public aGender - Khensani de Klerk by Cambridge Design Research Studio

Rhetoric and Methods: a Cyber Womanist method for reimagining (safe) public infrastructure? Khensani Ruth Tanya de Klerk

Supervisor | Dr Nicholas Simcik Arese Jesus College | The University of Cambridge An essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MPhil Examination in Architecture & Urban Design (2019-2021). Word count: 4997 exl bibliography 28 April 2020

Abstract This project focuses on the long-standing issue of Gender-based violence (GBV). It investigates its spatial dimensions by interrogating the relationship between public infrastructure and urban violence experienced by women of colour (WOC) in Cape Town CBD, South Africa. The Covid-19 global pandemic has created an unexpected and drastic shift in context globally, with people being legally instructed and socially encouraged to stay at home in order to prevent the spread of the contagious virus. The pandemic has offset capitalismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capacity to maintain the status quo of the built environment, including acts of violence and safety that work hand-in-hand with urban space. Many supply chains have been paused, leaving urban contexts deserted as citizens abstain from engaging in physical public life. Consequently, the binary between the public and the domestic realm has been reinforced. If one assumes that everyone is able to engage in lockdown by staying at home, a dire side effect emerges; that of domestic violence. Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains the biggest contributor to GBV in South Africa, often occurring in the home, and commonly going unreported due to the hyper-private nature of the violence itself (Stats SA, 2018). The concern lies in the projection that, so long as the situation of domestic reliance remains, domestic violence threatens the physical lives and mental well-being of women and children living with abusers. Immediate interventions will likely respond, alleviating the ills of everyday life. This study explores architectural approaches that rethink the status quo of violence maintained by public infrastructure, speculating on a reshaping of public life that encourages safety during and after such crises.

1. Introduction Through this pilot thesis, I hope to arrive at a question that clarifies the design-based approach to imagining anti-GBV socio-spatial infrastructure for marginalised groups in Cape Town, South Africa. I will explain the new normal of the urban setting resultant from and continually morphed by the pandemic. Thereafter, I will frame my response to this refined challenge by starting a (growing) lexicon that develops an ideological approach to the method. The concept of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Cyber Womanismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; will be unpacked in this section. Thereafter the method itself will be discussed by way of demonstrating its digital traits through imagery of a newly created website that aims to engage with respondents in Cape Town through the internet. The method in this sense hopes to be both a conduit and a vessel for qualitative data to exist and flow through. Finally I will briefly discuss how this digital process should exist in parallel to another design based fieldwork task in order to confront and constantly test architectural significance on the social issue. In closing, I will arrive at provocations describing where my design thinking is and the current process outlook.

2. The ‘new normal’ In the wake of the Covid-19 global pandemic, the nature of everyday life has changed, possibly defining a new normal. The absence of normal labour, routines and activities outside of the home, has challenged the need and use of the built urban fabric that typically choreographs its spatial interactions. With limited physical interaction, the new normal can be spatially described as citizens leading hyper-individual lives, in domestic settings at a social distance, for the sake of preventing the spread of a highly contagious virus. Consequently, countries including South Africa, have enforced national lockdowns with restrictions limiting peoples’ movement outside of their homes. The length of the ongoing pandemic is unknown, as different countries project different timelines. As a result society has to continue to find ways to adapt to alternative ways of functioning in this new normal. Capitalistic prioritisation has already put pressure on this adaptation, seen in individuals working from home via the internet, if possible. The malleability and opportunity that digital media brings has given society a mode with which to function socially and in some instances economically, although at a reduced amount. The house, in the age of the Covid-19 pandemic, is popularly considered to be the ‘home’. This is a single lens conception, assuming that home resides in the registered location of a citizens’ house, excluding homeless and immigrant communities. It is of vital importance to reconsider the question of home today, because it means investigating the body as well as the mind of a changing world (Molinari, 2016; p12). The rhetoric of home during the pandemic, appears to be frequently used by the state to maintain societal obedience. Unfortunately in many cases, across the globe, the supposed home also remains one of the most dangerous sites of IPV, GBV and child abuse and other social ills ( such as disease proliferation through overcrowding in informal settlements). Worldwide, almost 30% of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner in their lifetime (WHO, 2017). The home continues to synthesise our deepest fears and our wildest dreams, reflecting a social body inhabited by increasingly different individuals (Molinari, 2016; p12). The conventional spatial qualities of a home — such as comfort, privacy and concealment — are also characteristics manifested in the built form and exploited by abusers to paradoxically inflict GBV. With restrictions prohibiting social engagements, and the use of public space; the home has become the place of permanent dwelling. Most public buildings have become temporarily vestigial with only essential services available at a reduced use, such as grocery stores and pharmacies. Every other form, aside from medical facilities, has

