Someone might argue that a lot of the problems related to HIV/AIDS and rape in South Africa are related to cultural traditions and therefore can hardly be changed.

I gathered some cultural traditions that came to my mind. This is a totally random list:

• Grown up men in some cultures marry girls as young as twelve years old.
• La Tomatina – People in Spain throw tons of tomatoes at each other every year.
• Also in Spain people spend their Sundays watching bullfights.
• Carneval in Rio – People dance for 5 days until they pass out.
• Female Genital Cutting is being performed as rights of passage ritual – mainly in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
• Tattooing spilled over from Polynesia into the Western World.
• Ramadan and Lent are among some religious practices of self-restraint.
• Women being threatened for violating laws – even though they’ve been raped.
• Millions of Muslims take a pilgrimages to Mecca each year.
• Restrictions on what people are allowed to eat: Kosher food, Ramadan, Lent, No pork for some cultures etc…
• Thousands of Germans gather in tents each year for their Oktoberfest – drinking huge amounts of their beloved beer.

In order to make my point I could define three main buckets for these cultural traditions:

1. Strictly voluntary
There might be some peer pressure to participate but many cultural traditions are voluntary. You are invited to join but you don’t have to.

2. Mandatory for all
Certain traditions are more or less mandatory for an entire society. Not obeying them makes you an outcast or worse. Many religious practices fall into this category.

3. Discriminating against one group of society
Yes you can call these cultural traditions but let’s face it: Many of these “traditions” are simply discriminatory against women. Who are they serving? Who is benefiting? Who did come up with the rules?

Historically men have been defining culture. The result is as follows:

“Women, half the world’s population, did two-thirds of the world’s work, earned one-tenth of the world’s income, and owned one-hundredth of the world’s property.”
United Nations Statement from 1980

In the western world women slowly gained more rights as time progressed. Women weren’t allowed to vote or even to drive cars until not too long ago in many countries. Now we even have women governing entire countries and doing a good job at it.

Note
This is an ongoing process that took over 100 years and is far from being complete.

I believe that I am not the only man in this world that would not like to set the clock back ;-)

Let’s get back to the beginning of this post: Should we just accept that cultural beliefs can’t be changed or should we decide to pick up the fight and try to change common (mis)beliefs embedded in culture?

I try to respect other opinions, habits and cultures. But not if the opportunity cost is too high. I’d rather stick with this inspiring quote:

“Culture is created by people and people can change culture. Communities have to look at their cultural values and practices to determine whether these impede or promote the respect of human rights,”
Therese Zeba, the UNFPA representative in Rwanda

Bottom line
Accepting the status quo means tolerating injustice with devastating results for the South African society. The fight against rape and the HIV/Aids pandemic can’t be won without acknowledging the huge impact of gender inequality.

We still HAVE a long way to go.  But that’s no excuse for not starting now.

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• How Were Women Treated in Early America?
• Gender Equality Would Increase African Food Productivity, Income