It is hard not to be cynical when women’s month rolls by. Media campaigns call on us to #breakthesilence and we brace against the inevitable barrage of national statistics on gender based violence. Lived realities are reduced to numbers and pain reduced to statistics.
But what happens when the television or radio or internet is switched off? What happens when we must deal with the real, harmful manifestations of gender inequality and toxic masculinities in our most intimate spaces? When the numbers are no longer faceless or nameless but look like my father or aunt or the young woman that lives a few houses down the street?