been deserted. Physical contact such as handshakes and congregations are largely prohibited, however intimate interaction continues behind closed doors raising concerns about increased domestic violence. Protest, seen as inherently linked to the occupation of public space has been used by GBV victims to mobilise a collective voice. In the new normal, this has already taken on alternative forms through emphasised physical visibility [fig. 1.].

Fig 1: Protest movement projects onto residential walls by feminist advocacy group Coordinadora 8M in Chile during pandemic lockdown in March 2020

How do victims socially distance, isolate or quarantine, in the presence of their abuser? How do victims mentally and physically survive with barriers around their escape routes and routines? What safe space exists outside of the conventional home? Is there safe space within new forms of public ‘home’? After all, the home is not simply solely that of the nuclear and individual experience but can be, in an urban context, a collective safe space. This project speculates that the idea of ‘the home’ will break out of its existing spatial definition, migrating to the public realm where it can perform as a place of communal attention and love (Molinari, 2016).

3. What is Cyber Womanism? The aim of this lexicon is to create a syntax that layers ideological terms in defining the research approach. In order to understand the approach, the lexicon unpacks terms categorised under two main historical feminist ideological groups: (a) Black and (b) Cyber. The terms under these categories gain derivative meanings when used in relation to one another, confronting critiques of their common descriptions. Unpacking these terms hopes to explain what a ‘Cyber Womanist’ approach may mean, foregrounding its spatial application in the subsequent section of the essay. The lexicon is a tool that I may return to, opening avenues for design exploration through a theoretical unpacking and redefining of these themes in the context of GBV in the new normal.

BLACK Womanism Black feminism by definition with its identification within the feminist frame has been criticised for stronger associations with white women and issues of gender oppression being prioritised over that of racial oppression (Obasi, 2019;p235). For this reason, we look to Womanism, coined in 1979 by African-American poet and author Alice Walker, as an ideology that supports marginalised POC, with a focus on women. Countless scholarly contributions to Womanism highlight the value in collective input and reliance on multiple narratives to define a fluid collective heterogeneous identity. Womanism, in its theoretical definition, takes into consideration the experiences of black women, black culture, black myths, and orality (Uchenna, 2013). Patricia Hill Collins, whose scholarship has long been committed to Black feminist thought, expands on this fluidity in her What’s in a name? Womanism, black feminism, and beyond (1996), highlighting the importance of heterogeneity across the collective. Although she explicitly speaks from her locale — the perspective of African-American women — similar thinking amongst African diaspora and Africans outside of the US is growing; a result of increasing globalisation and information mobility. The remnants of Apartheid South Africa, namely the Population Registration Act No. 30 of 1950, have left an ever-present after-effect of popular racial classification defining people of colour (POC) as a fragmented group; ‘Coloured’, ‘Black African’, ‘Indian’, ‘Asian’ and ‘Mixed’. Coupled with class, the narratives of WOC are extremely diverse and their oppressions, plenty [fig. 2.].

Fig. 2: Types of GBV. 2020. Diagram by author

To return to heterogeneity in a contemporary setting, and to echo the words of Collins, at this point, whether African (American) women can fashion a “singular” voice about the black woman’s position remains less an issue than how black women’s voices collectively construct, affirm and maintain a dynamic black women’s self-defined standpoint (Collins, 1996; p9). Focusing on WOC helps the project maintain group unity, whilst detailing an ideological standpoint reminiscent of Womanism wherein WOC can share narratives amongst their many differences. Shared aspirations in

addressing GBV amongst WOC may help work through the interconnected nature of multiple systems of oppression and potential ways that intersectionality might foster resistance, giving significant energy in moving quite diverse African women forward (Collins, 1996). Womanism in this sense, gives fuel to a collective agenda.

