Gender-Based Violence and the Crisis of Modern Masculinity: A South African Reflection

 

Gender-Based Violence and the Crisis of Modern Masculinity: A South African Reflection

If you’ve been paying any attention to the news lately, you’ll have noticed that South Africa is going purple. November marks the annual campaign against gender-based violence (GBV)—a crisis that has plagued our nation for decades, but one that continues to escalate at an alarming rate.

It is also Men’s Mental Health Month.

The irony isn’t lost on me. Because whether we want to admit it or not, the GBV crisis and the men’s mental-health crisis are deeply linked. That link doesn’t excuse violence—not for a second—but it does demand that we stop pretending these are separate conversations. This piece is an attempt to map those connections with honesty, nuance, and courage.

Growing Up in Two Extremes

I grew up in a strange ideological limbo: outdated religious dogma on one side, “we don’t need no man” neo-feminism on the other. Two opposing belief systems, yet wildly similar in their emotional tools:

Shame.
Fear.
Obligation.
Guilt.
And division.

Each side used the same control mechanisms:

“If you don’t do X, you’re not one of us.”
“You’re letting down the team.”
“You’re an embarrassment.”

Humans are a gregarious species. We want to belong. And if you threaten someone with isolation or shame, you can force almost any behaviour out of them.

Our “progressive” era hasn’t liberated us. It has empowered the worst people in society while disempowering the best. And the results are showing up in our relationships, our families, and our national violence statistics.

Before going further, let me say this clearly:

GBV has no justification. Full stop. But preventing it requires understanding the conditions that fertilise it.

How Neo-Feminism and Ultra-Conservatism Broke the Middle Ground

Feminism began as a necessary movement—equal rights, equal opportunity, equal dignity. A world where women could choose their path freely. But the version we see today—neo-feminism—has drifted far from that foundation.

Instead of “equal and different,” we now hear “same and interchangeable,” a notion as scientifically incoherent as it is emotionally destructive. Men and women are equal in worth, but not identical in biology, psychology, or social temperament. Pretending otherwise has caused enormous confusion and damage.

Meanwhile, the rise of ultra-conservative male ideology—think Andrew Tate and similar influencers—has done symmetrical harm: cruelty as strength, domination as leadership, emotional isolation as masculinity.

Both movements are mirrors of each other.
Both recruit the most dysfunctional people from the fringes.
Both weaponise fear, shame, and rage.
Both pit men and women as enemies.

And both have primed an entire generation to see relationships not as collaborations but as battlegrounds.

My Experience as a “Big Man” in a Confused Society

Being 6’3” and 100kg gives you a strange vantage point. You get cast as protector or predator depending on someone’s subjective bias.

Small men can get away with sly behaviour, undercutting, pettiness, manipulation. Big men doing the same things? Unacceptable. Which is right, these are unacceptable behaviours. What isn’t right is that larger men aren’t allowed to show anger, frustration, insecurity or vulnerability, simply because of how we look. In the world we live in, protectors aren’t allowed to stumble, protectors aren’t allowed to have moments of weakness. We’re held to a different and unrealistic standard. 

I’ve been treated as both threat and shield. Rarely as a human being.

It’s shown me something important:

Modern society idolises weak men and set up the protector to fail.

And by “weak,” I don’t mean physically small. I mean small in character—cowardly, deceitful, irresponsible, commitment-phobic, porn-soaked, morally hollow.

These are the men produced by a culture that:

punishes vulnerability

mocks commitment

sexualises everything

rewards avoidance

labels boundaries as “control”

treats protection as “oppression”

and shames men who want families as “boring” or “controlling”

Meanwhile, the men who are steady, protective, loyal, family-oriented? They get sidelined, ridiculed, or told they’re “dangerous” simply for wanting to lead responsibly, to plan for the future, to love deeply, to build something meaningful.

This moral inversion has consequences.

Protection vs Control: The Mislabeling That’s Destroying Us

One of the most damaging conceptual errors of our time is the idea that protection equals control, or that a man wanting to keep his family safe is somehow an authoritarian impulse.

We’ve lost the ability to distinguish:

leadership from domination
boundaries from control
protection from possession
interdependence from enmeshment
partnership from patriarchy

When you remove functional partnership roles, you also remove accountability. If no one understands their responsibilities, no one takes them.

And so we punish the protective instinct in good men while enabling the predatory instinct in bad ones.

Men who would fight to protect their partners from harm—physically, socially, emotionally—are labelled “controlling.”

Men who flee at the hint of responsibility, who manipulate, who ghost, who cheat, who use and discard women… are labelled “fun,” “exciting,” or “non-toxic.”

It’s insanity. And it’s killing us.

Family, Interdependence, and the Tragedy of “Just in Case Living”

Somewhere along the line, healthy partnership became “codependent,” and interdependence became “antifeminist.”

We began teaching young people:

Don’t rely on anyone.
Keep your hobbies separate.
Keep your friends separate.
Keep your life separate… in case the relationship fails.

