“We Have to Ask for Permission to Become”: Young Women’s Voices, Violence, and Mediated Space in South Africa

Abstract

In this article, we analyze a series of feminist protests that have taken place within larger political mobilizations in South Africa. Specifically, we are interested in on- and offline activism that challenges norms of gendered violence and is led by young feminists. These protests were among those that received the widest media coverage in 2015 and 2016, shaping public discourse against sexual violence in South Africa. We focus here on three protests that included the use of Twitter hashtags—#RapeAtAzania, #RUReferencelist, and #RememberKhwezi—indicating a new reliance among young, educated feminists on social media for organizational, informational, and activist purposes. Using media articles and Twitter posts related to these hashtags, we analyze the ways and means through which some young feminists speak out against sexual violence in South Africa today. We ask how these new types of actions might interact with existing antiviolence and feminist movements in South Africa. Although sexual violence has long plagued South African society, young feminists today are engaging and identifying with this highly politicized issue on personal grounds. Via social media they reveal their own encounters with sexual violence, expose silences that accompany rape, and call for an “unforgetting” of the stories of rape survivors.