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Woman Footballer - about corrective rape by Mike van Graan
Woman Footballer
It’s a great honour to receive this award tonight, and I’d like to dedicate it to my mother. My mother’s favourite colour was green. She had green shoes. Green bags. Green hats. Even our house was painted green. I’m here because of my mother. So, wherever you are Mama (holds up the trophy), this is for you! Mothers aren’t supposed to have favourites. But we were the only women in a family of seven. Maybe it was because I was the only girl. Maybe it had to do with my being the youngest. Or perhaps because I was the laat lammetjie, coming into the world six years after my youngest brother. She taught me how to dream. I know, it’s a cliché. But sometimes, life’s like that. “You can be whatever you want. It’s the new South Africa”, she always said. She didn’t have many options. She could be a teacher or a nurse. She chose teacher….so she could still wear green, she used to joke. The grass is greener now, she used to say. So dream, girl! Dream doctor! Lawyer! Accountant! The sky’s the limit. Air steward. Pilot! Dream! I dreamed a lot…(wry smile) but there was only one recurring dream that featured green grass. Soccer Player. Would she have approved of my choice? Would she have urged me on because it was my dream? But silently wish I did something else? I’ll never know. She went off shopping in a taxi one Saturday morning. And never came back. Three families lost their mothers that day. I was twelve…. I was supposed to go with her. But I snuck off to watch my brothers play football, hoping for a game. Often, they were short of a player and then they would throw me a jersey. My first memory is of kicking a ball. With four older brothers, were always going to bond around what was important to them. Growing up, what was important, was a ball. I got to be one of the boys! That was way cooler than hanging out with girls. Boys were funnier. There was less pretension. And I got to hear what they said about the girls. I didn’t have what the magazines said I should have as a girl. I was short. Flat-chested. And I didn’t really know about girl stuff. I had no-one to learn from. I was playing in my brothers’ team when the coach of the other team saw me. He told me about women’s football teams. He didn’t have sons. He arranged fro me to play in the same team as his daughter. She hated football. Forced to live out her dad’s dream! But for me, this was the beginning of my dream coming true. A few years later, I was in the national side taking part in the Women’s World Cup. I was living my dream and I wasn’t twenty yet. Life was good. I’m sorry if my acceptance speech is running over time, but his is such an important platform…And what I want to say is…I’ve never spoken about this in public before. Two years ago, after I came back from the Women’s World Cup, I was ambushed by four men. They said…I was a dyke. They said it wasn’t natural for a woman to be playing football. They said I was bringing shame on African culture. They said they were going to teach me a lesson; that they were going to put me on the right path. And then they raped me. Again, and again and again. One of the things that stands out from that night…two of them were wearing green…South African cricket T-shirts. One takes what life dishes up. What are the alternatives? It helped that when my brothers and their friends found these guys, they beat them up to within an inch of their lives. Maybe it’s not right, but it felt fair what they had done to me. We live in a country, on a continent, where women are violated every day. In the streets, at schools, in their homes, in clubs, in wars. Sometimes…often…. it’s difficult to be positive. About the world. About our country. About life. I am positive. Ever since they raped me, I’ve been positive. When I found out, I had two choices: to live or to die. I thought of my mother. She didn’t have that choice. I chose to live. Thanks to a wonderful doctor who monitors my health, I am well. Yet I have never been more aware of my mortality. And it spurs me on to live my dream of being a great football player! So, I cannot tell you how much this award – Best Woman Footballer of the Year – means to be. I would have preferred it to be without the Woman bit. But for now, I’ll accept it. And continue living towards that next dream…”Best Footballer of the Year”.
@ Mike van Graan
Capetown, South Africa
2011
Note: this is about violence known as 'corrective rape' and reflects certain attitudes and values within a culture dominated by one-sided images of what it takes to be a man, or a woman.
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