Facebook brings together so many voices on a scrolling tabloid, all which serve to define the recipient as much as the sender. As a woman, mother, grandmother, friends send me their favourite articles about sexism and the insidiousness of youthful sexuality in the western world. These have more to do with my kids in Papua New Guinea, my granddaughter in Papua New Guinea, than I care to admit. At the same time, my news feed is mostly local, from other PNG activists, bloggers and news sites. Some have made comparisons between the spoke in rape and sorcery accusations here with the horrible stories in India recently, and that comparison seems to strengthen every day.
I posted a comment a few days ago about how the way we characterize the rapists and murderers in these cases as ‘animals’ only fuels the way they think of themselves. These are individuals who give themselves license to ‘go wild’ because of sanguma, or home brew or cannibas, or a combination of all three. They attack women, rarely men, and they do so with a bloodlust that can only be explained by the cultural definitions of gender in PNG today.
Women are not from Venus. Nor are men from Mars. [t.co] The fact that we continue to see women’s bodies as inimical to men’s, as polluting to the social fabric as well as the masculine essence, renders the opposite sex as the enemy. And love or sexual attraction becomes a ‘charm’, a spell one gender places on another---disabling the target, undermining his or her free will. And so forth.
And today I find this posted by a friend in Madang:
Yesterday arvo my parents' house cleaner told my sister how her husband's niece was gang raped on sunday while walking back from church. She was raped by six men who were frm her own village and they had used a knife as a rape tool too. She was taken 2 modilon gen hosp and the house keeper sed she n her parents had no food at the hosp. So my sis n I wer planning on bringing food 2 them ths a.m only 2 be told tht the girl had died last night. She was only in grade 8. To make matters worse the only suspect was released because the father of the girl reckons 'sanguma bagarapim em pinis na bihain rape kamap so noken kalabusim man nating.' Housekeeper says they're now fighting bek at their block because the girls' uncles r furious with her father. Just another sorcery accusation 2 cover up rape.
This prompts me to contribute to a thread about the father’s culpability here. Why is he letting the rapist off the hook by saying ‘sanguma bagarapim em’ (sorcery drove him to do it) ratherthan going after the man himself? Why does restorative justice always, always make the woman pay?
(Apologies for the following picture, but it makes my point).
Then I scrolled down to read something re-posted by another friend. Ironically, it is reposted by an Indian physicist who lives and works in the US, a woman with the kind of parents (Ican imagine) who fought for their daughter’s equality at every step of the game. Below is the story she, in turns, wants to highlight. But when you read it, ask yourself why this would neverhave come from a PNG father.
Dear Cutie-Pie,
Recently,your mother and I were searching for an answer on Google. Halfway throughentering the question, Google returned a list of the most popular searches inthe world. Perched at the top of the list was “How to keep him interested.”
It startled me. I scanned several of the countless articles about how to be sexyand sexual, when to bring him a beer versus a sandwich, and the ways to makehim feel smart and superior.
AndI got angry.
Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your job to “keephim interested.”
LittleOne, your only task is to know deeply in your soul—in that unshakeable placethat isn’t rattled by rejection and loss and ego—that you are worthy of interest. (If youcan remember that everyone elseis worthy of interest also, the battle of your life will be mostly won. Butthat is a letter for another day.)
Ifyou can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the mostimportant sense of the word: you will attract a boy who is both capable of interest and whowants to spend his one life investing all of his interest in you.
Little One, I want to tell you about the boy who doesn’tneed to be kept interested, because he knows you are interesting:
Idon’t care if he puts his elbows on the dinner table—as long as he puts hiseyes on the way your nose scrunches when you smile. And then can’t stoplooking.
Idon’t care if he can’t play a bit of golf with me—as long as he can play withthe children you give him and revel in all the glorious and frustrating waysthey are just like you.
Idon’t care if he doesn’t follow his wallet—as long as he follows his heart and it always leads himback to you.
Idon’t care if he is strong—as long as he gives you the space to exercise thestrength that is in your heart.
Icouldn’t care less how he votes—as long as he wakes up every morning and dailyelects you to a place of honor in your home and a place of reverence in his heart.
Idon’t care about the color of his skin—as long as he paints the canvas of yourlives with brushstrokes of patience, and sacrifice, and vulnerability, andtenderness.
Idon’t care if he was raised in thisreligion or thatreligion or noreligion—as long as he was raised to value the sacred and to know every momentof life, and every moment of life with you, is deeply sacred.
Inthe end, Little One, if you stumble across a man like that and he and I havenothing else in common, we will have the mostimportant thing in common:
You.
Because in the end, Little One, the only thing you shouldhave to do to “keep him interested” is to be you.
Youreternally interested guy,
Daddy
———
This post is, of course, dedicated to my daughter, myCutie-Pie. But I also want to dedicate it beyond her.
I wrote it for my wife, who has courageously held on to hersense of worth and has always held me accountable to being that kind of “boy.”
I wrote it for every grown woman I have met inside andoutside of my therapy office—the women who have never known this voice of aDaddy.
And I wrote it for the generation of boys-becoming-men whoneed to be reminded of what is really important—my little girl finding aloving, lifelong companion is dependent upon at least one of you figuring thisout. I’m praying for you.
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