Matt Brown: She Is Not Your Rehab co-founder on violence against women continuing to be so prevalent
November 20, 2025 • 10 mins
Violence against women remains one of the world’s most persistent and under-addressed human rights crises.
A report from the World Health Organisation says that 1 in 3 women, an estimated 840 million globally, have experienced partner or sexual violence during their lifetime, a figure that has barely changed since 2000.
In Australia and New Zealand, 24.5 percent of women have been sexually or physically abused by a partner.
She Is Not Your Rehab co-founder Matt Brown told Kerre Woodham that society has done a great job in normalising anger as the best outlet for men, which looks like rage and violence towards the people they say they love the most.
He says there need to be more systems in place to educate men in emotional regulation, making things like grief or sadness a normal part of conversation.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Carrywood and Morning's podcast from News Talks,
he'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Violence against women remains one of the world's most persistent
and underaddressed human rights crises. According to the World Health
Organization and what they're calling a landmark report, nearly one
in three women have experienced partner or sexual violence during
their lifetime. I figured that's barely changed since the year
two thousand, nothing new in this country. In Australia and
(00:33):
New Zealand, twenty four point five percent of women have
been sexually or physically abused by a partner, and that's
only the reported crime. Matt Brown is a member of
the New Zealand Order of Merit. He and his wife
Sarah founded She Is Not Your Rehab, an anti violence
movement trying to stop intergenerational trauma, violence and abuse by
(00:53):
promoting safe relationships. Matt Brown joins me, now, very good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
To you, Kiota Carey. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh, thank you for taking the time to talk. How
do you get up, you and Sarah every week and
begin your working week when yet another terrible case is
making the headlines and you think when is it going
to end?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I know, tell me about it? It's thank you for
the questions. It's hard, This work is not easy. No,
it's heartbreaking, especially what's happened recently the past week in
Palmisan North. But we just tell ourselves, both of us,
my wife and I come from lived experience. We both
grew up in homes of this regulation, violence, bad mental health,
and so we just draw on our stories of our
(01:42):
personal lived experience, and we recognize that there are still
many children who still to this date suffer suddently behind
closed doors because adults refuse to take responsibility for the Ely.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Where does it come from? You know, sometimes you hear
the family say, look, we watched this happen. We saw
her try to leave, she went back. We knew she'd
end up dead one day. And then other family members go,
we never saw this coming. This has come completely out
of the blue. There was never never any suggestion that
(02:15):
he was a violent man.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
M It's I think many factors, you know, socialized gender norms,
tew inequalities, situational factors. It's just yeah, it's not one thing.
But I think society has done a great job in
normalizing anger as the best outlet for men, and so
this looks like rage and violence unfortunately towards the people
(02:38):
who we say we love the most, which is our
women and our children.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah. Is it?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Is it.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
An ability to be able to form close relationships with
other people and so you can't articulate how you're feeling
to others and let off steam that way? Is it
women knowing how to press buttons and men haven't got
the verbal skills to fight back. How does it end
(03:07):
like this?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
No? Well, it should be never a fact that women pressputons,
because humans are going to press buttons, you know, no
matter what we go through, women and children and men
will press each other's buttons. But I think we just
need more education, more systems in place that really educate
men how to regulate their emotions, you know, making grief
(03:29):
or sadness just the normal part of our conversations that
we should be talking about through schools, through our workplaces.
But unfortunately this is just not normalized. You know, vulnerability
should be normalized and then just spoken in our everyday language.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I find it encouraging. I've got two grandchildren, eight and six,
and one of them took herself off to a room
and said, I just need to go and regulate my emotions.
They learned that at school, you know, so she didn't
she just had some quiet time. So that's what they're
teaching the kids at school, that there are other ways
of dealing with yourself when you're feeling angry or sad
(04:11):
or what have you, which I find encouraging. But the
experts and the reporter saying that we need an education
campaign probably across social media now not television as it
was backed up with community, community based campaigns on violence prevention.
(04:32):
Would you concur with that?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, because boys are often taught to
value toughness, emotional stoicism, dominance, and control. And so once
we start normalizing that these things like vulnerability, having you know,
courageous conversations about our emotions and feelings becomes normal, you know,
we then may start to see our stats and statistics
(04:57):
change around violence towards women.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I get a lot of texts every time we talk
about this saying what about the violence women perpetrate against me?
