By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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I have started articles about violence against women that I can’t finish, more times than I care to think about. Earlier this month, a woman was gang-raped and the perpetrators filmed themselves commit this crime.

The video found its way to the internet and was shared widely, which led to the perpetrators finally being apprehended. When this caught the public’s attention, people started demanding justice for the victim. That is when a third moral crime was committed.

The then-Dodoma Regional Police Commander (SACP) Theophista Mallya allegedly made remarks to the effect that the victim was giving prostitute vibes, while speaking to a reporter.

Officer Mallya is a large woman with a severe short cut whose uniform is dripping with braids and stars and the thingamabobs that signify that she is a high-ranking member of an organisation that exercises violence against civilians, on behalf of the Government of Tanzania.

Read: EYAKUZE: More women, of course! Give us gender parity for it is our right

Officer Mallya has since been transferred from her job in the capital to another posting, after news of her remarks made the rounds online.

Her comments disgusted Tanzanian society. But they did not surprise Tanzanian society.

We have heard it before.

Because we have said it.

Tanzania is a dangerously misogynistic patriarchy, and Officer Mallya is the face of our truth. Yes, our misogyny wears a woman’s face when it needs to because systems of oppression recruit everyone. Including you. If you have ever wondered what we mean when we talk about systemic violence, now you know. Something is deeply broken here.

Sometimes folks tease me about being feminist and what my views are on horrendous events like this are. They imply that I have the power to do something about systemic hatred of women. They insinuate that if I join a protest, pen an article, satisfy their need for performative anger on my part, they can award me their approval.

They want me to forget all the off-colour jokes they make every day about women, because that’s harmless, right? They want the comfortable assurance that “not all men.” That they are not part of the problem. Right?

But we live in a country where police officers make light of a woman’s rape, and imply that she deserved it. In a country where one can’t breathe for the number of critics reducing their dislike of the Head of State’s mistakes to her gender. Where this same Head of State has said unkind things about women athletes.

We live in a society where the humiliation of seeking redress for such a fundamental violation of the body and spirit as rape is so acute that most crimes go unreported.

A society that finds this state of affairs... acceptable. So forgive me if I am reserved in my opinion of the lawyers and other worthies whose faces adorn the papers everyday as they fight for the rights of this particular victim. I want to believe that this momentum will be sustained. I want to believe.

I want to see retribution, I want us to talk about how we raise men to think it’s okay to be so vile, I want to talk about women and why they call victims whores, I want to see brutal honesty about how messed up we really are, I want to see change. I have started articles about violence against women, only to see the faces of my people, who accept that this is fine, because we live in this society, so I still don’t know how to finish this.

Do you?

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report; E-mail: [email protected]