South African men mobilize to combat femicide crisis through positive masculinity

In the dust outside a tavern in Organic Market, an informal settlement near Johannesburg, a group of men pulled their chairs into a circle. At the center stood Itumeleng Stephen Tamaga, known locally as Bra Steve, who raised his fist and called out: "We are men!" The group clapped and cheered, some sipping bottled beer. This was not a celebration of traditional masculinity. It was an intervention—one of dozens happening across South Africa as men attempt to confront what many in the country now openly call a crisis of violence against women.

The urgency behind these gatherings is impossible to ignore. Over a three-month period earlier this year, 569 women were murdered in South Africa—an average of six every single day. Another 1,052 women survived attempted murder in that same window. The discovery of twelve women's bodies in Ekurhuleni, near Johannesburg, over the course of three months reignited national alarm and forced President Cyril Ramaphosa to acknowledge that his government had not done enough. The scale of the problem extends far beyond these recent deaths. A 2022 report found that more than one-third of South African women have experienced physical or sexual violence, often at the hands of intimate partners. The country's overall murder rate ranks among the highest in the world—5,427 people killed in just three months.

Bra Steve is the local organizer for Father A Nation, a nonprofit that works with men and boys to reshape how they understand masculinity and their role in ending gender-based violence. The organization operates across South Africa, running programs in schools and colleges and holding community meetings like the one in Organic Market. Kgomotso Mathekga, thirty years old, attended one such gathering and spoke with striking honesty about his own past. "I witness men hitting women all the time," he said. "Especially when they are both drunk." He then admitted to his own violence: "I once had an argument with my girlfriend, and I grabbed and slapped her." The relationship ended, and he lost contact with his child. "Now I feel pain," he continued. "I feel like I've contributed to the problems in South Africa, instead of being the gentleman that I know I am."

Craig Wilkinson, the founder of Father A Nation, describes the organization's approach as deliberately two-phase. First, men are given space to talk and process their feelings—what Wilkinson calls a healing process. Then comes education: teaching what he terms positive masculinity. "You as a man are a powerful force for good," he tells the men gathered around him. "You choose what kind of man you want to be. Women need to be safe." Zizipho Mtwesi, the project coordinator, frames the work as preventive. "We are trying to reach men before things like these murders happen again," he says. Yet he is also critical of the government's response. The measures announced by Ramaphosa—better street lighting, a review of unsolved cases—strike him as insufficient and overdue. "When I think about all of these recent murders in Johannesburg, I get angry. Why do we have to wait for this to happen for us to act?"

The fear among women in Organic Market is palpable and immediate. Linkie, cleaning clothes in a metal bucket outside her shack, described the constant dread: "We are not safe when we are outside our place. We are afraid when we see a car behind us when we walk." Providence Maseko, who works at a local hair salon, expressed a different kind of terror—the impossibility of knowing whom to trust. "Maybe you are the serial killer," she said to Bra Steve. "How do I know who to trust?" She now takes an e-hailing taxi everywhere, hoping that a recorded ride offers more safety than walking. The mystery surrounding the recent murders—police have not ruled out connections between some deaths but have not confirmed a serial killer investigation—has only deepened the sense of vulnerability.

At the tavern meeting's close, Zizipho returned to the core argument driving these efforts: individual male responsibility. "Each and every man needs to know that they need to play a part in this," he said. "And if they wouldn't allow these things to happen to their own daughters or own mothers, they mustn't allow it to be done to someone else's daughter, which is their wives or their girlfriends." Mathekga, listening to the day's discussions, found something he had been missing. "I would love them to keep on practising what we have learned, because we no longer have role models," he said. "Our fathers and our uncles, they are there in prison. We must now become role models and help make this country better." Whether grassroots efforts like Father A Nation can shift the scale of violence remains an open question—but in Organic Market, men are at least beginning to ask themselves what kind of men they choose to be.