And then again, the wonderful Nyemudzai trumps the ugly t-shirt. We spotted her walking up the steps of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe to celebrate the International Women’s Day events. Way to go girl . . . walking the streets of Harare with funk and fabulousness.

Ok, so I’m not hot on censorship, but it was disturbing to see a guy helping with the logistics at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe on International Women’s Day wearing this t-shirt. We’ve got a long way to go.

Didymus Zengenene’s blog post titled is Lobola still valid in the era of equality? made me think. I consider myself a feminist, yet I want my future husband to pay roora to my family. Yes, that’s right, my family as a whole. The understanding of what roora or lobola is, and what it means has, through time and loose translation been lost to a generation that now considers English meaning of a shona or ndebele tradition to be Gospel. But what happens when that tradition’s real meaning is lost in translation? We get feminists, neo liberals and the like clamouring for the banishment of that tradition, using big words like equality and gender imbalance. Don’t get it twisted, I’m all for gender equality. But I also believe that culture is an important factor in personal identity.

Translated into English roora, means bride price. Of course then, on the surface, this tradition would appear to be a man buying a woman. I don’t deny that there are those who pervert that perception of this tradition to enrich themselves by selling off their underage daughters. Neither do I deny that there are men and women who believe that by having roora paid for her a woman must be completely submissive to her husband or suffer the consequences, violent or not. But these are the ill-advised actions of people, not the intent of the tradition. They reflect more on the characters of the individuals involved than on the culture they profess to practice.

The act of paying roora shouldn’t be looked at in isolation. It is part of a complex and formal process of negotiation that results in a mutual agreement of the bride price. Roora is not meant to extract ridiculous sums of money from the would be groom. In fact for true traditionalists, the exchange of money, which is foreign to our culture, is taboo. Roora is a tradition that is rooted in building a sense of community, both within the families that are marrying, and between them. A man cannot marry alone, the cattle he pays to his bride’s father are those cattle given to his family by his brothers in law. The ceremony itself cannot happen with out a number of members of the extended family being present, tete’s (the bride’s father’s sisters), Sekuru’s (the bride’s mother’s brothers), varoora (sisters in law to the bride) and hanzvadzi (brothers and sisters) included. Far from being transactional, this tradition is meant to establish and reinforce a relationship between the two marrying families to strengthen the new union. It is impossible for a good parent to place a monetary value on a child, so why should it be looked at in monetary terms alone?

In answer to Didymus’ question, as a card-carrying feminist who wouldn’t suffer the indignity of being dictated to by a man simply because he is one, yes I think it still is. I think the tradition of roora, as it was intended, is very important. In a time when divorce rates climb every day and our sense of culture and community is being lost through cultural alienation, migration and other factors I think it is more important now than ever.

The International Women’s Day commemorations at the National Gallery in Harare on March 6 featured a panel discussion: Moral and/or pleasure? Women, media and the creation of discourse on sexuality. One of the discussants on the panel was Catherine Makoni. Last year, her article Women as vectors of disease: The problem with ill-thought campaigns generated a lot of controversy on the Kubatana blog. One comment challenged her criticism of the PSI “small house” campaign on HIV and AIDS, accusing her of responding based on her feelings, not her analysis. This person claimed her position was based on assumption, not research. But Catherine firmly believes that this campaign violates the principle of “do no harm,” and she used her presentation to explain why she believes this so firmly.

For example:

I go to University, and I do Law. By the third year of University (Law is four years) there is enormous pressure on me to have a boyfriend. Sure, I’m doing Law, but there is immense pressure on me to get married. In third and fourth year you get a lot of girls falling pregnant, in the hopes of securing someone to marry them. So third year, fourth year you have a lot of pregnancies. Why? Because you need to be sure that before you leave university you have someone to marry you, otherwise you’ll be a failure, never mind that you have honours and a first class degree. I’m talking about stereotypes, and gender roles, and expectations, and how these are drummed into us from birth.

Fast forward a few years and I start dealing with gender based violence. My friend, who is a lawyer, has not been able to leave her abusive marriage. It’s like the prophecy is coming true. We were told not to study law, because you’re giving yourself all these airs and what man is going to tolerate you? So she’s done everything. She’s cut her hair, she’s worn long clothes, she’s worn oversized dresses, so that she doesn’t look too attractive, and make her husband insecure. So 14 years later she’s in an abusive relationship, and her husband says “You think you are a lawyer. I’m going to beat you, and I want to see what you do with your law degree.” Her mother says “Why don’t you give him his proper place. He wants to be head of the family. Give him his proper place. You should know you are a woman. Don’t talk about work at home.”

I remember about 11 years ago, I’d just come out of the salon. It was around 6pm. Some man approaches me and tries to chat me up. I ignored him, and he lays into me. He starts beating me up, opposite the UN building on Union Avenue. I got attacked, and people stood by. There were people looking out of their windows in the UN building while I was being attacked. Eventually this guy got tired and walked off, and someone said to me “What did you do to him?” I said I didn’t do anything. The guy was shouting uri hure, and I suppose pretending that I was his girlfriend. The people who heard what he was saying thought, well, she’s his girlfriend. She’s done something, so this is okay. I asked them why didn’t you come to my aid. And they said, well, we thought you were his girlfriend. We have a culture which says it’s okay to beat up a woman. If she’s your girlfriend, then it’s alright to do it – especially if you think ihure, or she’s done something.

There are infinitely harmful ways in which these things play out. The imagery of this PSI campaign sticks in our heads. It sticks in the heads of the police, the magistrate, the teachers who teach our daughters, that man who’s walking out there, the editors, everyone. What it’s saying is yes, you are right to hold these beliefs. You are right to think that women who do not conform to societal expectations of what is right are a problem.