And they do. There are absolutely female abuses. It's just
that the women and children are the ones that end
up dead more often, not the men.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yep, exactly. And that's the thing, the whole I mean
I've been in the barber for close to twenty years.
I've listened to the stories of men who have shared
with me, you know, their heart breaks not having access
to the children. Their violence also happens to them. But
because of our culture for men to talk about and
open up about them also getting abuses, it's just not encouraged.
(05:36):
But we know that happens both ways. But unfortunately, like
you say, often it's the women and children dying at
the hands of disregulated men.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
How did you and Sarah manage to form a loving,
enduring relationship given you've been given no roadmap to finding that.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
For me and my wife. My wife and I, we
absolutely knew that it was our responsibility to take ownership
of our own child or trauma, our own and habits.
We knew they're coming into this relationship being wanting to
create the most loving and safety healthy home. That we
had to go and do the work ourselves. So this
looked like talking to people myself as a man, I
(06:19):
had to open up to other men, fathers who I
admired in my community, talking to therapists, having supervisors around me,
and just asking those questions, you know, how do I
be a better man? How do I be a better father?
And there's nothing, absolutely nothing weak about there asking for help,
and that again needs to be normalized.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I remember talking to a guy who sounded like an
amazing dad, and I said, boy, you are an amazing
You sound like an amazing father. And he said, I
owe it to my own dad. And I said, oh,
you're lucky to have such a good one. He said, no,
it's terrible, absolutely appalling. He was an abuser. But I
knew when I became a dad, if I did everything
exactly the opposite way I'd been raised, I'd be doing fine.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, that's exactly like me. When my son was born, Angelo,
he came out of his mama and little thing. All
he did was pooh and cryet. But it was love
at first sight. It was love at first sight. And
I knew then that if I had any chance of
becoming the father that you know, I never got, or
to break their cycle, I had to go and do
the work myself, because if I didn't take ownership or
(07:22):
responsibility for my own trauma, I would just then transmit
their pain onto this most innocent thing that came out
of as mama, you know. And so yeah, it is
possible to break cycles. It's possible to be everything that
you never received. And I've had the honored privilege to
meet many men who have broken their cycle.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
What does it take from the men and the women
who want to change, who don't want to be those violent,
cruel a pearents that they had.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
We need more, I mean, and I think media has
a big responsibility in this, but we need more stories
of people who have broken the cycle. On the forefront.
We need to amplify voices of men, because men are
part of the solution. I know that men. You know,
society has painted men as the main perpetrators and our
stats show that. But men absolutely have to be part
(08:13):
of the solution. So we need to amplify men's voices
who are in our community doing good work, and those
men need to step forward and have the courage to
model and show other men that it is possible to
be you know, loving, kind, tenderness, vulnerable men because there
is so much strength in there, oh.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
So much strength. Absolutely, our good Father is just priceless,
absolutely priceless in anybody's.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Life, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I love the work that you're doing. How how are
you reaching into people's lives? And are you getting the
sort of support that you need to keep going financial
end and moral support.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yes, So I do this now full time. I'm currently
in Brisbane with my beautiful family, my wife and my
three children, but we traveled around the world now, speaking
in schools and organizations and prisons all around the world. Now,
so I do this full time. I'm no longer cutting here,
but I believe all the barbers that I've taught in
the last twenty years are holding space for a lot
(09:18):
of men in their barbershops. And so it's cool seeing
group therapies starting different barbershops around the country. You know,
there really are good men out there doing the work,
and so I just strongly encourage anyone to amplify those
heroes in our communities.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And that's what you do with the Instagram account too.
She is not your rehabit. And the masculinity Monday is
just gorgeous as well, where you see all of these
real examples of beautiful men in people's lives.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Thank you, yeah, and again for us, how do we
invite men into the conversation, you know, and inviting me
into the conversation. We have to model what healthy masculinity
looks like and so a lot of our social media
platforms we try and amplify, you know, men doing good work,
and you.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Do and more power to you, Matt and Sarah. Thank
you so much for taking the time to talk to
me today News Talks, said B are coupy brother, great work.