Storytelling Given the diverse intersections of WOC experiences of GBV, collecting individual narratives and understanding settings in relation to one another can reveal mutual and uncommon spatial conditions of violence. More so, this gives room for generating architectural ideas with significance to mutual settings. The input data will therefore undoubtedly be qualitative and require coding and synthesising after collection. The communication of meaning in these narratives by respondents will largely depend on how the data is collected with considerations of scale and privacy. For example, difficult and intimate topics conducted in public forums with minimal privacy, run the risk of producing performed narratives or reluctant engagement from respondents, whereas, with a considered setting for dialogue, levels of privacy and scale can be established for different types of narratives to be expressed. This is not to say that performance is not meaningful, but may rather be helpful in empowering women to collectively reclaim space and discourse in more public platforms. The #MeToo social media contemporary movement is a well-known example, which has encouraged women across the globe to voice their experiences of GBV, igniting ripple effects in de-stigmatising reporting GBV. From a Womanist perspective, storytelling is considered a legitimate and scientific part of research (Nadar, 2019). The telling of stories, the listening to stories, the construction of stories in a narrative in order to represent research findings – all of these processes are counted as legitimate components of the research process and an essential part of feminist epistemology; and nowhere does this notion of narrative research cohere more than in Africa (Nadar, 2019; p37). I am interested in understanding the experiences of WOC in their domestic settings and their ideal dreams or fantasies of safety in the public realm. How they choose to tell their stories, reveals and contributes to a method of extracting information, from authentic material. Seconding the sentiments of South African activist, Professor Sarojin Nadar; storied evidence is gathered not to determine if events actually happened but about the meaning experienced by people whether or not the events are accurately described. The ‘truths’ sought by narrative researchers are ‘narrative truths’, not ‘historical truths’ (Nadar, 2019; p42). Particularly in the architectural discipline, recognising the attachment that narratives have to objects and qualities of space establish a duality between event and setting. In the end, the setting contributes in some way, be it minor or major, to the event which in this case is safety or violence in the home and in public. Perhaps some narratives may ask what safety and violence appear as in-between the home and public, if at all?

Fig. 3: Locating safe space in Cape Town. 2020. Diagram by author

CYBER IoT (Internet of Things) Mobility Post-Cyberfeminism checks technological abuses of power (Elboar, 2017) and like its predecessor Cyberfeminism, it seeks to use the internet as a site of personal freedom in defiance of gender, race and other identity confinements in society. In the case, where intersectionality is central to the project, employing Post-Cyberfeminist approaches in fieldwork may successfully address contemporary gender and racial issues as acknowledged discriminations within feminism itself. Cyber fieldwork therefore not only relies on collection but also a willingness of respondents to be detailed. The language used by the respondents can simultaneously feed into a revised ideological understanding of how WOC in Cape Town, broadly speaking, understand and practice Womanism. Ideas of safe space, GBV, domestic life and public space could begin to take on different localised forms. The cyber-world, lends itself to being a preset filter that allows research to be conducted in physically contested and normally hyper private spaces more easily, with the consent and agency of the participant online. For example, suppose the digital forum asks a woman who is subjected to GBV about her everyday routine, and the character of her space. Conducting a normal site visit would require not only the researcher finding a way to be invited into the respondentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s space, but would also involve heightened risks of violence in the respondent potentially having to negotiate with her abuser, to allow a stranger to enter their shared space. In this case, the research - albeit pro-safety in its intentions - could compromise the safety of the respondent during the process. Alternatively, using a cyber method in this same example could be less dangerous and productive for both the researcher and respondent by way of the respondent capturing her space through imagery, audio, film or any other media at a preferred and safe time, and submitting it to the researcher. The internet being a tool for engagement also offers a safe space and a way to not just survive, but also resist, repressive sex/gender regimes (Daniels, 2009; p188). The respondent, gains agency and the research relies on this agency. Each contribution in the input data also possesses a subjective voice reflective of the respondent, shown in how they decide to capture a response to the questions. These unique perspectives may appear through camera angles, time captured, content, tone etc; which would then be coded by the researcher to determine significance. If the work were to be conducted in a typical site visit, these multiple lenses and essential voices behind the data would be absent as the recorder of information would be the single, inevitably subjective lens of the researcher. Employing this method of cyber collective narrative input data collection continues to reflect the growing tendency for girls and self-identified women in engaging with Internet technologies in ways that enable them to transform their embodied selves, not escape

