Afrikan Goddess (AG) Online

By: N. Amma Twum-Baah (November 5, 2009)

This article was triggered by a bugging question I had as I headed out the door for work this morning. I caught a brief look at Rihanna’s first public interview with ABC’s Good Morning America program (full interview to air on 20/20 tomorrow night), and I couldn’t help thinking: “what a beautiful, strong young woman,” “she has such an innocence about her, despite what she portrays in her music,” “why would any man want to do her any physical harm?” and “why in the world is she feeling ashamed and humiliated?”

This last question is the one that has been bugging me all morning. However, I don’t ask this question from an outside (or third party) point of view; but from a woman’s point of view – as one who has felt what Rihanna felt the day she was assaulted, and for all the other women out there who have ever felt humiliated and ashamed for something that was totally NOT THEIR FAULT! No, I have never been physically assaulted by a man and God forbid any man dare to ever put his hands on me … but I have been in a situation where I felt fooled and taken advantage of and degraded that I shunned my family and friends for a while; all because I felt too ashamed to let anyone know. From my experience, many would say that I’m the best person to answer my own question, but the truth is I have no idea why I felt ashamed when he was the one who should have felt shame. Is it that women have some kind of in-built “shame” triggers that cause us to take blame for things we have no control over, or are the influences societal? In my case, I think some of my shame stemmed from the fact that I always said the thing that happened to me only happened to “stupid” women. The fact that it happened to me meant I was “stupid.” Aside from that, I still wonder where the feeling of humiliation came from.  

For those of you who need a little background information: Rihanna was badly beaten by Chris Brown sometime earlier this year, and pictures of her badly bruised face were later plastered all over the internet for the world to see. The two had been dating for some time. This is Rihanna’s first television interview appearance since the incident occurred. Chris Brown, on the other hand, has internet videos out there of how sorry he is, has had a few TV interviews saying how he never meant to do it, he’s sorry, and yadda, yadda, yadda. He committed the crime and yet he was the first one to show his face in public and on national television while the victim went into hiding because as she put it, “she felt humiliated.”

Now, before you even get the chance to decry this question as “westernized thinking,” let me point out that what happened to Rihanna happens to women everywhere – including African women. Women are abused (and on a larger scale than men) in the name of religion and culture in too many places to count. And, the general tendency is for us to blame ourselves and to feel ashamed that it happened to us. I think it is unjust to paint the misleading picture that wife-beating and girlfriend-beatings are predominantly African; because they’re not. The difference is the way these violations of a woman’s dignity are viewed across cultural lines. Having laws that protect victims from their abusers, and societal reactions to these abuses is what makes the difference in how a society/culture views these violations. For example, in 2002, then Ugandan former Vice-President, Specioza Kazibwe, went public with the revelation that her husband was physically abusive. The reactions of Ugandans were mixed, with several (including women) saying she must have done something wrong to deserve it; that she should have kept the matter private, that she had “aired her dirty linen” in public. In the opinion of most Ugandans, it was a family matter that should have been handled privately. The public outcry would have been very different out west – especially here in the US.

But, this article is not about domestic abuse; it is about all the calamities that befall women (the victims) the world over, and why we somehow blame ourselves and feel ashamed for something we have very little control over. Have we been programmed to think that misfortunes that are visited on us by men are somehow our fault and so we should feel ashamed that we let it happen to us? For instance: when a man cheats on his wife; some women go into hiding and beat themselves up over the fact that a man who could not control his sexual urges, no matter what she did or didn’t do, had an affair with another woman. She mourns and berates herself only to hear that this man is doing the same thing to the woman he had an affair with. Or, when a woman is raped or sexually assaulted, she somehow feels ashamed; and many carry this shame for years. Many shun the public eye and coil into a shell, while the man goes around beating his chest and living a normal life like nothing ever happened.

Again like I said before, I felt this shame because I had labeled women who experienced what I experienced as being stupid for allowing it to happen to them; so when it happened to me, I fell into the very category into which I had lumped previous victims. Could this be the reason women feel ashamed? Because we have pre-labeled other victims thinking it can never happen to us? Or, could it be that women feel their weaknesses revealed when they are victimized. Maybe we’re thinking, “I should have been stronger,” “I should have seen the signs.” I shouldn’t have worn that dress,” or “walked that alley alone at night.” “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that to make him angry,” “maybe I should have paid attention to his needs.”

Did it ever occur to us that “maybe we have nothing to be ashamed and humiliated about because the victim is never to blame for the bullying prowess of the strong?” What women need to do is to reassure each other and support each other. Watching Rihanna this morning brought tears to my eyes because I sympathized with her and I felt her pain and her hurt, and I wanted to tell her: “you have nothing to be ashamed of. He’s the one who ought to be ashamed of himself!”