Sounds like you're an awesome papa. Yeah. It's the social
media platform. I really really recommend you have a look
at it. The Instagram account. She is not your rehabit. Masculinity.
Monday will make you cry every Monday when you see
(10:24):
these amazing, beautiful men from around the world. It's just gorgeous.
What an impressive and articulate guy. He's bloody amazing. Yeah
he is.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
For more from carry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
News Talk, Said B from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Carrywood and Morning's podcast from News Talks,
he'd be.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Violence against women remains one of the world's most persistent
and underaddressed human rights crises. According to the World Health
Organization and what they're calling a landmark report, nearly one
in three women have experienced partner or sexual violence during
their lifetime. I figured that's barely changed since the year
two thousand, nothing new in this country. In Australia and
(00:33):
New Zealand, twenty four point five percent of women have
been sexually or physically abused by a partner, and that's
only the reported crime. Matt Brown is a member of
the New Zealand Order of Merit. He and his wife
Sarah founded She Is Not Your Rehab, an anti violence
movement trying to stop intergenerational trauma, violence and abuse by
(00:53):
promoting safe relationships. Matt Brown joins me, now, very good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
To you, Kiota Carey. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh, thank you for taking the time to talk. How
do you get up, you and Sarah every week and
begin your working week when yet another terrible case is
making the headlines and you think when is it going
to end?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I know, tell me about it? It's thank you for
the questions. It's hard, This work is not easy. No,
it's heartbreaking, especially what's happened recently the past week in
Palmisan North. But we just tell ourselves, both of us,
my wife and I come from lived experience. We both
grew up in homes of this regulation, violence, bad mental health,
and so we just draw on our stories of our
(01:42):
personal lived experience, and we recognize that there are still
many children who still to this date suffer suddently behind
closed doors because adults refuse to take responsibility for the Ely.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Where does it come from? You know, sometimes you hear
the family say, look, we watched this happen. We saw
her try to leave, she went back. We knew she'd
end up dead one day. And then other family members go,
we never saw this coming. This has come completely out
of the blue. There was never never any suggestion that
(02:15):
he was a violent man.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
M It's I think many factors, you know, socialized gender norms,
tew inequalities, situational factors. It's just yeah, it's not one thing.
But I think society has done a great job in
normalizing anger as the best outlet for men, and so
this looks like rage and violence unfortunately towards the people
(02:38):
who we say we love the most, which is our
women and our children.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah. Is it?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Is it.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
An ability to be able to form close relationships with
other people and so you can't articulate how you're feeling
to others and let off steam that way? Is it
women knowing how to press buttons and men haven't got
the verbal skills to fight back. How does it end
(03:07):
like this?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
No? Well, it should be never a fact that women pressputons,
because humans are going to press buttons, you know, no
matter what we go through, women and children and men
will press each other's buttons. But I think we just
need more education, more systems in place that really educate
men how to regulate their emotions, you know, making grief
(03:29):
or sadness just the normal part of our conversations that
we should be talking about through schools, through our workplaces.
But unfortunately this is just not normalized. You know, vulnerability
should be normalized and then just spoken in our everyday language.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I find it encouraging. I've got two grandchildren, eight and six,
and one of them took herself off to a room
and said, I just need to go and regulate my emotions.
They learned that at school, you know, so she didn't
she just had some quiet time. So that's what they're
teaching the kids at school, that there are other ways
of dealing with yourself when you're feeling angry or sad
(04:11):
or what have you, which I find encouraging. But the
experts and the reporter saying that we need an education
campaign probably across social media now not television as it
was backed up with community, community based campaigns on violence prevention.
(04:32):
Would you concur with that?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, because boys are often taught to
value toughness, emotional stoicism, dominance, and control. And so once
we start normalizing that these things like vulnerability, having you know,
courageous conversations about our emotions and feelings becomes normal, you know,
we then may start to see our stats and statistics
(04:57):
change around violence towards women.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I get a lot of texts every time we talk
about this saying what about the violence women perpetrate against me?
And they do. There are absolutely female abuses. It's just
that the women and children are the ones that end
up dead more often, not the men.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yep, exactly. And that's the thing, the whole I mean
I've been in the barber for close to twenty years.