embodiment (Daniels, 2009; p188). In South Africa, this is especially necessary, as most GBV victims either do not report incidents or continue to live with their abusers (Stats SA, 2018). In this sense, the invisibility attached to digital mobility via online submission, opposed to physical mobility via entering, say, the police station and being subjected to undermining micro-aggressions; encourages women to still report through methods that are lower risk to their already violent experiences. The empowering trait of the cyber, aligns with Womanist theories of upholding standpoint epistemology as an inherent trait of knowledge production including diverse histories, conditions and realities. In South Africa, one has to acknowledge access to (free) internet and is often precarious. However, it is promising that respondents are likely to have cellphones as 68% of the Western Cape province (where Cape Town is located) population have access to the internet via a mobile device (Stats SA, 2018). The platform will therefore make an effort to be low-data, consuming through reduced resolution, to hopefully keep participation present. One of the biggest critiques of Cyberfeminism is its inherent functioning in and conforming to whiteness, privileging white women with access to the internet, furthermore perpetuating the lure of an Internet community in which gender, race, and class can be discarded as irrelevant or constructed exploitatively (Gilbert, 1996; p125). This access to the internet goes beyond the infrastructural and financial capacity of WOC engaging with the digital but also describes a more complex inaccessibility — that of legibility. The design of the website can address legibility and consequently encourage or discourage participation for WOC who are not all fluent in the language of niche platforms. We look to the First Cyberfeminist International, the Old Boys Network—an international coalition of Cyberfeminists established in 1997 in Berlin— who agreed to intentionally keep the term undefined in order to keep things as “open as possible as consensual” (Elboar, 2017) [fig. 4.].

Fig. 4: Screenshot of Old Boys Network, 1997. ‘100 Anti-Theses of Cyberfeminism

Cyber Womanism therefore becomes one of many modes drawing from Cyberfeminism, but more so focusing on the movement seeing the usefulness of things like making claims, articulating norms, and mobilising categorical statements, in full knowledge of the dangers involved and in full appreciation of the serious sensitivity of the premillennial feminist initiatives upon which we build (Hester, 2017).

Afrofuturism Given the rise of Afrofuturism as a creative mode for Africans and the African diaspora to exercise their creative integrity whilst uncovering ancestral histories; it seems fitting to point out a nexus, positioning Cyberfeminism and Womanism with Afrofuturism. Although its growing presence in popular culture, Afrofuturism is currently often consumed as solely that, undermining the great efforts of creative work in historical and cultural research put into its production. The often overlooked activist role of Afrofuturism proposes a future, in which POC are present and involved in the advancement of society, not just as witnesses and labourers but as leaders and benefactors. A recent popular spatial example that maintains the activist role of Afrofuturism ideologically through its medium is the film Black Panther (2018), wherein a new future African urban landscape called Wakanda is imagined [fig. 5.]. The ability to reimagine fundamental ways of navigating space is communicated through science-fiction but not relegated to only science-fiction. With a focus on the new normal, What next? vs What if? is obscured to

the point where one no longer dares not to imagine. Afrofuturism therefore has room to encourage architectural imagining of new spatial forms of safety, underpinned by various collective narratives; at the least, generating imagery that evokes such tropes. 13

Fig. 5: The Afrofuturist design of Wakanda from Black Panther. Marvel Studios. 2018

4. Method demonstration: conduit and vessel I have created a digital space in the form of a website which can be seen as both a conduit to connect to respondents and a vessel into which information is collected. The website is a platform and forum for WOC in Cape Town to engage with discourse on GBV by way of contributing their specific narratives and experiences in relation to that. The website is a space for victims and survivors to voice their opinions and seek safe space, particularly in a time of social-distance and heightened domestic violence. The website approaches new media and digital technologies as mechanical tools, one seen as cultural artefact or product of identity in itself (Ä&#x152;ernohorskĂĄ, 2019). Participants, referred to as members, may join, giving them access to a private forum called The Safe Room, exclusive to members only. The home page, referred to as the Protest Wall, is open to the public, where mixed-media contributions from members are displayed with their permission. The Safe Room serves as what I refer to as a negative safe space characterised by introversion, therapy and comfort; and the Protest Wall serves as a positive safe space, that is extroverted, encouraging members to voice their thoughts and engage in a sort of public performance online.

Fig. 6: Screenshot of The Protest Wall webpage from public aGender website. By author

Due to the different tones with which members can engage with the website, cyber privacy becomes a concern. The privacy policy details how public aGender will use member information for research, placing importance on pseudonymization in the processing of data. For the research output, this entails using different names for respondents, as well as editing recognisable features where respondents appear in visual contributions by placing a black strip over their eyes etc.