That is not empowerment. That is self-sabotage.

True partnership requires:

compromise
communication
conflict-resolution
shared purpose
willingness to lead and follow at different times
merging lives in meaningful ways
and seeing yourselves as a team

Modern culture rejects all of this.

We idolise hyper-individualism, instant gratification, pornography-level sexual expectations, and “exit strategies” disguised as independence.

We don’t teach collaboration.
We don’t teach emotional regulation.
We don’t teach accountability.
We don’t teach conflict-resolution.
We don’t teach how to build something worth keeping.

We teach:

“My feelings first.”
“If you disagree with me, it’s violence.”
“If you fight, leave.”
“If it’s hard, walk away.”
“If he has boundaries, he’s controlling.”
“If she wants commitment, she’s crazy.”

And then we wonder why we can’t maintain relationships, build families, or raise stable children.

How Male Disempowerment Breeds Violence

When you remove purpose from a man, he becomes destructive. This is not a moral failing; it is biological, psychological, and social reality.

A man with no sense of belonging becomes resentful.
A man with no role becomes nihilistic.
A man with no purpose becomes dangerous—first to himself, often later to others.

Look at our statistics:

Men make up nearly all violent offenders
Men make up the majority of suicide victims
Men have the highest rates of addiction
Men have the lowest rates of therapy engagement

We took away their ability to protect.
We shamed their desire to lead.
We mocked their need for purpose.
We told them they are untrustworthy by default.
We suppressed their vulnerability.
We erased masculine energy and called it progress.

Then we wonder why so many collapse.

A society that castrates healthy masculinity does not get gentle men.
It gets broken men.
And broken men break things.

The Silence Around Male Trauma

Another layer of this crisis is that men are not given the tools to deal with their trauma. From childhood, boys are taught—explicitly or implicitly—that vulnerability is weakness, that pain is embarrassing, that fear is shameful, and that asking for help makes them less of a man. Their trauma is minimised, mocked, or ignored; their emotional needs dismissed as illegitimate. Or worse, seen as a form of manipulation, something I've experienced first hand. Society rallies around women in pain, as it should—but men in pain are often seen as threats, burdens, or jokes. Instead of being treated as fellow human beings, they are expected to absorb their wounds silently and continue performing.

And when men do reach out—when they finally break through the conditioning and say “I need help”—they are often met with judgement, suspicion, or ridicule. Their vulnerability is treated as a weakness of character rather than a cry for support. Their fear is labelled dramatic. Their sadness is called self-pity. Their overwhelm is mocked as fragility. Even in intimate relationships, many men learn that opening up can be used against them later, thrown back in their face during conflict, or reframed as manipulation or emotional instability. That experience alone is a trauma. It teaches men that vulnerability is unsafe, that honesty is dangerous, and that silence is the only way to survive.

The result is predictable and catastrophic: unprocessed trauma becomes rage, addiction, numbness, self-destruction, or violence. We cannot expect men to be healthy when we deny them the basic human right to hurt, to heal, and to be taken seriously when they say, “I’m not okay.”

Accountability: The Missing Piece

The biggest contributor to this disaster is the cultural shift away from personal responsibility.

We’ve created two equally toxic archetypes:

1. The Ultra-Conservative Male Archetype
Cruelty disguised as strength.
Promiscuity disguised as freedom.
Dominance disguised as leadership.
Violence disguised as power.

2. The Neo-Feminist Female Archetype
Disdain disguised as independence.
Promiscuity disguised as empowerment.
Hyper-individualism disguised as strength.
Distrust disguised as self-protection.

Both lack accountability.
Both lack humility.
Both lack community.
Both lack relational skills.
Both avoid responsibility and commitment.

And both produce relational dysfunction that manifests—in many cases—in male violence.

When men are never taught:

emotional regulation
conflict management
humility
responsibility
purpose
leadership
vulnerability
partnership skills

…they default to the only thing modern culture still allows them:

rage, withdrawal, addiction, avoidance, or violence.

Where Does This Leave Us?

With a society where:

boundaries are considered oppression
mistakes are unforgivable
admitting fault is weakness
consistency is boring
commitment is “limiting”
masculinity is inherently oppressive
femininity is treated as inferior
families are “lost opportunities”
interdependence is dangerous
trust is naïve
and partnership is war

This is the psychological soil in which GBV takes root.

Not because “men are monsters,” but because we stopped teaching them how to be men at all.

And in the vacuum, predators thrive and good men shrink back—shamed, confused, disempowered.

The Sacred Choice of Partnership

One of the most overlooked components in this entire conversation is the importance of choosing your partner intentionally. Not casually. Not by default. Not because you’re lonely. But because you want to build a life with someone—build memories, build a home, build a future.

We talk endlessly about independence but almost never about the skill of partnership: how to love someone through difficulty, how to apologise, how to rebuild trust, how to plan together, how to make joint decisions, and how to grow in the same direction.

