police services secure better support and assistance from liaison with non- governmental organisations: the support groups for women.
The official mandate of the police services is to provide security to citizens.
Rendering that service requires it to liaise with and make referrals to other state organs. The disjointed structure and functioning of state organs see responsibility being vested in the police services for social welfare services of citizens (women); as is evidenced in the incidences of women seeking assistance for social matters at police stations. While there has been much public discourse about the police services, the same intensity of scrutiny has not been placed on the social services of the state, in whose jurisdiction lies the responsibility of intervention for abused women. It appears rather that the police services are held more accountable for social interventions. All cases of rape are dealt with by one unit of the police services (whether involving children or adults), who then refer the victims or survivors to the Child Advocacy Centre. Such contexts indicating how power is exercised over women through relational constructs (Weedon 1997:20), have implications for South African feminist practice. What needs to be asked is how can these existing constructs be transformed in order to empower the women who seek help and not to perpetuate ‘victim’ and helpless mentalities.
services and support to afflicted women. The sixth respondent had been centrally involved in setting up a support service for women at a local police station when they came to report and open cases of domestic abuse and violence there. She had undertaken that service of her own volition, driven by her desire to impact positively on the lives of desperate women she encountered at the police station. She shared the opinion that support services crucial for women, were not being given the attention they warranted, from the state. Her altruistic desire, like those of many other women, resonates with Neuger’s explanation of her involvement with pastoral counselling and support of women: “We need to be able to help women gain confidence about and language for the challenges they face. .. And we need to be able to help women make the kinds of choices and connections that assist them to gain and maintain greater satisfaction and richer life options” (2001: ix). Subsequent to the respondent leaving the station, the services have been withdrawn and are no longer provided, due to constraints, the details of which will be examined at a later stage.
5.3.1 Analysis
Lee (2000: 67) cites Halala’s assertion that “personal advertisements are a useful source of information about individuals’ interests and choices.” Lee further states that personal advertisements reflect views of the advertiser about others (ibid). I further believe that responses to these advertisements, including ‘non-responses’ can also reflect views of the respondents to the advertisements as well as of those who ‘do not’
respond. Therefore assumptions may be made about the relatively poor response to the newspaper advertisement. One of the reasons is similar to that offered by a member of the public in response to a request to fill in a questionnaire (4.4) and that was that ‘people don’t like filling in questionnaires.’ Different motives and principles may seem to underpin these two requests. Filling in a questionnaire may be construed as a random act related to an issue which may not be linked to one’s personal life and experiences and may therefore be seen as intrusive. Responding to a public advertisement involves one’s own volition and may not be as intrusive as a direct request to fill in a questionnaire.
Whilst I assumed that some readers who were involved with and also experiencing what the advertisement referred to, would respond actively, it is possible that people
were indifferent to the request or issue at large. It is also possible that those readers, who would have responded favourably, did not see the advertisement/ request.
Furthermore people may not be interested in other people’s activities, especially activities of a personal, academic nature which seemingly do not or will not impact on their lives. This kind of behaviour is affirmed by Rasool’s assertion that information obtained is also dependent on the level of (social and political) interest in an issue (2002: 8) and my research did result in responses from both groups and individuals indicating non-interest in the issue. Whilst financial constraints also mitigated against more frequent and longer running of the advertisement, I appreciate and accept the subjectivity of the context; that individual readers constructed their own meanings of what they read and that those meanings were not necessarily commensurate with mine.
Another reason for the poor response rate could also be located within the stigma that is attached to women abuse. Despite it being highly prevalent, discourse around it is secretive and kept from the public domain by abused women (Rasool 2002: 27).
Therefore responding to the advertisement could have been constructed as disclosing identities.
Another variable of this finding was the racial composition of all six callers. All six callers were of the same race group. While the number of callers may not be an adequate sample to make theoretical conclusions, it does raise the questions of how different groups of women construct discourse of abuse and support and the urgency and import attached to the issue, as well as the subjectivities which influence women to participate actively in transformative agenda: what are the discourses of power that influence such participation? While additional input would have been useful in supporting the data obtained for this research, it is my contention that the lack of response to the newspaper advertisements did not impede both this research process and its outcome. This assertion is supported by the feedback of all six callers/
respondents that support groups were greatly needed, that there was a lack of such groups in Pietermaritzburg and that the State did not seem to be providing adequate support to those groups.