Author Christine Mason Miller (Desire to Inspire) says: “At any given moment, you have the power to decide that this is not how the story going to end.”, but unfortunately in South Africa, if we speak about murder, then for most women, that is how their story is ended. What’s worse? A large portion of women have lives taken from them by the men they trust most.

Nearly 50% of all women who were murdered in South Africa were killed by their intimate partners. If you think about it in reverse, if husbands and boyfriends did not kill their female spouses, half of those who died by homicide may have been alive today to listen to this episode. There is clearly a war on women and their bodies in South Africa- but what is behind it? Does the criminal justice system aid in the perpetuation of femicide, or does it aid the fight against it?

Back again with us this week is Bulelwa Adonis, as she sheds light on the scourge of femicide plaguing South Africa today, and why despite all the efforts to bring an end to it, it seems to be getting worse. What hope do we have to end it once and for all? Join us today to find out.

Rape is commonplace in South Africa. It’s been reported that over 40% of women in South Africa are and will have reported to have been raped at least once in their lifetime. The crisis is so persistent that rape cases no longer make the news cycle alone, it takes celebrities and powerful people being raped for this social ill to get airtime. Yet, so many women fall victim to this heinous act. 

In this episode we seek to understand rape at 3 levels: 

• At a conceptual level, where we discuss issues of power and consent
• At a personal level, where we discuss issues of dignity, trauma and recovery 
• And at a societal level, where we discuss its broader societal harms, while perhaps tracking its history in order to give us a greater understanding of this crisis. 

We are joined today by activist Bulelwa Adonis, helps us unpack this issue by taking us through some of her research on rape in South Africa.

In this series, the conversations about masculinity have transcended many sub-categories in an attempt to better understand men around the world in various contexts. With the theme “Masculinity across borders”, we have now unearthed another conversation that has taken centre-stage, particularly in South Africa: immigration. The plight that is xenophobia has been a hot topic for a long time, as opposing views on immigration create divides that deter the lives of many immigrants, both legal and otherwise. Not moving from the conversation of masculinity, the bigger conversation to be had is about how one navigates their manhood in a foreign country, particularly with a violent history quite unkind to them.

In this episode, we talk to Gabriel Shamu, a young academic originally from Zimbabwe, but living in South Africa. He takes us on his journey of navigating life as a young black man in South Africa, dealing with expectations from family back home, South African society, as well as the men and women he has come across in various spaces.

What does it mean to be an African man in this day and age? Masculinity in Africa has been a global topic of discussion for generations. The scars of the past have made the meaning and the practice of masculinity in Africa so ambiguous, that the definition of manhood in Africa is almost impossible to ideate. Ineke Mules poses the sentiment that African masculinity is seeing a “stark clash between traditional and modern values”. This could be boiled down to the more direct efforts that are being channeled into unlearning traditional values, particularly the ones deemed and proven oppressive to other demographics like women and children; as well as the overall idea that masculinity in Africa needs a new definition. One that isn’t set out for us by our global counterparts or peers. 

In this episode, we aim to unpack masculinity and how a young, urban, West African man navigates it in Ghana. Shafic Osman is a qualified lawyer, photographer and Ghanaian native who has embarked on many debating trips to places including Polokwane and Accra. Shafic reflects on his own experiences with work, relationships and religion on his social media in a humorous and light-heated way. We have invited him on this episode to share his experiences and to draw similarities between our experiences to create a shared experience.

The U.K. plays a special role in the lives of Africans and Africans in the diaspora. Priti Patel, a British politician serving as the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom was quoted as saying: “Every year, just like these people I have represented, thousands from African countries try to enter the UK for a multitude of reasons.”, showing the indelible mark etched in the lives of Africans by the UK in its practical sense. Having colonised a significant portion of the continent, taken part in the slave trade and attracted a large number of black people to the metropole or “the motherland”, the U.K. and its influence on blackness is noteworthy. 

In this episode, we are taking a look at how black masculinity manifests itself in the lives of second-generation immigrants in London. We have invited Faisal Sebunya, a London resident, Ugandan-British, second-generation immigrant and a civil engineer. He gives a history on what it is that brought his family to the UK, how his parents navigated work and society; and much more. Stay tuned. This podcast is brought to you by Engage Africa Media.

Men have, for a very long time, perpetuated and been perceived as invulnerable people who do not delve into the realm of emotion much. One can argue that this notion has its benefits, but in modern times, we’ve seen the negative effects it has on men; particularly in their relationships with women. There has never been a time where men have had to systematically deal with their insecurities in order to better navigate relationships, rather than circumvent them. This has led to a different set of expectations, boundaries and treatment towards men, both positive and negative, and brought about new conversations around how we can better understand ourselves as men, and our place in our relationships. 

In this episode, we will consider and explore how men show up in their romantic relationships with women or at least how they perceive them, approach them and navigate them. Having worked hard to establish that men are complex, emotional & vulnerable beings, we will consider what freedoms, space and protections men require in these relationships. Today we’re joined by Khanyisile Madonko who will join us in sharing our experiences.

We are taught and brought up with the belief that masculinity is something to be embodied, a state of being that requires a certain degree of physicality and can only be achieved by those with the physical prowess to meet this standard. And for those who can’t, well, this core requirement of manhood will always be illusive and so manhood quickly becomes about compensating for shortcomings in your manhood with those constitutive elements you’ve been endowed with. This, we see, is often the cause of much of the violence wrought by men on other members of society - women in particular.

In this episode, we are going to consider those illusive physical requirements of manhood. Our hosts decipher this perceived embodiment of masculinity, bringing to light a spectrum of ways in which they contribute to the toxic traits that the rest of society (women especially) fall victim to as a result. Join Tumi, Bongani and Thami for another insightful conversation for the learning and unlearning of masculinity as it is understood today, hoping to redefine what being a man in modern society means, and ultimately looks like.

Insecurities around physical appearance and negative self perception relating to one’s physical appearance are generally understood to be a mental phenomenon experienced exclusively by women, however this is increasingly being experienced by men as well. Through our collective perception and treatment of men relative to their physical appearance, these insecurities are garnered and perpetuated throughout the men in our societies, ultimately cultivating a toxic culture and view of what masculinity is or should be. 

In this episode, hosted by Thami, we unpack these insecurities and how men show up in the world because of these insecurities. Our hosts comment on this by sharing how, through their own experiences, the insecurities they have felt about themselves and their own appearances have affected their relations with the people around them. As they share these experiences, they will outline how these insecurities may have built in toxic traits that further affected their relations with women, and people in general, while deepening the negative views they had of themselves.