The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHEL BENNETT

WE know that schools girls are preyed on every day by older men. We know that there is a power imbalance; girls are impressionable and want money. These are often called ‘cutters’, and demand no respect.

Sometimes they use money to pay for their luxuries, but the fact that they are selling themselves is worth it apparently.

This is especially true as the country moves into materialist overdrive.

However, we continue as if this rampant materialism is normal. Society normalises the cheapening of the body to satisfy a need to consume especially high-end designer goods. We are happy, apparently, to sell our children and our houses and land to satisfy this need to have the latest.

If the Chinese come, we will sell. Government is no different from the society it governs. What is alarming though is the power society is willing to give away to the government’s ravenous unquenchable greed. We are happy to be exploited in this rush to dominate the country.

It is sad that we are encouraging our own domination and exploitation. In fact, often we see it as normal. Further, we expose our children to these dangers every day, and again, think it is normal.

Beating women is accepted and, in fact, celebrated. So none of what is happening can really surprise us.

We have allowed a group of badly behaved men to set the example for all men in the country. Once they are rich and powerful, they can do as they wish (and not be disciplined for it).

Society creates these monsters. They are not a monsters because they are ugly; they are monsters because of their destructive behaviour. They are monsters because they exploit people who are less equal than they are. Our society has become very much like the Hunger Games – an extremely dark, barbaric place where men can kill and destroy, beat and rape, at their pleasure. And the more they do it, the more society rewards them. We have apparently reinforced a patriarchy where rich men, as is normal in patriarchies, behave in a way that enslaves and exploits the population bellow them because they are unequal. This includes women and other men who are not as powerful.

We have created a system of predators who fear no law or order. They are the law. They impose their desires on the society and are never disciplined for it. Men who exploit young women are only doing what society tells them they can do.

Not only is this about sex and sexual misconduct, it is also about violence.

We know that men in ‘power’ pick up schoolgirls in their uniforms. We then blame the girls. Yes, they may be asking for money, but what is a grown man doing exploiting someone who is the same age as his daughter? We have chosen to empower a group of people who have made it their business to perpetuate every type of exploitative behaviour against those who are less equal than they are. Sadly, they also drive that inequality.