Fig. 8: Screenshots of privacy policy webpage from public aGender website. By author

Fig. 7: Screenshots of about mobile webpage from public aGender website. By author

The privacy policy, for the purposes of members engagement, describes who can become a member, who has access to membersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; information, how long the space will exist, an ethical code for participating and the responsibilities of the administrator.

As a matter of privacy, the identity of members presents both benefits and risks in the work. The self-constructed avatar, made by the member naming themself by preference, can provide agency but also cause fault. As the site cannot verify if users tell the truth about their gender and race, the project may invite unwanted participants who skew the data. This can, however, be prevented by inviting participants to be members identified by local organisations as WOC in Cape Town. However, this risk is unavoidable to an extent as the project is globally accessible via the web. On the other end, the benefit of the avatar may aid in counteracting the risk by encouraging applicants to be more truthful about their characteristics by their â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;usernamesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; protecting their real names; and despite their email addresses being sent to administration during sign-up, this information will be kept private. Testing and reviewing the website will address this risk-benefit concern during the fieldwork process. The sign-up form will require details about each member including username, gender, race, age and residential location in Cape Town.

Fig. 9: Screenshot of join webpage from public aGender website. By author

Fig. 10: Screenshot of sign-up form from public aGender website. By author

The website has a page for submissions which can be accessed by the public but should be used by members only. However, this ability to submit regardless of membership has been designed intentionally in order to invite other WOC or womxn of any race to contribute to the research for what may be beneficial or archived later. The centrality of lived experience does not mean only Black women can contribute to the discourse but within any contribution, the limitations of knowledge experience should be acknowledged (Obasi, 2019; p236). The aim is to collect as many diverse narrative inputs localised in Cape Town as possible and to constantly assess the data input throughout the fieldwork process. Any non-member submissions, if any, may reveal how disobedient energy possibly exists in the digital realm too, against the rules. Whether these appear on the Protest Wall will be determined per submission, however, in the case that they do, they will be labelled as non-member pieces to maintain members’ trust of information use. In addition, some contributors, be them members or non-members may want to submit purely for the research and not for public viewing, creating a one-on-one qualitative interaction. These oneon-one qualitative ‘interviews’ may reveal important insights absent in the group that are complementary to focus group research encouraging researchers to use both (Kaplowitz & Hoehn, 2001; p245).

The Safe Room is the section of the website which collects the majority of the data. It can be seen as a digital attempt at creating an alternative focus group medium. Focus groups entail group discussions guided by a certain set of questions that enable participants to interact and build on each other’s replies and reactions (Kaplowitz & Hoehn, 2001). It does this through dispensing topics which members are asked to respond to. Members are encouraged to answer in whatever medium and quantity they feel most comfortable with, eg video,

Fig. 11: Screenshot of submit webpage from public aGender website. By author

photograph, text, audio. Each member is asked to respond to all topics in order to maintain consistency in comparison and collection. In addition, members are able to show solidarity through â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;likesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (heart) reactions on other member posts in each topic. Members are also able to ask questions in each topic, and discuss amongst one another. As a WOC who has lived in and is familiar with the context of Cape Town, I will also participate solely as an administrator to facilitate discussion.

Fig. 12: Screenshot of The Safe Room online forum webpage from public aGender website. By author

I would wake up at 04:30 in the morning, to make sure I get a taxi to the city. Its dark in...

Fig. 13: Screenshot of topic discussion webpage from public aGender website. By author Fig. 14: Screenshot of entry form for topic discussions from public aGender website. By author

I could take walks during my lunch breaks. I had to keep pepper spray, but atleast...

A subpage in The Safe Room titled Our Space, is a member-exclusive equivalent to the Protest Wall, for members to share contributions that they would be uncomfortable sharing with the greater public. This will aid in deciphering content that would be categorised as negative safe space (in Our Space), and positive safe space (on the Protest Wall). More so, this may give a more nuanced understanding of how safe spaces are conceived according to who is present in them; shown by who members decide their audience should be per contribution. In Our Space, it may be beneficial for members who want to share detailed information and feel comfortable doing so in the assumption that other members inherently understand subjugations to GBV. The project hopes that once a few contributions are submitted in Our Space, other members may feel inclined to engage more frequently. As black lesbian feminist writer and sociologist Kesenia Boom writes when critiquing WOC engagement online, â&#x20AC;&#x153;my words could let other Black women know that they were not crazy, that their experiences of frustration were not their burden alone, and that they were connected to something outside of themselvesâ&#x20AC;? (Boom, 2019; pg 250). If members feel the same, the website may begin to serve as a negative safe space site in itself, unravelling the taboo that comes with voicing issues about GBV in general.