I've listened to the stories of men who have shared
with me, you know, their heart breaks not having access
to the children. Their violence also happens to them. But
because of our culture for men to talk about and
open up about them also getting abuses, it's just not encouraged.
(05:36):
But we know that happens both ways. But unfortunately, like
you say, often it's the women and children dying at
the hands of disregulated men.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
How did you and Sarah manage to form a loving,
enduring relationship given you've been given no roadmap to finding that.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
For me and my wife. My wife and I, we
absolutely knew that it was our responsibility to take ownership
of our own child or trauma, our own and habits.
We knew they're coming into this relationship being wanting to
create the most loving and safety healthy home. That we
had to go and do the work ourselves. So this
looked like talking to people myself as a man, I
(06:19):
had to open up to other men, fathers who I
admired in my community, talking to therapists, having supervisors around me,
and just asking those questions, you know, how do I
be a better man? How do I be a better father?
And there's nothing, absolutely nothing weak about there asking for help,
and that again needs to be normalized.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I remember talking to a guy who sounded like an
amazing dad, and I said, boy, you are an amazing
You sound like an amazing father. And he said, I
owe it to my own dad. And I said, oh,
you're lucky to have such a good one. He said, no,
it's terrible, absolutely appalling. He was an abuser. But I
knew when I became a dad, if I did everything
exactly the opposite way I'd been raised, I'd be doing fine.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, that's exactly like me. When my son was born, Angelo,
he came out of his mama and little thing. All
he did was pooh and cryet. But it was love
at first sight. It was love at first sight. And
I knew then that if I had any chance of
becoming the father that you know, I never got, or
to break their cycle, I had to go and do
the work myself, because if I didn't take ownership or
(07:22):
responsibility for my own trauma, I would just then transmit
their pain onto this most innocent thing that came out
of as mama, you know. And so yeah, it is
possible to break cycles. It's possible to be everything that
you never received. And I've had the honored privilege to
meet many men who have broken their cycle.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
What does it take from the men and the women
who want to change, who don't want to be those violent,
cruel a pearents that they had.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
We need more, I mean, and I think media has
a big responsibility in this, but we need more stories
of people who have broken the cycle. On the forefront.
We need to amplify voices of men, because men are
part of the solution. I know that men. You know,
society has painted men as the main perpetrators and our
stats show that. But men absolutely have to be part
(08:13):
of the solution. So we need to amplify men's voices
who are in our community doing good work, and those
men need to step forward and have the courage to
model and show other men that it is possible to
be you know, loving, kind, tenderness, vulnerable men because there
is so much strength in there, oh.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
So much strength. Absolutely, our good Father is just priceless,
absolutely priceless in anybody's.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Life, one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I love the work that you're doing. How how are
you reaching into people's lives? And are you getting the
sort of support that you need to keep going financial
end and moral support.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yes, So I do this now full time. I'm currently
in Brisbane with my beautiful family, my wife and my
three children, but we traveled around the world now, speaking
in schools and organizations and prisons all around the world. Now,
so I do this full time. I'm no longer cutting here,
but I believe all the barbers that I've taught in
the last twenty years are holding space for a lot
(09:18):
of men in their barbershops. And so it's cool seeing
group therapies starting different barbershops around the country. You know,
there really are good men out there doing the work,
and so I just strongly encourage anyone to amplify those
heroes in our communities.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
And that's what you do with the Instagram account too.
She is not your rehabit. And the masculinity Monday is
just gorgeous as well, where you see all of these
real examples of beautiful men in people's lives.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Thank you, yeah, and again for us, how do we
invite men into the conversation, you know, and inviting me
into the conversation. We have to model what healthy masculinity
looks like and so a lot of our social media
platforms we try and amplify, you know, men doing good work,
and you.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Do and more power to you, Matt and Sarah. Thank
you so much for taking the time to talk to
me today News Talks, said B are coupy brother, great work.
Sounds like you're an awesome papa. Yeah. It's the social
media platform. I really really recommend you have a look
at it. The Instagram account. She is not your rehabit. Masculinity.
Monday will make you cry every Monday when you see
(10:24):
these amazing, beautiful men from around the world. It's just gorgeous.
What an impressive and articulate guy. He's bloody amazing. Yeah
he is.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
For more from carry Wood and Mornings, listen live to
News Talk, Said B from nine am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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