SAPES Policy Dialogue Forum: Politics of sexual economics: situating the “small house” in Zimbabwe

Date: Thursday 14 February 2013
Time: 5pm – 7pm
Venue: SAPES, 4 Deary Avenue, Belgravia, Harare

Presenter: Mildred Mushinga, Doctoral Candidate, University of Pretoria

A ‘small-house’ is a colloquial and derogatory term used in Zimbabwe to describe a woman in a quasi polygamous, long term, informal and usually secretive sexual relationship with a married man. These kinds of relationships have been widely conceptualized within dominant public health and development discourses as part of the broader multiple concurrent sexual partnerships and sexual networks discourses. Such viewpoints have framed these relationships as key drivers of HIV and the women involved as poor, disempowered, lacking sexual agency and engaging in survival transactional sex. These perspectives have focused mainly on the detriments of a permissive, problematic and medicalised sexuality, which however neatly fits into the public health and development panaceas to poverty and HIV. Yet, the evolving ‘small-house’ phenomenon in Zimbabwe entails women from varying economic, social and political backgrounds and hence does not neatly fit into the aforesaid perceptions.

Framing women’s sexual behaviours within contexts where sexuality is seen either as a variant of health or poverty significantly undermines an in-depth and broad understanding of the nuances, complexities and mingling of women’s sexual behaviours, economics, society and politics. In as much as it is a global reality that economic inequalities exist between genders, focusing on one narrow angle of sex research embedded in health and poverty does injustice to the diversity and complexity of sex research. As such, pinning women’s motivations for engaging in ‘small-houses’ to lack of empowerment, sexual agency and poverty has excluded other groups of women -the educated, economically stable, high socio-economic status, seemingly ‘low-risk’ (in terms of HIV) women who knowingly and ‘willingly’ engage in these highly stigmatized sexual relationships. Focusing on these high socio-economic status and educated women can be a useful way to understand women’s sexual behaviours and motivations as they are intertwined with broader changing social, economic, political and cultural milieus in the Zimbabwean context.

All Welcome!

SAPES Seminar Club Membership Forms available at seminar.

Feel free to visit our website at www.sapes.org.zw

Two “freedom fighters” from our sista project Freedom Fone are currently in Kenya training people in the use of innovative technology, particularly in the area of reproductive health. It sounds like they’re having an interesting, if slow (it takes 2 hours to cover 28kms in Nairobi traffic) time. Check out Tina’s blog here.

This Valentine’s Day, join the One Billion Rising (OBR) Campaign which is sweeping across the world to take a stand against violence against women. Zimbabwe is rising, joining over 190 countries globally, and is calling on women – and the men who love them – to get involved in a road show event of dance and testimony.

Venue: Machipisa Shopping Centre, Highfields (Harare)
Date: Thursday 14 February 2013
Time: 11 am – 2 pm

For more information, send an an email to OBR at: obrzimbabwe [at] gmail [dot] com, or follow updates on the OBR Zimbabwe Facebook page

To find out more about OBR events globally, visit www.vday.org

Our country has a history of violence – our children have experienced the horror and fear of rape and beatings in their schools, communities and homes.

Tree of Life workshops have been spreading throughout Zimbabwe over the last 9 years. They are Healing and Empowerment workshops facilitated by survivors of torture, violence and rape. The Story Telling Circles are based round the tree metaphor and allow for the integration of past, present and future experiences, and makes a deep connection to spiritual beliefs and traditions.

And our forest is growing, the roots stretching wider and wider throughout our country.

For the last 5 months, this growing number of facilitators have been gathering in ‘Gender Circles’ and meeting the difficult space between socially and culturally accepted norms and matching them against our Tree of Life Agreements: Equality, respect, truth, love, tolerance, humility.

These have been difficult conversations, particularly in a present external culture of abuse of power. But like all difficult conversations, they have been rich with compassion and learning.

The women have begun to move beyond the silencing of their voices and the ownership of their bodies. They have spoken of the value of mothering and community and loyalty and love, the limitations of jealousy and victimhood, and have learnt to walk with dignity and respect.

The men have listened to stories of rape – and have had the space to share their own. They have looked at the inequalities of ownership, and the effects it has had on their lives – in schools, churches, political organisations and the places they work. They have shared the limitations and difficulties of family  responsibilities inflicted upon them – often from an early age.

We met last Friday (18th March) There were over 50 of us, facilitators from Tree of Life communities and organisations representing the hundreds of circles who stand behind them, and we spoke of the One Billion Rising on the 14th February.

And we decided we are READY
We are ready to join the dance
We will be joining all the global rising on V Day against the abuse of women.

We are in the process of planning
Watch this space!

We will be posting on Facebook, Her Zimbabwe and One Billion Rising Zimbabwe

Gender activist Betty Makoni describes how women face war in their homes and how she feels about leaving Zimbabwe because of persecution from the State:

The last thing any human rights defender wants to do is to leave her home, work and settle in a foreign country. This was my last option during my time of despair and persecution in 2008; only the man I shared my home with knew as I grabbed my handbag and sped out of the door to run for safety.

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