ek is bang

Ndidiniwe

Fig. 15: Screenshot of Our Space webpage from public aGender website. By author

5. The output: proposing provocations The website hopes to maintain two appearances. To members, a priority appearance that serves as a platform for their discourse; and importantly for the research, a tool for data input and collection. The input questions focus on geolocating the social issue experienced by participants, by asking members for the specific location(s) in which events took place. As expressed by Beebeejaun, an examination of seemingly mundane practices poses challenges (Beebeejaun, 2017; p9) for architects, and it is the examination of these narratives that will inform the design. The digital data input is the first step at establishing what localised negative and positive safe spaces exist in Cape Town, how often they are frequented and manifested, where they tend to be, and what WOC as a collective imagine ideal(s) to be. In this sense, the everyday and the unmapped gain importance (Beebeejaun, 2017) and become a map through collectively generated mixed-media. As Beebeejaun cites Australian feminist theorist Elizabeth Grosz, I too ask if there are ways in which claims over space or inclusive spaces can be forged through more dynamic representations of space (Beebeejaun, 2017) prototyped through image making? By honing into Afrofuturism, I hope to generate spatial tropes resulting from the collective data which will inherently reflect multiple perceptions of dwelling. The objective is that this method will reveal unexpected characteristics of how WOC attempt or succeed to reclaim space as safe. The output will certainly give a more nuanced approach to conceptions of the domestic and public, challenging occupation links to privacy which maintain GBV or which can be unwound to address GBV spatially. This qualitative data process will run in parallel to a physical case study of a model (or visibly effective) social infrastructure project that currently responds to the spatial experience of GBV victims and survivors. More specifically, the design case study will focus on The Frauenhäuser, which are safe houses (founded in Switzerland) that provide GBV victims and their children with short to medium-term housing in the city and other therapeutic services. Spatially the locations of the frauenhäuser are only disclosed to those who need them and are located in urban nodes. The buildings therefore do not have any recognisable features as safe houses, keeping them inconspicuous and camouflaged in the city fabric. The design interest lies in the way in which the frauenhäuser function spatially to deliver services of dwelling for victims whilst mediating an eventual transition back into the public world. In South Africa, women’s’ safe houses are not as effectively located in urban nodes, making occupants vulnerable to being sought out by their abusers and victims having to engage widely with the public for services that may not be as clustered, as in the city.

Die Zeitung der Organisation für die Sache der Frauen

Herausgeber: OFRA .Hammerstr. 1 33, 4057 Basel Redaktion: Kathrin Bohren 10 Nummern pro Jahr Fr. 13.Preis: Abo. einzeln Fr. 1.30

OFRA

emanzipation

aktuell

Frauenhäuser Schweiz

der

Die zehn Vereine der Frauenhäuser der Schweiz (in Genf, Zürich, Basel, Bern, St. Gallen, Brugg, Luzern, Winterthur, Fribourg und Schaffhausen)

haben anlässlich der nationalen Koordinations-Tagung am 28.11.87 in Genf beschlossen, sich in einer Dachorganisation zusammenzuschliessen. Das Ziel der Organisation ist es, koordiniert auf gesamtschweizerischer Ebene das Thema anzusprechen. Neben der Betreuung und Begleitung von misshandelten Frauen und deren Kindern möchten die Schweizer Frauenhäuser präventiv an der Aufdekkung von Gewaltstrukturen in unserer Gesellschaft arbeiten. Die Anerkennung des sexuellen Selbstbestimmungsrechts aller Frauen sowie die Strafbarkeit der Vergewaltigung in der Ehe wird gefordert. Sehr wichtig wäre auch eine vom Ehemann unabhängige Aufenthaltsbewilligung der Ausländerinnen. Die Fremdenpolizei stellt die Bedingung, dass Ehefrauen, speziell Müttern, nur solange der Aufenthalt in der Schweiz gewährt wird, wie sie mit ihren Ehemännern zusammenwohnen. Die Folge ist, dass sich einige Frauen mit diesem Ausländerstatus zwischen zwei verschiendenen Gewaltformen zu entscheiden haben. Einer doppelten Unterdrückung sind auch Flüchtlingsfrauen ausgesetzt, die in einem Frauenhaus Schutz und Hilfe suchen. Ähnlich geht es oft auch Frauen aus der Dritten Welt, die infolge vom Sextourismus von Schweizer Männern per Heiratsvermittlung in die Schweiz gelangen und oft dann nachdem sie misshandelt wurden nicht mehr in ihre Heimat zurückkehren können wegen der gesellschaftlichen und familiären Sanktionen. Die

