LEARNING TO KILL - MASCULINITY, THE FAMILY AND VIOLENCE IN NATAL

Analyses of South African violence have failed to take explicit account of the fact that the conflict has almost always taken the form of men fighting men. The aim of this paper is to point to a crisis in masculinity amongst working-class African men, and to suggest that this forms a key dimension of explanation for the massive upsurge in violence in the recent past. Political analysts concerned with bringing an end to the violence cannot afford to ignore its gendered dimensions. The paper will elaborate on three points: that there is a crisis of African masculinity; that violence is one of the compensatory mechanisms whereby men have sought to reassert their masculinity in the face of this crisis; and that it is within the family that men learn to be violent. © 1992 Taylor & Francis Group