The Other Story...

“Cops Beat Their Wives & Girlfriends At Double The National Rate, Still Receive Promotions.

 Statistics show that 1 in 4 women in the US is a victim of domestic violence, those numbers jump to 1 in 2 if they are married to a cop.”

 - thefreethoughtproject.com , dated May 7^th 2014

“Man gets three years in jail for torturing wife”

-          The Hindu, dated October 26^th, 2014

These are some of the stories we come across while going through our daily source of informative medium. Yes, undoubtedly there are numerous cases which are of molestation, rape and torture by men on their counterpart. But little do we know that there are cases where the man is not the culprit but the victim.

Believe it or not, men too suffer mental/physical abuse and are subjected to horrific torture. At times it is unspeakable or even unimaginable. The rate of abuses on men are shockingly higher than that of women. Since they are considered “men”, they are taught not to express themselves, as men are never the “suppressed”. They can be always the “suppressor” but never the other way round.

The new dawn of feminism has surely enabled women to raise their voices and take a stand against their oppressors (which is synonymous for men), however unjustified this action may be. 

I am against male suppression that this new definition of feminism has propagated. No, I don’t mean to say that it is only this kind of feminism that is responsible for abuse against men, but it has undoubtedly aggravated the number. Statistics prove that a female is considered to be telling the truth as opposed to the man and heard more often than the male counterpart in a case of domestic abuse.

Nearly 33.5 percent of women in India suffer from domestic violence but lesser do we know that in nearly 50 % of these domestic violence cases, men are the victim. This clearly indicates our naiveness when it comes to the abuse of men, who are equally prone to violence. However, their suppression isn’t as vocal as that of women. One would ask why? It’s quite simple actually, men feel ashamed of admitting their defeat (not that abusers are victorious) by the hands of other men, or even worse, by women, since society demands “men” to be superior, undefeatable knights in shining armors, who cannot be‘hit’, ‘beaten’ or ‘ physically molested’ by women.

In cases of domestic violence it is the fear of being charged with a case of dowry (which usually is dragged for years and often ends up in favor of the woman) that prevents the man from raising his voice against the oppressor.

More often than not it is denial. The abusee thinks that he/she can change the abuser over the years because of which he/she refrains from asserting themselves.

Recently I came across a video on gender inequality, where me were being wronged by women. You wouldn’t find it on any/every social media, which are shockingly overflowing with posts, pictures, videos, podcasts on violence against women. It is most commonly believed that men don’t need to be defended, because they are capable enough to protect themselves. 

Consider a man and a woman walking down a busy road. An argument strikes between the two. The man hits the woman. What would you do? You’d probably run to the woman’s rescue (I know I would). And what if the woman hits the man instead? You would continue doing what you were doing, presuming it to be the man’s fault, thinking probably he deserved it.

Why is it that men are always considered to be the enforcer and women the victim, whenever any kind of abuse of violence between them is involved? Society has regarded men to be the stronger, tyrannical beings, who are superior to women (the weaker sex) in the virtual social hierarchy.

National Family Violence Survey, carried out by Murray A Straus and Richard J Gelles on a nationally representative sample of 6,002 couples, found that when a woman called the police to report a violent domestic crime, the man was ordered out of the house in 41.4% of cases. However, when a man called, the woman was ordered out of the house in 0% of cases. When a woman called, the man was threatened with immediate arrest in 28.2% of cases; when a man called, the woman was threatened with arrest in 0% of cases. When a woman called, the man was threatened with arrest at a later date in 10.7% of cases; when a man called, the woman was threatened with arrest at a later date in 0% of cases. When a woman called, the man was arrested in 15.2% of cases; when a man called, the woman was arrested in 0% of cases. In fact, in 12.1% of cases when the man called, the man himself was arrested.

Instances like these and probably many more which remain unreported (unaccepted even) really make me question the social setup that surrounds us, categorizing and segregating people based on their sex, standardizing them, putting out norms for behavior expected from both the sexes, dismissing any exception, any deviation from the prescribed code. We need to de-codify this social structure and view each individual as distinct, irrespective of their gender, equally vulnerable to being subjugated and likewise equally capable of subjugating others. Only then can we wholly 're-define' gender equality.