In a recent survey researchers found that more than three in four men said they had perpetrated violence against women. Nearly nine in 10 believe that a woman should obey her husband — and almost six in 10 women agreed.
South Africa has one of the highest rates of rape in the world. Last year a survey by the Medical Research Council (MRC) found that 28 percent of men in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces said they had raped a woman or girl.
A new MRC study in Gauteng, the country’s wealthiest province, found that 37.4 percent of men admitted having committed a rape, while 25.3 percent of women said they had been raped. The survey questioned 511 women and 487 men, of whom 90 percent were black and 10 percent white.
“We see a situation where the use of violence is so widespread that not only is it seen as being legitimate but I think quite often women forget it. They just see it as a normal effect,” Rachel Jewkes of the MRC said.
Although both sexes largely agreed that “people should be treated the same whether they are male or female,” 86.7 percent of men and 57.9 percent of women endorsed the statement that “a woman should obey her husband.”
About 53.9 percent of men and 29.8 percent of women agreed that “a man should have the final say in all family matters,” while 37.3 percent of men and 23.2 percent of women supported the view that “a woman needs her husband’s permission to do paid work.”
Asked about sexual entitlement in marriage, only 55 percent of both men and women said they thought “it is possible for a woman to be raped by her husband.”
About 38.7 percent of men and 29.3 percent of women thought that “a woman cannot refuse to have sex with her husband” and 22.3 percent of men and 8.8 percent of women felt that “if a wife does something wrong, her husband has the right to punish her.”
The survey found that 32 percent of men and women agreed that “in any rape case, one would have to question whether the victim is promiscuous.”
“What we see here is a set of attitudes reflecting men’s views that they are legitimate in the use of violence against women, and women in many respects acquiescing to this,” Jewkes said.
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