You might have noticed the huge numbers of women in purple and black shirts protesting along significant G20 routes for 15 minutes in November.
A minute for each woman killed in gender-based violence every day in South Africa. It’s a terrifying number that chills the heart but paradoxically results in a kind of social numbing and a sense of helplessness.
One man has a few ideas and has actually been putting them into practice. I meet Craig Wilkinson at his local — the incredibly stylish Doppio Zero in Greenside — to establish whether there is any hope for change.
Craig runs a non-profit, Father a Nation, which aims to help men become great fathers, mentors and role models, and build a safe and prosperous nation.
He calls himself a dad coach, trying to empower men to be their best selves as per the title of his recently published book Force for good: the power of healthy masculinity.
Craig went to the army after returning to South Africa from a peripatetic youth — his father took the family to New Zealand and Botswana. I wonder if a year of national service would be a net positive for South Africans and men in particular?
The most important fathering tool is how you are as a man. What are you imparting? What are you showing? How do you treat their mother? How do you treat other women? How do you deal with your life? That’s the key
— Craig Wilkinson
“It depends on what the army does, obviously, whether it’s good or bad, but the discipline of going through military or national service is a very good thing. I think for a lot of people there’s no real test of character and opportunity … Sport is a good thing; guys get disciplined with sport, but I think it can also be abusive. But the principle of going through a rite of passage from boyhood to manhood can be very beneficial.”
He studied at Wits, worked in human resources and ran Outward Bound, an NGO dedicated to experiential learning in nature for youth, and Green Trust Africa. But it was his personal experience as a single father and his work in communities across South Africa that inspired Father a Nation in 2013.
“What became a passion for me was just looking at the fatherlessness — there were so many single moms, but dads were absent. And often the moms had to go to work, and the kids were left alone in shacks. So we started Father a Nation with the belief that if we can heal men as fathers, you heal South Africa.”
How can you be a good dad?
”No 1, be present. No 2, be engaged. No 3, listen, hear them. Four, you’ve got to be disciplined. You’ve got to set boundaries. But I think being present and engaged is the most important thing.”
For Craig, understanding his role as a father was sparked by an incident when his then two-and-a-half-year-old daughter underwent heart surgery and he was in theatre with her.
“About a month later, we had a braai at my house with a whole bunch of mates, and she was standing next to me, holding my leg, and one of my friends, said, ‘I believe you were in hospital’. And she looked up at him, and she said, ‘Yes, my heart was broken, but my daddy fixed it.’ I had to excuse myself from the gathering, but she gave me this gift of seeing myself through her eyes.
“And it was quite a life-changing moment, because you realise you are so responsible, you play such a massive role. You’re the hero. And that’s when I realised that it’s a parallel journey. You can learn all the right discipline techniques and whatever. But the key is who you are as a man. Are you the man they need you to be?
“And so that started a journey of working on myself as a man. It still continues to this day, dealing with whatever triggers, traumas or negative things. The most important fathering tool is how you are as a man. What are you imparting? What are you showing? How do you treat their mother? How do you treat other women? How do you deal with your life? That’s the key.”
To my despairing thoughts about the extremes in gender relations, he says: “It’s a both, not a case of either or… The masculine and the feminine are creative forces, men and women need to cooperate and co-create. People blame everything on power differentials, but they are baked into humanity. I’m physically stronger; that’s a power imbalance. But there’s nothing wrong with that. The only time it’s wrong is if I misuse it.
“Where you have men dominating, that is a distortion of masculinity, because a man who misuses his strength to dominate a woman, that’s not masculinity. That’s distortion. That’s a bully. It’s a misuse of that power. True, good masculinity never ever dominates, never feels superior, always collaborates and serves. That’s the bottom line.”
This article was first published in the Sunday Times.
