It's not easy to talk about this stuff in a way that outsiders can grasp it. When my father was extremely disturbed and poured all of his animosity into creating a gender dichotomy in his mind, I felt that he might kill me. His attitude to me was that my existence was completely disgusting and waste of space. The term "honour killing" kept passing through my mind, beause it seemed to me my father had lost his honour by losing the war back home, and that the only way he could purge his sense of shame and weakness was by going to the complete degree and just eradicating me one day. It is not so strange that the rest of the family did not "see" this side of him, as they were shielding themselves by exposing me to his rage. At the same time, he was also creating a different image of himself for each of them. When I tried aggression to make him leave off his attack, this made me look like the perpetrator. His hostility was also very, very religious in nature, thus appealing to the sympathies of all those who thought there was something wrong with women and that only men could be relied on and trusted. (This was exactly what my father wanted, as it bought him back some of the social status he had lost when Rhodesia was no more.)
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