This is the first article in a three-part series by Ché Ramsden exploring feminist issues surrounding the Pistorius trial, how they intersect and their implications in a South African context. Read part two. Read part three. The series was first published at the time of the original trial, and is republished here as Pistorius is sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp following the prosecution's appeal to the Supreme Court to re-examine the first verdict in which Pistorius was found guilty of manslaughter.
In 2012, amputee sprinter and Paralympic gold medallist Oscar Pistorius made history by competing at the Olympics. Six months later he was dominating headlines again following his arrest for shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, who died at the athlete’s home on Valentine’s Day 2013. The state prosecution and Pistorius’s defence lawyers spent a year analysing evidence and constructing cases which have been presented over the past three weeks in a murder trial with unprecedented media coverage (which prompted a trial of its own before Pistorius’s trial began).
A morbid public fascination with the trial has it functioning as a reality show in part, with cameras installed into the courtroom to allow for television broadcast alongside constant live audio broadcast, and the gallery satiated with technology-armed press. Pistorius, of course, was a celebrity prior to the start of the trial, hence some of the fascination which focuses on an OJ-style suspense story: will the famous athlete, seemingly against all the evidence, be cleared of murdering his partner? Pistorius has admitted killing Steenkamp, but claims that she was not his intended target.
