Rose-Mary Haufiku
Constantly engaging men and boys to take responsibility should be a critical part of initiatives to end violence against women. Women’s Action for Development executive director Salatiel Shinedima stated during a panel discussion last week that boys are taught from a young age not to express their emotions, so they grow up believing that suppressing emotions is acceptable.
He then explained toxic masculinity as a term that is defined and conceptualised in a cultural, societal and historical context.
“It places significant importance on manliness, based on strength, lack of emotions, self-sufficiency and dominance. The concept is aimed at stressing how certain socially-constructed definitions of masculinity can be harmful to society, to women, and to men themselves,” he added.
The majority of suicides (between 565 from April 2020 to April 2021) are committed by men. This can be blamed on a lack of emotional expression. “Therefore, these men will be sitting with these problems, all this hurt and the negative emotions.
Those negative emotions will pile up, and the day this ticking time bomb will explode, only God knows what will happen,” said Shinedima. The Namibian Police’s GBV protection unit in Windhoek receives more than 200 reports of cases under the Domestic Violence Act per month.
There are men who are abused by their wives or girlfriends, but never speak up because they are afraid of being shamed. They are afraid of being laughed at, so they keep quiet about it. Men do not report GBV-related incidents because they are aware that they will always be seen as the perpetrators of violence.
Shinedima said toxic masculinity encourages and glorifies violence because it teaches one to dominate others, and this leads to the perpetuation of rape culture.
It also discourages people from seeking help. Most men are suffering all types of problems, but they never seek help because they are taught not to complain.
“Men are not taught to solve problems. When you send him back, the only solution that you are giving him is violence. But why don’t we train our kids how to solve conflicts without being violent? I think that is what we have to look at because what kids learn influences how they behave when they are adults,” Shinedima stressed.