Gender-based violence in Namibia is pervasive and solutions to it remain elusive. How we
address the problem depends on how we frame it. Gender-based is directly linked to unequal
relationships of power and do not stand in isolation of structural and cultural violence in our
society. There is a long history of gender inequality and gender-based violence that is deeply
imbedded in Namibia’s history. Colonialism was violent and its eff ects still structures representations
of masculinity. It has shaped violent hegemonic and subaltern masculinities. There
is also a history of gender-based violence embedded in traditional African patriarchy that is
often denied. Gender-based violence should not be sought in the biological or psychological
essences of individual perpetrators but, instead, in the nature of our society, our histories and
ethnographies of violence. This article locates gender-based violence in a social-historical context
and seeks to illuminate some of the intersections between violent masculinities, gender,
race and class.