Patriarchal ideology in South Africa creates the feeding ground for visible and symbolic violence experienced by women and men. In this lecture I will discuss the findings from a year-long collective biography research project examining data from workshops and cross-gender dialogues among students at the University of the Free State (UFS), South Africa. I focus specifically on male students’ accounts of witnessing narratives of patriarchal trauma during the workshops and their subsequent meaning making around masculinity and violence. Findings show that these collective processes facilitate a disruption of the patriarchal logic around the denial of gender violence as ‘everyday’ violence and the possibilities this collective work holds for breaking through such deep-rooted layers of denial—a process akin to acknowledging and interrogating patriarchal power.

Dr. Samantha van Schalkwyk