaipa kusvika kubhonzo chaiko) just as there are also men who are disgusting and evil-minded, who rape and kill women, including babies.
BY CONWAY TUTANI
Statistics released by the Harare Magistrates’ Civil Courts this week show that 72% of the men who appeared there between January and June this year disputing paternity were proved correct as DNA tests established that they were not the biological fathers of the children of women claiming so. The percentage has held steady from last year, showing a consistent pattern of malevolence and exploitation. To give some perspective, for every rape case reported, seven times as many go unreported. For every DNA-tested case, how many false paternity cases have not been tested?
In the Zimbabwe scenario, many men find the cost of DNA testing unaffordable whereas the onus is on them to pay for that to prove their “innocence” or not of having fathered the child. The result is that some men — according to the latest figures — simply give up the fight on cost grounds. Justice comes at a cost.
Ordinarily in civil court cases the burden of proof lies on the plaintiff or suer. You filed the lawsuit, so the burden is on you to prove your case. But not with paternity cases. The basic presumption is that the man is guilty until proven innocent. But one of the most sacred principles in many criminal justice systems is that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. I am not a lawyer, but some balance has to be struck.
Unless and until the man is exonerated by DNA, he will pay for the upkeep of the child until they are at least 18 on virtually the sole basis of the word of the woman. A way has to be found to remedy this anomaly. It might take time, but it has to be done because the current scenario does not serve justice. It’s a threat to both the institutions of marriage and family, upon which is built cultural norms and values embodying the fundamental moral views of a group, leading to societal stability.
Women have always had affairs. Many people — male and female — do these things. It’s an unfortunate fact of life, but over the past 20 years the number of straying women has risen dramatically with serious implications as seen in the statistics released by the Civil Courts revealing the shocking extent of the lying and deception.
While men have always had a worse reputation for being unfaithful, recent studies show that women are catching up fast and they are a lot more likely to lie about it, and — lo and behold! — a lot less likely to get caught. Simply put, it seems that women are better at having affairs than men. They more and more believe in the “11th Commandment”: Don’t get caught.
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Historically, a man has put a higher value on the faithfulness of his woman because he needs to be sure that any children she has are really his. Legendary former world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali once said words to the effect that it was more tolerable for men to sleep around because men don’t fall pregnant whereas women do and paternity has to be established. It was a controversial but cogent point that Ali raised. Social mores, norms and rules as they stand limit women’s freedom to get impregnated by whoever they wish on the grounds of that inescapable biological factor. That is why in cases of paternity it is invariably women that sue men. In fact, we hardly, if ever, hear of maternity tests, but paternity tests.
It’s not necessarily that women sleep around as much or more than men, but the consequences of a woman doing that are more grave because the child has to have a surname and the surname has to be that of the biological father.
In the past women could get away with it, but since the discovery of DNA testing, the tables have been turned on lying women. They will have to think twice and hard before pointing paternity at a particular man.
When over 70% of women who sue for paternity are proved to be liars and this is scientifically established as such, that is not gender profiling. If statistics show some sections of a certain gender to be by far most deceptive, that’s not targeting of women. The percentage is just too high to ignore. We are talking about clear abuse of the court system by some women. It amounts to reverse sexism in that they want to portray men as invariably using women anywhere and anyway. Such women want to have their cake and eat it too. They see men as meal tickets.
Could it be that men are suffering from reverse discrimination in today’s society? Let’s put this into historical perspective. Prior to independence in 1980, that which is now called “reverse sexism” did not exist at a widespread societal level because women were oppressively and insultingly treated as legal minors by the patriarchal system. Then it was strange and rare for any woman to stand up to a man. Now the figures coming out of civil courts tell a different story. But should women now abuse their hard-earned legal clout?
As has been established from the civil courts, women can be cruel, and they often do cruel things to men. Despite their image as the fairer sex, when it comes to relationships, sometimes women can be utterly spiteful and mean-spirited. This is not being sexist. It’s the figures speaking out loud and clear.
Of course, it is upsetting for the overwhelming majority of innocent women who might be caught up in all this, but it’s important and imperative to point out the reprehensible — if not criminal and evil — behaviour of a particular section of women before it gets out of hand. For too long women were victims of gender oppression, but some are still paying the victim card even though the situation of women in the country has vastly changed.
In other words, they are getting the best of both worlds, they are being exploitative. If a man doesn’t question paternity initially or cannot afford the DNA test, he is stuck with supporting a child that is not his own for the first 18 years of that child’s life. As long as such women can get financial support from men through abusing the court system, they will hide this. So I don’t expect feminists to come banging on my door. After all, feminism is against taking unfair advantage and exploitation — fundamentally so.
According to Dr David Holmes, a psychologist at Manchester Metropolitan University, British women are having more affairs than ever — recent studies say the figure is around 20% for men and a bit over 15% for women — but they behave very differently from men when they cheat.
“The biggest difference is that women are much better at keeping their affairs secret,” he says.
“If you look at the studies into paternity, even conservative figures show that between 8% and 15% of children haven’t been fathered by the man who thinks he is the biological parent.”
There we are — lots of women keeping lots of secrets!
