''She Had Agony Written All over Her Face'': Representations of Rape in the Work of Rozena Maart

Abstract

The threat and reality of sexual violence structure the daily lives of South African women, and gendered assumptions about women continue to inform our experience of rape as well as public discourses surrounding sexual violence. This article uses both seminal and contemporary feminist research on rape as a theoretical lens for reading Rozena Maart's The Writing Circle (2008). Although the salience of race in the South African context shapes our reading of rape, the article demonstrates that the primary category of analysis in such readings must be gender as women's vulnerability to rape flows from gendered imbalances of power. The article explores the extent to which women are victimised in their own homes and in their family relationships, and thus aims to challenge the popular conception that the greatest threat of sexual violence emanates from strangers. A number of rape myths inform the attitudes of both women and rapists. The article identifies these myths and illustrates how they operate in the lives of Maart's characters. It emerges that the myths, and the misogynist assumptions about women that underlie them, are deeply embedded in the contemporary South African society that is depicted in Maart's novel.

Opsomming

Die bedreiging en realiteit van seksuele geweld be"invloed die daaglikse aktiwiteite van Suid-Afrikaanse vroue, en genderaannames oor vroue bepaal steeds ons ervaring van verkragting sowel as openbare diskoerse oor seksuele geweld. Hierdie artikel gebruik seminale en eietydse feministiese navorsing oor verkragting as 'n teoretiese lens om Rozena Maart se The Writing Circle (2008) te lees. Alhoewel die belangrikheid van ras in die Suid-Afrikaanse konteks ons verstaan van verkragting bepaal, wys die artikel dat gender die primere analitiese kategorie moet wees wanneer ons representasies van verkragting lees aangesien vroue se seksuele kwesbaarheid teruggevoer kan word na gendermagswanbalanse. Die artikel onder­soek die mate waartoe vroue kwesbaar is in hul eie huise en binne hul families en bevraagteken sodoende die algemene opvatting dat vreemdelinge die grootste bedreiging inhou in terme van seksuele geweld. 'n Aantal verkragtingsmites bepaal die houdings van sowel vroue as verkragters. Die artikel identifiseer hierdie mites en hul uitwerking op die lewens van Maart se karakters. Dit blyk dat die mites, en die negatiewe aannames oor vroue waarop die mites berus, steeds wye aanvaarding geniet in die hedendaage Suid-Afrikaanse sameleweing wat Maart in haar teks skets.