The lockdown has been tough on every individual. Everyone, was physically, mentally and emotionally affected by the same. While our media has tried to address this problem directly or indirectly in one or the other way. People have come out and spoken about how, lockdown has caused a tremendous increase in the number of Domestic Violence Cases. A topic, which until today was totally hush hush, people had started discussing the same on social media. But what had shocked me was, everybody presumed, that only women were victims of Domestic Abuse.
Domestic Abuse is a human problem, like any other form of abuse. It is not a problem faced by a particular gender. It is incorrect to characterise spousal and relationship abuse as a concern for women, rather than a human question. Women are as likely to engage in sexually violent acts in domestic relations as men. But most stories published in the mainstream press and in academic journals have presented the topic as simply a masculine type of assault conduct, incorporating a misleading and distorted view of the issue into the national consciousness. In short, none of the academicians and media houses presume that this would be a problem for men. How conveniently we forget that men can also be victims of Domestic Violence.
Community generally assumes that women and children will be the victims and that men are the offenders of cases of sexual abuse / domestic violence. In his message, The famous TEDx speaker Andrew describes the larger struggle faced by male perpetrators of domestic violence and expresses his own experiences of the trauma he endured during his first marriage: why he endured, how he repaired and how he forgave.
Men live in isolation and culture may not help, because society usually believes that it is women and children who struggle when it comes to domestic abuse. Andrew also talks about the storey in which 6 people were violently raped and killed, but he also talks about 75 percent of incidents of domestic violence in the UK are people and 25 percent are men, so why there is no men’s picture in the story.
Since in the UK several cases of domestic abuse are filed every year and since then about 1/3rd cases are linked to individuals. At one point, all men suffer domestic violence, which is why society still benefits women, not men. He added that if we want to defend our sons and daughters, we must agree that women often assault people, people abuse women, men abuse women and men abuse women, and vice versa.
Domestic violence is not a matter of men or women, it is a real problem, and if we are concerned about solving it, we need to stop complaining about it and start thinking of it as a human problem. In order to understand the symptoms and triggers of this, we need to empower them to come forward with their experiences. It will also inspire men and women to put behind the realities of violence and press on to restore their lives.
Internet-wide analysis often highlights abuse and oppression against women and shows, once in a blue moon, any sexism or brutality against men. Whenever we learn of domestic violence, it is also linked to women. However, domestic violence is not solely limited to women, with new changes in society influencing the family. Men are assaulted physically and emotionally. Also, in our society, any harassment by a woman to a man is considered as cute but when the same happens in reverse we criticise men.
For example:- When a man flashes his penis in front of a woman he is considered as a pervert and God forbid if the same is shown in a movie, the movie would have been banned. But there is a song by Dhwani Bhanushali, wherein, another college student likes a guy but he keeps ignoring her, therefore she corners him and removes her tshirt. The Lead Hero just walks away. But there was never a debate or a discussion about the same in any news channel about harassment faced by men.
Men should not disclose harassment as the laws in our culture are always in favour of women, and because of the sexist laws of our culture that always find women to be the target of crime, these men do not get justice. Although news of dowry-related abuse and crime against women has been widely documented in the media, behind four walls, there are rising numbers of men suffering from domestic violence and other crimes. The embarrassment and guilt of this act becoming public and the fact that they are not protected by the law and they are not expected to believe causes them to keep their mouth shut.
The Patriarchy, which has caused damage to most of the women in our society. The same Patriarchy, has deprived men of their right to express themselves. Patriarchy has caused equal damage to both the genders.
Except if the guy has the bravery to fight for himself, women are often considered innocent by law and community and when most people hear the word Domestic Abuse, they always believe that men are not the other way around the aggressor and women even take advantage of this factor and file false cases in the court that lead to the punishment of the innocent. For domestic violence , gender neutral laws are required.
Domestic abuse, as women are the same as men at this age, can be referred to as spousal violence. We need to take a step forward in the approach to domestic violence and the very first step is to allow men and women who have abused to come forward with their experiences, to be remembered, to be understood so that we can learn from them and better understand the reasons and symptoms of domestic abuse, so that we can search after each other and genuinely consider the problems and worries faced by men and women who have abused each other.
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