Read more of Catherine’s presentation, and listen to excerpts of her talk, here

President Jacob Zuma has been called all sorts of names of late for making the choice to enjoy the privilege of being a polygamist which his culture permits, which the South African constitution does not criminalize and which the women he is married to have accepted much to public outrage.

While I have strong personal feelings against polygamy, I notice that during the hullabaloo that ensured – none of Zuma’s wives voiced dissent, none of them took to the streets in protest over their husband’s perpetual marriages, engagements and never-ending wooing.

It was to me, a case of the media crying louder than the bereaved – for if indeed there are any who are harmed or aggrieved by how Zuma conducts his love-life; surely it would be the women he has married, promised to marry and those he has fathered children with – all of whom have remained silent. The silence, presumably, of those who are in acquiescence.

But then people are entitled to their opinions, moreso if the opinions they wish to voice regard those who are in positions of power, who find themselves accountable to the public and whose private lives play out in the public domain as Zuma’s life has.

Now the British media called him a ‘buffoon’ who also happened to be ‘over-sexed’. Now to my way of thinking, buffoon is not high on the scale as far as insults go – in fact it is really nothing compared to some of the colorful invectives that have gone Zuma’s way.

Inadvertently, this insult has done more to turn the tide of public opinion in favor of Zuma, primarily because it was uttered by a white man, who happens to be non-African and whose contemptuous view of Zuma’s polygamous status has riled the afrocentric and pan-africanist sensibilities of some of us.

Though it may sound clichéd, Zuma’s conduct has a cultural premise – an African culture, which (whatever its flaws and imperfections may be) is our proud heritage and an integral part of our ethos as a people, as continent and as a race.

Where I come from, when we fight or disagree – we are allowed to do so without pulling punches knowing that what binds us is greater than what would divide us. I have often found that the only thing that quenches a family feud is the intrusion of an outsider, one who would presume to appoint themselves as the judge and proceed to proffer unsolicited advice or opinions on what is an internal affair.

And that British man has managed to raise my hackles by his superciliousness and the nauseating superiority complex that informs his interpretation of African customs, specifically polygamy.

Had he desired to make an informed judgment of President Zuma’s lifestyle, he would have done so within the confines of the African customs and culture that permits him to be a polygamist.

Anyone, particularly a non-African, would do well to show the appropriate level of humility that is reflective of his or her limited experience and knowledge of African mores when they make the choice to hazard an opinion. Logic dictates that it be so.

Voltaire once stated, I do not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. It is in the same vein that I am compelled to leap to Zuma’s defense; for while I (as an African) do not agree with how he chooses to conduct his life (and find polygamy to be unpalatable) I defend without qualms his right to marry many women as our culture permits and in the same breathe I would be duty-bound to defend the right of all his wives to be married to their one polygamous husband.

It is a personal choice they have made and whatever the consequences – it is not my place to hurl insults at them because I happen not to agree with the decisions grown, mature and adult women have made in picking a life partner.

So much for the gospel of tolerance that the has been preached by the West with advent of fighting for gay rights the world over and here is one who would scorn a man for marrying three women and find it palatable that two men ‘jump’ each other’s bones?

Whatever; that snide remark however goes beyond the issue of Zuma because really the issue is polygamy and polygamy is an African issue and surely any disparaging comment made about it reflects on the African people whose culture makes it permissible?

A buffoon, is he? What does that make the rest of us, I wonder? Or would someone care to explain how that remark has nothing to do with the rest of us; sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts and cousins of polygamists – let me guess – we’re just a family of African ‘buffoons’.

Lately the debate about women’s rights has been taken to greater heights than ever before. It is historically evident that women have been oppressed mainly on the basis of their physical weakness, which was mistakenly assumed to overlap also to mental capacity. As a result they have been treated as mere observers in a male dominated world. Or as mere commodities; for example, a young girl could be exchanged for food or cattle. People with wealth ended up having many wives, some as young as their grand daughters.

Giving birth to a boy child has been regarded as enlarging the family, whereas giving birth to a girl child is seen as enriching the family through cattle, food or any form of wealth that would come out of lobola. Even the terminology speaks for itself, “Mukomana anoroora, musikana” meaning that the act is not reciprocal. Rather the boy child is the object whereas the girl is the subject. Just like the relationship between a boy and the ball in the sentence, “The boy kicks the ball.”

Today’s world drives us to a new dispensation – that of equality. A free world for all. How can this be valid where marriage demands payment from one side of the pair? In my view payment of lobola removes that balance which we strive to achieve in a relationship.  Despite the amount of noise made about human rights, women are literally reduced to mere commodities and given a monetary value. One pays that much for an educated woman, the other pays that much more for a moneyed women and so on. Yes it is our culture, but is it not the same culture, that we should blame for its ills of disregarding women? If it is merely a cultural token, why does it differ depending on the social status of who is getting married? In as much as we are moving out of the era of unbalanced oppression towards women, our approach lacks practicality as we still hang on to cultural practices that can promulgate inequality right from the first day that people are married.

And from the women’s side, many are convinced that payment has to be made to their family before they are married. I once asked a lady if she would agree to exchange vows without any payment made. In response she asked me why I wanted to be ‘given” a wife for free. To me she reduced herself to a mere commodity rather than an equal partner.

My argument here is simple. Lobola payments minimise the gender equality we want to achieve when people enter their marriage without a balance. When the wife is ill treated, she is slow to take any action because someone paid for her. Even her parents will look at the matter considering that they received something from the Mukwasha. With lobola in place, and pressure to be equal, I foresee a time when men will not be committed to a relationship. Rather they go the “hit and run” way where they impregnate and go free again with no responsibility and no risk.