Zille doesn't want verbal war
2009-05-22 15:18
Cape Town - DA leader and Western Cape Premier Helen Zille on Friday returned to the bitter arguments over gender and sexuality that took over the country last week.
Writing her online newsletter on Friday, Zille draws attention to a survey that reportedly found that more than 10% of South African children between the ages of 10 and 13 are sexually active.
"Just stop and think about that," she writes, "Can it possibly be true that one in every ten of our children (not only girls) is subject to statutory rape?
"A statistic like that should focus every adult's mind on how we as a nation can address an issue that has lasting personal, psychological and socioeconomic consequences.
Bathing after sex
"About 27% of respondents said that they could prevent HIV infection if they bathed after sex. One wonders (silently) where they got that idea from.
"Asking that question aloud would attract another week-long misdirected uproar to divert us from the real issues.
"This statistic is a sharp reminder of the powerful impact that the behaviour of leaders has on young people. It also explains why a leader's personal conduct should be subject to scrutiny if it has public consequences."
She said that it is not her intention to wage a verbal war with various ANC-affiliates, nor to prolong what the media has termed "mud-slinging", but she insists that when research like this emerges, it is clear how thin our constitutional veneer is in South Africa.
Facebook group
"It did so in brutal fashion this week on a Facebook site that listed Deputy Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, and ANCYL spokesperson, Floyd
Shivambu, as administrators.
"The postings on this site exposed such depths of bigotry and misogyny, that it is almost understandable why gender activists avoid the real issues. The consequences of doing so can be devastating.
"In public, we often hear the ANC reciting its mantra of a ‘non-racial, non-sexist society’. The warped set of hateful patriarchal attitudes displayed on this site, perhaps reveals more of the truth."
