Female Fear Factory

​Author: Pumla Dineo Gqola
Publisher: Melinda Ferguson books
Reviewer: Hazel Makuzeni
Female Fear Factory could not have come at a better (or maybe worst) time in our country as we emerge from the 16 Days of Activism against gender based violence – a focus that should remain throughout the year in South Africa as we battle the scourge of sexual violence. This is a follow-up book by Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola to her 2016 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award winner Rape:  A South African Nightmare.
Writing the book during the COVID 

pandemic “was not one of my best ideas,” Professor Gqola confesses. Despite this, the book is so insightful with extensive research on global patriarchal violence, its myths, lies and stronghold on women. She gives bona fide examples that expose the construction of the ‘female fear factory’ and how it is institutionalised and maintained throughout the world. It’s not all doom and gloom though as the author offers possible remedies.
She looks at public spaces and how these spaces are taken away from women. Take street harassment – as one example. On a daily bases many women face sexual harassment from men while walking down the street, going to a taxi rank or simply jogging. As a woman you have to mentally prepare yourself to be vigilant at all times - a walk to your corner store is not that simple. I was reminded of this just the other day while going to a store near where I live.  A guy I barely know grabbed me by the arm and didn’t let go for some time because he wanted to talk to me. In the process he also yanked off my sunglasses because he wanted to see my eyes. Even though I was in a hurry and very much upset about his behaviour, I had to plead with him with a smile so as to not make him angry. This is a daily battle. Reading this book made me realise how much patriarchy is normalised in our public spaces. There are routes in my neighbourhood that I totally avoid because of guys who terrorise me with their unwanted sexual advances. Even though people see what is going on, nobody ever intervenes.
Patriarchy runs on fear and it is fear that keeps women under control. Women have to constantly self-police. We have to watch the way we dress, wear make-up, talk and behave. You do not want to run the risk of being labelled a whore. As Professor Gqola writes, “Women are made whores in order to justify their violation.” The book also talks about why the criminal system fails women in cases of rape, with many of these cases disintegrating on the requirement of evidence.
It was also interesting reading about the #SexforGrades and #SexforMarks scandal in Nigeria. What this shows is the unreasonable demands placed on women who speak out against sexual harassment. Fear and violence are a necessity for patriarchy to thrive. Women who challenge the status quo are put in their place. The case of Mona Eltahawy, the journalist who was arrested by police in Cairo during a protest, illustrates this. They broke her arms in detention and sexually assaulted her.
What the author explicitly prove in this book is that patriarchy is brutal and that there are no safe spaces for women – anywhere. Even though the battle is long, if we’re committed to a fair world, we have to soldier on.  “Although patriarchy uses violence to enforce fear, and to punish those who will not successfully be made female, and submissive, it cannot kill feminism.  Although agents of patriarchy and the state – through the courts and police force – may kill and attempt to silence and bankrupt those who rise against it, hundreds of thousands more will sprout and amplify the project of disrupting patriarchy, interrupting the Female Fear Factory, and unlearning its fluencies everywhere,” she says. Gqola is a feminist writer and Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies. She is the SARChl Chair in African Feminist Imagination at Nelson Mandela University.
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