Asylbestimmungen die Lage der Dritt- Welt-Frauen in der Schweiz noch zusätzlich. verhärteten

verschärfen

Postkartenserie (10 Karten) zum The ma ,Neues Eherecht' kann für Fr. 5.— bezogen werden bei: Vereinigung für Frauenrechte Basel Schöllenenstrasse 31, 4054 Basel PC 40 - 2258-8 Basel

Unabhängigkeit und Liebe Als Freizeitredaktorin der „Emanzipation" und hauptsächlich Lehrerin an der Kantonsschule Ölten beschäftige ich mich jeden Tag mit dem Verhalten von Schülerinnen Als engagierte OFRA-Frau und Schülern. muss mir natürlich das unterschiedliche Auftreten von Mädchen und Knaben auffallen. Ich wollte der Sache etwas auf den Gmnd gehen. Ich wollte erfahren, wie heute Mädchen und Knaben über ihre Rollen denken und wie die Schule diese Rollen wei¬

FRAGE

terträgt, oder ob sich seit unserer Schulzeit doch einiges geändert hat. Gemeinsam

und Schülern zur Beantwortung Wir haben mit der Auswahl versucht, ein möglichst breites Spektrum der Meinungen zu erfassen. Allerdings erfassten wir nur Mittelschüler (innen), eine klare Minderheit Edith Stebler der heutigen Jugendlichen.

diese Unterrichtsinhalte auf dein Verhalten gegenüber dem anderen Geschlecht einen

mit Schülerinnen wurde der Fragebogen erarbeitet, den wir dann ausgewählten Schülerinnen vorlegten.

Vermittelt deiner Meinung nach unsere Schule

ein bestimmtes Mädchen/Knabenbild? Haben

Einfluss?

Marie-Madeleine, 16 Jahre Nein, denn die Fächerordnung ist, mit Ausnahme der Koch- und Nähschule, diesselbe. Das Verhalten gegenüber dem anderen Geschlecht wird dadurch nicht beeinflusst. Allerdings bin ich persönlich der Meinung, dass Koch- und Nähschule auch für Knaben möglich sein sollte und dass zwischen Haushaltungskursen und Landdienst die Möglichkeit einer Wahl bestehen sollte.

Kuno, 2o Jahre

Frauen verlangen ihren Namen zurück

Ich glaube, dass unsere Schule das Rollen verhalten unserer Gesellschaft aufrechterhält. Selten hört man kritische Stimmen von Seiten der Lehrer oder Schüler gegen sexistische Aussprüche, Bücher etc. Ein Beispiel ist die Übersetzung (Frage 2). Die einzige Reaktion eines Mitschülers war: ,JDas ist pervers". Die anderen sagten überhaupt nichts und lachten nur.

Verheiratete Frauen können seit dem 1. Januar 1988 laut Übergangsbestimmungen des neuen Eherechts sowohl ihren ehemaligen Namen als auch ihr ehemaliges Bürgerrecht wiedererlangen. Gleich am 4. Januar haben einige Frauen in Basel vom Übergangsrecht Gebrauch gemacht. Doch die „neue" Identität kostet ihr gutes Geld, im Gegensatz zu anderslautenden Meldungen. Unabhängigkeit und Liebe In Basel z.B. kostet die Namensänderung 50 Franken. Darin nicht inbegriffen sind — JA Atomschutz die Kosten, die entstehen können, wenn Frauen ohne Basler Bürgerrecht Zum die Jahr fürdes Kindes Kohler Helga die Namensänderung nötigen Unterlagen aus ihrem Heimatkanton beschaffen Magazin müssen. Für die Wiedererlangung des Bürgerrechts hat die betroffene Frau 75 10 Jahre neue Frauenbewegung (4) Franken aufzuwenden (ebenfalls ohne allfällige Kosten für die Beschaffung der Kriegsspielzeug - wozu? nötigen Unterlagen wie Familienschein...) Nicht inbegriffen sind freilich die Kosten Kinderbücher für die Änderung des Passes (50 Franken), der Identitätskarte (10 Franken) Indianerin heute Eine und des Geht Kulturseite oder Fahrzeugausweises (20 Franken). es hier um Bussebeispielsweise auf Prozelle Warten Abschreckungsgeld?

