Domestic Violence against Men: The Flip Side of Patriarchy

 

                                             

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Domestic Violence against Men: The Flip Side of Patriarchy

Domestic violence is not a new phenomenon and it affects the lives of women and men alike worldwide regardless of race, culture, and ethnicity. Domestic violence has deep historical roots, and patriarchy, which justifies male control over women, has been prevalent for a long time. The notion of patriarchy refers to a set of ideas and beliefs that justify male control over women. Patriarchal beliefs operate by affording men the right to exercise power within their family through enforcing and reinforcing the inequality of power between males and females, along social arrangements that give males extra privilege. The concept of patriarchy is defined as having two components: structure, in which men are seen to have more power and privilege than women, and an ideology, which legitimizes this conception.

Patriarchy engenders false consciousness in all the sexes and genders. For women, it internalizes notions of desirable beauty standards, sense of being weak and helpless and thus a need for dependence on men for all kinds of support. Interestingly, patriarchy like many other social systems has antagonistic characters inherent in it. As patriarchy unfolds, the principal beneficiary of this social system, that is, the men themselves get affected by these contradictions in multiple ways. The glut of male entitlements provided by patriarchy develops a malicious false consciousness among men and the upholders of hyper-masculinity. It provides them with a sense of unassailability which eventually develops into an exaggerated sense of invincibility among men. This can be easily judged from the careless attitude of society towards mental health and physical safety of men, primarily that of boys.

The toxic masculinity has internalized the idea that men cannot be abused. Patriarchy, as a system, is adversative to everyone in the society, even to its supposedly primary beneficiary, the men. Hence, the need to sensitize men about their vulnerability to such violence and to dismantle the superficial idea of unassailability among them.

Historically, it is undeniable that women are negatively impacted by patriarchy. Patriarchy teaches women that they are peripheral and secondary in the grand human story. While women being in
the subordinate position in this hierarchy, suffer the effects of patriarchy in a greater degree, men too know its cost to their well-being. It is easy to think that, because men are perceived to have the power and privilege, that they truly have everything. However, the reality is that nobody has everything. Men suffer a raw deal as a result of this narrowness. Patriarchy’s picture and expectation of manhood is quite toxic to the men.

Contemporary feminism as a whole seems to be moving towards the consensus that patriarchy affects the lives of men as well as women’s, if not the same extent. Critically examined, there are plenty of ways that patriarchy actually hurts men, many of which are hiding in plain sight. To find them, all we have to do is to look.

The flip side of patriarchy has revealed many hidden domestic abuse against men in their romantic relationships. One of the ways patriarchy harms men is that it structures relationships around hierarchy. However, hierarchy does not foster healthy relationships. Hierarchical marriage rigidly depicts leader-follower relationship. When men rule the home alone, the door is opened to abuse. Just as tragic, the door is closed to mutuality and partnership. When men are taught to view themselves as the leader, the superior, and the overseer of women, they forfeit a mutual relationships with their wives. This forfeiture of mutual relationship becomes more pronounced with a wife coming with an abusive background who would not ordinarily accept the headship of her husband in the family. Hence, the man faces an untold hardship of abuse in both physical and emotional.

Men are also trained to see themselves as “threats” to women. This notion puts a lot of pressure on the men by trying to justify every leadership decision they take at home without the women being carried along. However, the women will always insist on being part of every decision concerning the running of family affairs.

As impossible and damaging as societal standards for women are, the standards for men are just as poisonous with toxic masculinity. From birth men are discouraged from showing emotion, which is seen as a feminine attribute – “boys don’t cry” Without a culturally-approved outlet for their feelings, this stifling of emotion has led generations of men to turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as drug and alcohol abuse, which men are more likely to experience than women.

Furthermore, research has shown that fear of being seen as ‘weak’ is so deeply ingrained in men that they drastically overcompensate when they feel threatened.

Another “favorable” attribute of patriarchy to men is the breadwinner syndrome. Women are seen as the natural caretakers in a household. Hence, stay-at-home dads are seen as weak for “letting” their wives be the breadwinners. As the heads and breadwinners of the family, men are constantly under pressure of meeting the financial and other needs of his family members; even when they lack the financial capability to do so at a particular point in time. Incidentally, the wife could comfortably have such fund but she would remain indifferent to the predicament of the husband because she is not supposed to be the breadwinner. Many men go hungry, just so to feed their family. Some may also opt for loans to satisfy their households. Little wonder why many men are perpetually under psychological and emotional depression with the resultant lower life expectancy of men than that of the women.

Every shortcoming of the man as the perceived breadwinner attracts abuse and humiliation from the wife. However, the culture of toxic masculinity is so strong that some men may not even realize they are being abused, because they are not used to violence being discussed in terms of female-on-male.

Societal norms are just as rigid for women as they are for men and the consequences can be deadly. Some have argued that the high rate of completed suicide for men could be traced to the cult of masculinity, which causes men to be less likely to seek help for emotional problems. As much as men may benefit from patriarchal societies on the surface, it is clear that the disadvantages far outweigh the benefits.

References:

1.      Dobash and Dobash 1979

2.      Alvanez and Bachman 2008

3.      Chesney-Lind 2006