A healthy relationship is not a by-product of chemistry; it is the outcome of collaboration, communication, sacrifice, and shared purpose. It is choosing, daily, to prioritise the person you’ve pledged your life to.

Marriage—the real sacrament of it, not the Instagram-photoshoot version—is a covenant that requires work. It is two people vowing to become one team, not competitors; collaborators, not adversaries. And that collaboration is not optional. It is the engine that allows the relationship to withstand hardship, temptation, stress, and the pressures of modern life. When two people decide to place the health of their relationship above convenience and ego, they create a foundation strong enough to raise children, withstand storms, and offer the kind of stability that keeps entire communities healthy.

Chosen Family Comes First

And this is where modern culture has gone dangerously off-course. Your relationship—your chosen family—must come before your birth family and before your friends. Not because you abandon them or disrespect them, but because marriage is the new centre of gravity. That’s how it has always worked in healthy societies, because people are chosen and through being chosen are empowered through love and responsibility.

Your family of origin must adjust, must step aside, must support the new unit you are forming. A relationship cannot thrive if parents, friends, or outsiders are allowed to intrude, dictate, or undermine the partnership.

Loyalty and devotion must flow inward first—toward the person you’ve chosen to build a life with.

This priority is not old-fashioned. It’s not patriarchal. It’s not antifeminist. It is healthy. It is necessary. You cannot build trust without it. You cannot form a united front without it. You cannot raise children in peace without it. And you certainly cannot protect each other from the psychological, economic, and social stressors of the modern world without it.

A relationship is a team sport—one that requires shared purpose, shared sacrifice, and shared vision. When two people collaborate fully—emotionally, practically, and spiritually—they become something stronger than either could be alone. That is the essence of marriage, and it is the antidote to the relational fragmentation tearing our society apart.

Purpose, Protection, and the Weight of Responsibility

This vision of partnership—intentional, loyal, collaborative—is not just romantic. It is vital to male mental health. Men need purpose the way lungs need air, and one of the clearest, most grounding forms of purpose a man can have is the responsibility of building, protecting, and nurturing a family.

Not in the old patriarchal sense of dominance, but in the sacred sense of service. Standing guard. Providing stability. Choosing discipline over chaos. Choosing long-term thinking over instant gratification. This kind of responsibility does something profound to a man: it forces growth. It pulls him out of ego and into duty. And it weeds out the men who are not ready to rise.

A woman who prioritises partnership, who values collaboration, boundaries, emotional honesty, and shared purpose, naturally repels the wrong kind of man—the avoidant, the fickle, the selfish, the weak-in-character. Men who fear responsibility will flee from a woman who expects consistency. Men who want convenience rather than partnership will see accountability as oppression.

But the right kind of man—the good man—will recognise this as a calling. He will rise because good men are activated by responsibility, not threatened by it. They don’t run from the weight; they grow stronger carrying it.

And this is where masculinity finds its healthiest expression: not in aggression, not in authority, not in bravado—but in protector energy, which is deeply tied to accountability.

Protection is not control. Protection is stewardship. It means making decisions that prioritise the wellbeing of your partner and children, even when those decisions are uncomfortable. It means setting boundaries, saying “no” when needed, choosing the harder right over the easier wrong.

Sometimes protecting your family even means protecting them from yourself—your temper, your impulses, your ego, your unresolved trauma. It means having the humility to seek help when you need it and the courage to admit when you’re wrong.

But this cannot exist in isolation. Men need other men to hold them to this standard. A man becomes dangerous when he has no one who can challenge him, correct him, or pull him back into alignment.

We are our brother’s keepers, whether we admit it or not. We must call out destructive behaviour. We must encourage purpose. We must reinforce commitment, loyalty, and responsibility in our circles.

Good masculinity thrives when men hold each other accountable, not when they cheer each other into recklessness.

A man who orients his life around responsibility, service, and protection does not become weaker—he becomes anchored. Anchored to purpose. Anchored to partnership. Anchored to the quiet dignity of providing emotional and physical safety for the people he loves.

This is not domination; it is devotion. And devotion is the antidote to the nihilism and despair fuelling the male mental health crisis.

GBV as a Symptom of a Cultural Collapse

Gender-based violence is not just a crime; it is a symptom—a horrifying, sickening, heartbreaking symptom—of a much deeper cultural implosion. Our women and children are suffering not only at the hands of violent men, but at the hands of a society that has lost its way.

We have dismantled the structures that once taught responsibility, purpose, accountability, and partnership, yet replaced them with nothing but hyper-individualism, loneliness, ideological warfare, and emotional illiteracy.

GBV is the final, catastrophic expression of a system that has neglected boys, alienated men, eroded families, and stripped relationships of meaning.

Until we address these root causes—until we rebuild healthy masculinity, restore collaborative partnership, recommit to purpose, and strengthen the bonds of family—we will continue treating the symptoms while ignoring the infection.

Our nation cannot afford that. Our women and children deserve better, and so do the good men fighting to become protectors rather than perpetrators. The work begins now—with all of us.