Jacques Rousseau pointed out a jaw-dropping item from South Africa.
Traditional Venda chiefs have given SABC acting chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng a wife, a cow, and a calf.
That should be a woman, a cow, and a calf. Traditional Venda chiefs gave some guy a woman along with a cow and a calf.
The Sowetan reported on Friday that women were lined up in Thohoyandou, Limpopo, on Wednesday for Motsoeneng to choose one. He and other SABC executives were in the area for a meeting with Mudzi wa Vhurereli ha Vhavenda, a lobby group of traditional leaders and healers.
“The girls were around 10 and they paraded for him to choose. He chose the one he liked,” Mudzi executive secretary Humbelani Nemakonde was quoted as saying.
“All the girls were there with their parents. Their parents knew what was going to happen and they all agreed.”
The woman Motsoeneng chose was pictured in the newspaper bare-breasted next to him. She is a 23-year-old human resources management student.
And a cow available for purchase or donation.
Culture…..
I’ve heard people argue that we should respect other cultures and their traditions. If your cultures traditions denigrate women (or Jews, atheists, queers, PoC…), I’m not respecting it.
And yet this is at trial:
http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2014/05/26/13-year-old-sold-sex-for-r50
The comments on the Sowetan article are a treat:
http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/incoming/2014/06/13/sabc-coo-gets-wife-as-gift-report
Seem at all familiar?
For those who might be wondering, SABC is South African Broadcasting Corporation.
I assume that that’s supposed to mean there were around ten women present for selection. I find it hard not to read it as denoting age.
The kinds of things I read daily about the way this country treats its women makes it difficult.