INHALT

Was ich noch sagen

Aus den Kantonen Ofra - Mews

Generalstabschef möchte Frauen in der Armee auch bewaffnen

Bern. AP. Generalstabschef Eugen Lüthy hat sich für eine freiwillige

dem Zugang zu neuen, bisher nur den

ausgesprochen. Eine Waffe für den Selbstschutz könnte zweifellos dazu beitragen, mehr Frauen für Frauendienst den Militärischen (MFD) zu gewinnen, schreibt Korpskommandant Lüthy in der jüngsten Ausgabe der M FD-Zeitung. Der MFD-Bestand sei nach wie vor unbefriedigend, weshalb in der Frage der Gleichstellung von Mann und Frau in der Armee weitere Schritte getan werden müssten. Mit

die Attraktivität des MFD nach Meinung Lüthys erheblich gesteigert werden. Damit hat Lüthy erstmals in der Kontroverse um die Bewaffnung der MFD- Angehörigen Stellung bezogen. Auch der Ausbildungschef, Korpskommandant Rolf Binder, und die MFD-Chefin, Brigadier Johanna Hurni, stehen einer Bewaffnung der MFD- Angehörigen positiv

Bewaffnung der

weiblichen

Armeeangehörigen

Männern vorbehaltenen Armeefunktionen sowie der Bewaffnung könnte

1/2/3 3

4/5 6/7 8

9 10 10 11

12/13 14 14 15 16

Fig.16: Cover of Emanzipation Magazine, a women-led publication on Swiss and international feminist discourse (1979)

gegenüber.

Basler Zeitung, 6. Januar 1988 Was soll daran attraktiv sein? Gegen wen soll eine Waffe für den benutzt werden? Als Schutz vor den Schweizer Männern?

wollte

Seite

Selbstschutz

Fig.17: Frauenhäuser in der Schweiz/ Safe Houses in Switzerland newspaper article in aktuell (1988)

Conclusion With the collective localised input feeding into the digital site, coupled with an understanding of exemplary safe houses, the research hopes to catalyse the formation of a new spatial intervention resultant from both. This catalyst implores two provocations: the first is how local Cape Town experiential knowledge can determine the effectiveness of the ideal safe home, to imagine how the design of safe houses could adapt in a Cape Town context. The second question, then addresses the transition from negative to positive safe space, in asking how GBV survivors in safe houses transition into independent life. The resultant creative impulse from these provocations brings to the table a public social infrastructural project with a focus on dwelling and the domestic. For now, this may be in the form of transitional housing, and a set of configurations that address the negative and positive safe space transitions for survivors of GBV. For the future, and in the context of Cape Town, I hope this process and its outputs can contribute to growing Womanist scholarship in South Africa.

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Figure references Fig. 1.

Coordinadora 8M (2020) An image from Chile’s protest movement is projected on the walls of a home [Photograph] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/ quarantined-chileans-keeping-protest-movementalive-200414122141809.html

Fig. 2.

Khensani de Klerk (2020) Types of GBV [diagram]

Fig. 3.

Khensani de Klerk (2020) Locating safe space [diagram]

Fig. 4.

Old Boy Network (1997) 100 Anti-Theses of Cyberfeminism [Webpage] https://www.obn.org/cfundef/100antitheses.html

Fig. 5.

Marvel Studios (2018) Wakanda in Black Panther [Film still] https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/11/black-pantherwakanda-golden-city-hannah-beachler-interview/574420/

Fig. 6. - 15

Khensani de Klerk (2020) public aGender website samples [webpages]

Fig. 16.

Front page of Emanzipation : Feministische Zeitschrift Für Kritische Frauen Issue 5 (1979) ETH-Bibliothek https:// www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=ezp-001:1979:5#304

Fig. 17.

“Frauenhäuser in Der Schweiz.” Emanzipation : Feministische Zeitschrift Für Kritische Frauen, January 6, 1998 [magazine snippet] ETH-Bibliothek https://www.eperiodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=ezp-001:1988:14#313