By Nomazulu Thata| This misogynist: woman-hater Mandla “Lulu” Mpofu must be taught a lesson by the very women he hates apparently with passion. Mandla thinks a car is better than his wife. He manhandles his wife for just using his car to attend a funeral. It is shocking and equally depressing to note that our men are so low as to think a woman can be treated as if she is the last piece of dirt, the very woman who keeps the home afloat. His wife is the cornerstone of their home and without her everything collapses to a standstill. He knows this well, confuses the mind why he can still think he can abuse her again. Lulu, do not take women for grunted, we are to be respected for the work we do in your home, in the community and indeed in this country.

Who “cooks” for this man when he is at his home? Uphekelwa ngubani? Uphekelwa yimota yini kumbe ngu Ms Nqobile Tshuma? Imi vaMpopu munofanira kukwana se mari ye mutshova mubayiwa. Your limited thought processes are a disgrace to the nation. You are limited in your brain make-up because you think you can vent your frustrations on Ms.Tshuma. You are frustrated because Bosso is not doing well at all, it’s lacking behind main football teams in the country. Instead of making serious retrospections why your team is dismally losing, you throw all your Bosso failure performances to your wife Ms. Nqobile Tshuma. Failure-men like Lulu do the unthinkable if they are losing anything; find faults on the woman because according to his limited thought processes women are the weakest link.

You have all the traits of a violent man. Your patriarchal roots informed you at an early age that you are better than a woman: how very silly. You cannot do for one day without that woman: who will “cook” for you? We know too well that a man cannot do without a “meal” for just one day. The very woman who “cooks” for you, you spite her; humiliate her by giving her man-fists on her face. When we say you use your spinal cord to think because the head has no brains, we are told we are insulting feminists as if to beat a woman is not misogynistic insulting enough. You are not supposed to get a woman for marriage because you are very immature in your mental state; at best an imbecile. It is not surprising your passion is in the physical world: football. You lack all soft skills in your life. Punching a woman is another way of exercising your physical fitness, apparently, football is not enough to exhaust you masculinity in you.

I call upon the women in Bulawayo to boycott all Bosso performances in the city. We must do something about violence on women by violent men who are mentally sick. It is encouraging to all of us women that Ms. Nqobile Tshuma did the right thing: report domestic abuse to the police. We are thankful for this move Ms. Tshuma please keep it up. The violence of any kind must be dealt with by the authorities. Our authorities and the laws enforcement units, curiously do know how to deal with domestic violence cases: a scourge of the nation. A man who beats a woman in the way Lulu has done is also capable of beating his mother in the same way because women do not mean anything to him. Women are not to be respected as equal human beings according to Lulu Mpofu. If Lulu respected his mother, he would know how to value and respect any woman, a wife, and a daughter. Physical fist punching of Nqobile Tshuma is indirectly a punch on his mother, cursing his own biological mother indirectly just for being a woman!

According to Mandla Lulu, women are there to make his OWN life as comfortable as possible: women are objects, he does not think about woman’s needs because women are inferior and not worthy of note anywhere. Ms. Tshuma needed that car to go to a funeral, a car she is entitled to use if she is the mother of the home. Was Ms. Nqobile Tshuma expected to go the funeral by public transport leaving a car parked at the home because the man in the home did not authorize to use it? There is no logic in this, right left and center. I for one hate just to imagine a man of the likes of Lulu Mpofu in a matrimonial home for a period of two days: 48 hours! I realize too how inevitable femicide can easily take place in such interactions with misogynists of the likes of ‘Lulu” Mpofu.

We women of Zimbabwe must fight domestic violence: we have means, occasions and enough places we can use to punish men for their mean and violent attributes and one of them is never to go to see Highlanders Bosso playing. Boycotting Bosso football performances will give a signal that we women of ‘Zimbabwe loath domestic violence in our homes. There are several avenues we can use to fight domestic violence if we work together and make one voice, give each other ideas on how to fight masculinity, misogyny and masculine beatings and humiliations in our midst. We should realize that men are very insecure beings; we should, therefore, capitalize on that. There is no single man in our society who can do without a woman, capitalize on that. There are laws and international conventions (CEDAW) out there and in our constitution women can use to make them safe, capitalize on that.

Any woman who feels overwhelmed by violence in the home, please approach women institutions in Zimbabwe who will fight your case on your behalf. You can also approach whistleblowers like Ntombi-Langa charity; the charity will blow your case without mentioning a name and make a mark for the sake your safety and the safety of other women in the same situation like yourself. I once suggested a #METTO-Movement for Zim women. This movement was going to be co-ordinated on the ground in Zimbabwe. Fear is not an option at all dear woman. There will come a time when we think such a useful movement can even save lives of women: women and girls who are in danger of their lives in marriage institutions and homes. We invite men too, to assist us in fighting abuse on women. They are men voices who are informing us out there to do something about domestic violence and violence on women in all aspects of our societies.

It is not only in politics where women are manhandled by men and those “women” who act on behalf of men to thrash other women who are deemed powerful and intelligent. In all aspects of our lives in Zimbabwe, patriarchal, misogynistic violent abuse of women is prevalent. Discrimination of women is in homes, workplaces, public places, and even in politics! We read daily casualties of women in political parties being side-lined because they used their master brains: men do not like such intellectual challenges especially from women. It is us women who must fight it to the end. Nobody is going to fight for our human-women rights except ourselves. It may not be a success to fight for these rights in our lifetime. Our daughters should pick the #METOO-Movement at a higher level than us. Our daughters should not invent the wheel because the wheel was invented long back by our mothers.

Dear residents of Bulawayo: dear women of Bulawayo please boycott the Bosso football performances; be it at White City of Barbour fields until our menfolk can start to think with their brain heads and not their spinal codes. We want to make a point that what Mandla Lulu Mpofu did to his life-partner is hurtful even to us women outside. We feel hurt and humiliated by his violent actions against his wife. We abhor his preferences: a car to his wife. A wife is a human being whose dignity can never be put on a scale with a car. I am contacted by email below: whoever wanted our assistance to whistle blow her cause you are welcome. In the meantime va Lulu Mpofu vakwane se mari ye bhazi!!!

I wish to thank those political parties who have approached us: asked us to even fight harder for the cause of women discrimination in our societies in Zimbabwe. I particularly thank the party Zunde: Secretary General Moses Chamboko for openly supporting us in this cause. It takes a good Zimbabwean MAN to stand up and say enough is enough! Women are equal to men! We appreciate too that not all men are misogynistic and patriarchal in their thought processes out there. There are several men, might not be many, who have respect for women. It is just that it’s not possible to name all the good men on this paper. They should, however, know that we greatly appreciate their support in our women’s cause.

Nomazulu Thata is a Zimbabwean woman-activist based in Germany: She is attached to the University of Bremen as a researcher. She is active in main-stream German politics you can contact her on her email: Nomazulu.thata(at)web.de