South Africa is a society that thrives on maintaining fears in the hearts and minds of women and children.
Women and girls fear being raped, murdered, and abducted each and every day in their homes and in the streets of our country.
And it is this fear that should make each and every citizen, particularly us men, fight and dismantle that which threatens the physical and psychological state of women.
In Female Fear Factory, Pumla Dineo Gqola examines and critiques the construction and maintenance of this female fear that has thrived in our patriarchal society.
Gqola weaves academic studies with practical case studies across the globe to expose how female fear and its evil machinations continue to be the biggest investor of patriarchal violence in our many societies.
Now, I need to disclose that this book provided me with a mirror to look at what kind of man I am, and my role in maintaining the unbalanced shifts in this unjust and unequal society I live in.
Female Fear Factory exposed that even if I can scream and denounce how I fight my unearned male privilege- granted by my male organ, I, like many men continue to be an active investor and beneficiary of patriarchal privileges- because we all enjoy the benefits and privileges it grants us.
Inside the pages of this book, many men will come face to face with some of the unearned freedoms that they continue to enjoy at the expense of women. However, the most important part is that men will have to decide how they can denounce such freedoms, disinvest in patriarchal privileges, and how they can play their part in the creation of a just and equal society- where women and children live their lives without fears.
Women and girls will be educated and encouraged to unlearn and throw away the patriarchal ‘scripts’ which were/and continue to be forced on them on how they should live and conduct themselves in this patriarchal society.
Female Fear Factory is ground-breaking and compelling work, and its importance can never be understated.
Gqola has once again proven why she is a leading feminist writer of our time, and with this book, she will change the attitude of so many souls and save lives at the same time.