Still shell-shocked from the gruesome rape and murder of 17-year-old Anene Booysen just the week before, and only just starting to unpack the prevailing culture of rape and other forms of violence against women, we were presented with yet another death, which would give face to and spotlight the high prevalence of femicide in our country. Yet, as I read the narrative emerging from the swelling media frenzy around the story, it became apparent that this story would not be felt or treated quite the same as any other.
Another woman was dead and yet the media lens was firmly fixed on the distraught sporting icon whose life would be changed by this incident forever. As one of the most singularly important annual events on the South African political calendar unfolded, the beginnings of a celebrated hero's fall from grace dominated the media. In the face of the thousands of women who are killed by their intimate partners each year, and one billion people the world over rising to protest this and other forms of violence against women, reams of newsprint and entire news bulletins were dedicated to what will likely be fixed in the South African social imaginary as the murder that shook a nation.
