Renaldo Gouws slammed for criticising supposed ‘Men are trash’ generalisations

YouTuber and Nelson Mandela Bay Democratic Alliance (DA) councillor Renaldo Gouws has come under fire again for a TikTok clip in which he shares his views on gender-based violence in the country.

Gouws said that in a country such as South Africa, where GBV is prevalent, the good men in the country should be “praised” and “thanked” instead of being insulted.

“This past weekend there was a trend aimed at South African men and that trend on social media was that #MenAreTrash. You would think that when you’re fighting against gender-based violence you wouldn’t generalise. One would think that you would want allies and supporters to come up and defend and stand up for your movement,” said Gouws.

“When you stereotype, belittle and insult 99% of the population that has never touched a woman in that way, that has never been aggressive towards a woman or children, you will think that maybe praising them and thanking them for doing what they’re doing would be suitable, but nah, apparently blaming 99% of the men that do nothing and putting them in the same boat as the cowards that do those things is considered normal. Go figure.

Social media users have criticised him, asking why anyone would want to be praised for being “decent”.

“So if I’ve got this right, men need praise and thanks for being decent human beings (which I’d think is the bare minimum we should expect) and men who do ‘nothing’ are the good guys? If you’re doing nothing to help solve the problem, you are part of the problem,” commented Lesley Scott, while Nicola Maboa said: “This might be the wildest thing I’ve ever heard. We should also give everyone a gold star if they’ve never murdered anyone.”

The best way to defeat racism

During his latest video on YouTube, Gouws also took time to respond to a viewer who asked for his opinion on how racism could be defeated in the country.

Gouws offered his view but also shared that he did not think racism was the biggest issue in South Africa, despite popular opinion.

“To condemn it and make the individuals that perpetuate it feel as uncomfortable as possible … but racism isn’t the biggest issue in South Africa. I’m sorry if this is a controversial statement. If you had to go into the townships right now and look at the … conditions that they’re living in and ask them what [are] the top issues right now, racism wouldn’t be one of them. It would be a job, next meal and clean drinking water. But if you listen to the woke left, it’s racism, it’s always been. Racism is the cause of problems in this country,” he said sarcastically.

In response, Gouws said:

“If the video was actually watched, one would clearly hear I am talking about men who fight GBV and how they are accused of being trash. In context, it would be quite clear that I am talking about those men that actually do something to bring attention to GBV and that fight it either by talking about it or educating people about it.

In conclusion, I would like to make it clear that I don’t expect men to be praised for not committing GBV. I do however expect men to not be stereotyped and labelled as trash by people who proclaim to fight GBV. We should stand united to fight GBV and a movement that stereotypes, belittles and insults someone on the basis of their gender is very problematic.”

• Editor’s Note: This article was updated on 8 December 2021 to include Gouws’ comment. An additional update to the headline was made on 14 December 2021, to accurately reflect Gouws’ statements in his TikTok video. We apologise to Mr Gouws for any offence the original headline may have caused.