Editor’s Note:
South Africa is once again facing the scale of its gender-based violence and femicide crisis in painfully visible terms. The latest national crime statistics available from SAPS, covering April to June 2026, recorded 569 women murdered and 9,201 reported rape cases in just three months.
In the months since, a series of killings in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, brought renewed national attention to the crisis. By late September, government reported that 13 women’s bodies had been recovered in Ekurhuleni and surrounding areas since July. Several of the victims were young women, and some of the bodies reportedly showed signs of sexual violence. Police have cautioned against assuming that all of the cases are connected.
The killings became serious enough for President Cyril Ramaphosa to address the country directly on 29 September, describing violence against South African women as a source of “national shame”.
It is against this background that AFRICA.ROCKS is publishing the following opinion piece by MoshMallow vocalist Marty du Plessis. Her focus is the South African heavy music community and the uncomfortable fact that the behaviours, power imbalances and forms of violence being confronted across the country do not cease to exist when we enter a music venue or a scene we consider safe.
Marty du Plessis:
“We have to listen to what the women around us are actually telling us.”
If you don’t know about the femicide crisis in South Africa, you’re deliberately not paying attention at this point. No, I will not give you the benefit of the doubt anymore.
It should also not be a particularly radical idea that femicide, GBV and discrimination against women, girls and other marginalised people can, and do, creep into our own heavy music communities. Music scenes do not exist in some magical vacuum, insulated from the violence, misogyny and power dynamics that exist everywhere else.
When we talk about violence against women, people often have an incredibly narrow understanding of what violence is supposed to look like. They picture a woman with a broken and bloodied nose. Visible bruising across her arms or chest. A black eye. A swollen lip. Something obvious. Something that leaves evidence.
When we talk about rape, people often have an equally distorted picture. They imagine a dark, secluded alleyway; somewhere filthy and unfamiliar, filled with rot, rubbish and rats. They imagine a stranger waiting in the shadows. But that isn’t necessarily where sexual violence happens. So let me paint you a more realistic picture.
It’s the charming, charismatic frontman of your favourite local band. The guy everyone knows. The guy who has carefully cultivated the persona of an ally. The feminist, the safe guy, the one who supposedly keeps the women around him “safe”. And perhaps that’s exactly what makes him dangerous.
Because that carefully curated public persona can allow him access to younger, more vulnerable girls without anyone questioning why he is so interested in them. Remove the cotton from your eyes. The clues are often not found in what someone does when everyone is watching. They’re found in the subtle changes in their speech, their behaviour and their boundaries when they believe they’re psychologically safe… when they believe there will be no consequences for what they say or do. Because a person can curate an image in a crowd.
But what matters is what happens when they believe nobody is paying attention. Or at least, when they think nobody is paying attention. But you forget something. I was there with you in that room. I heard it all. I was observing you. And I am still observing you.
Gender-based violence isn’t something that will simply disappear because we stop talking about it either. We have to listen to what the women around us are actually telling us. We have to be willing to recognise uncomfortable patterns, and we have to use practical, evidence-based strategies to address them.
We also need to change where we place shame: away from victims and onto perpetrators. But let me tell you something: a post on social media is not enough. Neither is performing outrage when violence is obvious and visible. Yes, we should address physical aggression in mosh pits when it crosses the boundaries of what people have consented to. But if our understanding of violence begins and ends with what we can immediately see, we’re missing a much larger part of the picture. Because violence doesn’t always announce itself. It doesn’t always look like a bloodied face in a mosh pit.
Sometimes it looks like the person everyone trusts. The person who knows exactly how to present themselves as an ally. The person whose behaviour changes when there are no witnesses, when the power dynamics shift, or when they believe the people around them will protect their reputation rather than listen to the person speaking up. Those are the spaces we need to be paying attention to.
Because the places where we assume violence couldn’t happen are often precisely the places where we’re least prepared to recognise it when it does.
