Murdered Tshego Pule should be our George Floyd

If there is one word which captures what the country should be feeling, in the wake of the murder of another young woman, then that word is despair.

Despair because, yet again, many will protest for change. Despair that, yet again, that change will not happen. Despair because our country has such an ugly face.

Tshegofatso Pule went missing on 4 June and her body was found on Monday, hanging from a tree in a veld in Roodepoort. She was 28 years old and was eight months pregnant.

The manner of her death speaks to an evil which should shame all of us – but the fact that it doesn’t and that life will go on until the next brutal, senseless piece of gender-based murder is a damning indictment of South African society.

Where does the hatred for, and violence towards, women and children come from?

Is it raised in the family (or lack of one, as is the norm)?

Does it begin at school? Is it nurtured in a sexist, male-dominated culture where those in authority turn a blind eye and those who can speak out, don’t?

Tshegofatso Pule should be our George Floyd.

South Africa’s women can’t breathe through their oppression.

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