Revenge Rage is a common evolutionary manner of dealing with a partner who leaves you. The extreme form of that is femicide of which we have the highest incidence in the world: also known as Intimate Partner Violence  it is when a beloved kills you for leaving him (usually men do this to women). I guess common decency goes out the window when one knows a valuable resource has just walked out the door. The true colours that were always there, the niggling uncomfortable bits that never went away, hit you in the face when you walk out the door and he/she practices revenge rage. So ugly..

Whislt watching Wagner's opera "Das Rheingold" I was reminded of how  over time human behavior changes in form but not nature. Trafficking of women happened then, happens now. Today it can be slightly more nuanced than , as in the opera, a deliberate exchange of a woman for building a house. Today we have laws to protect people agaisnt trafficking yet it remains a massive international problem.

Besides "revenge rage" I have had a weekend immersed in activist work. Genderdynamix , the NGO that advocates for rights of trans variant people, are holding the first ever medical confrence on African soil. The purpose is to gather health care providers and government and medical aid providers to re look and re think the rights of trans variant people to medical access - for free from the government. I will report back after the meeting.

Thsi week I am presenting a paper on the intersection of gender based violence and HIV/AIDS/STI's at a training workshop in Johannesburg. I will be talking a little about this and something called "militarism" about which I am rather passionate, on my radio show with Redi on Friday so join in this conversation. It is all linked to 16 days of activism of no violence agaisnt women - pretty absurd concept to request 16 days of violence free for women - but what a miracle it would be if we had one second of any day in which a woman was not beign tormented, even via revenge rage.. Why, are men so fragile that they need to sell women, humiliate, hit and hurt them??

Tomorrow morning I go back to my "day job" as a clinician - can one separate being an activist from being a therapist? Not when a woman sits before telling me how her husband wants deeper, more than daily penetration against her will; not when a woman is raging at her man sitting in front of her, treating him like a dog. The activist in me arises and reminds people in such deep anger and distress that respect and human dignity must be maintained even in times of pain.

I wish you a week in which you treaure yourself, your children and your partner.

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