Jesse Osmun wants to know:

What does the consortium feel about rape prevention efforts in South Africa?

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Permalink Reply by Thomas Philip Davis Jr. on November 4, 2010 at 4:50pm

I remember hearing a story about how a TV program in South Africa featured a segment on domestic violence where the neighbors heard a man abusing his wife, and they circled the house and beat pots and pans together outside the house until he stopped. It's mentioned in this post: : I also heard (from a speaker at a conference) that that particular behavior (beating pots and pans) began to spread through South Africa as people used what they had seen on TV as a basis for how they should react to the problem. I've wondered to what degree really working on social norms around rape could help with prevention: Having men know up front -- from the social norms that have been createed -- that there would be a safe environment for a woman to disclose what had happened, and that the man would be scorned and labeled after the rape (even if the legal system was not yet at the point where they would take action). If you can help people imagine what it would look like if they committed such a terrible act, and it looks pretty dismal, that can dissuade people ... and it can also create that sort of environment since people can sometimes take their cues from media about how they are supposed to react when someone says they were raped.

Dan Heath mentions in his book Switch (pp. 238-239, the Fataki story) about dealing with Sugar Daddies in Uganda in a similar way -- promoting a social norm and negative labeling via the media, and other extra-legal ways of dealing with gender problems before the legal system "catches up." Maybe that would have some usefulness in South Africa for the problem of rape.

Tom