Why the silence when men suffer violence from women?

 men suffer violence
I'm dying inside
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What you need to know:

  • Research shows that most times, men are the perpetrators of domestic violence.
  • Stigma and shame are always part of the deal, and the media, civil society, and corporates are all complicit in this.

It’s news when a man bites a dog, not when a dog bites a man. Every Journalism 101 class has this hackneyed phrase neatly tucked into its curriculum. News thrives on the oddity, right? Well, not always. Especially in matters to do with gender-based violence.

Over a week ago, a story broke about a Makueni-based lawyer, who bled profusely after he was allegedly attacked by a police constable believed to be his estranged lover using a machete. Onesmus Masaku died while undergoing treatment at Kenyatta National Hospital.

The violence and death made it to the news, but the coverage was minimal, compared with instances where the victim is a woman. Some discerning social media users also questioned the loud silence of activists, feminists and the general civil society.

 “Where are they now? If it were a woman, they would be up in arms!” some said.

Their moral vehemence is well-placed. The only thing that should be corrected in this is the insinuation that it’s a competition between the genders. There’s no prize for violence.

In 2016, Jackline Mwende lost both hands when her husband, Stephen Ngila, attacked her in their home with a machete on July 23. The incident left her deaf in one ear. The story attracted the attention of local and international media. The public outcry against the violence jolted corporates, civil society and other Kenyans of goodwill into action. She got all the help she needed, including prostheses for her arms. Years after the incident, she was featured in the news yet again, this time decrying the high cost of maintaining the arms.

The coverage of these two news stories would not even matter were it not for the prejudices about gender-based violence they incubate. One might argue that to use the man-bite-dog’analogy to compare the treatment of these two stories is simplistic, or that the art of storytelling in the news is more nuanced than this.

Maybe they would be right. But one indisputable fact is the cultural and gender biases present every time the victim of domestic violence is male.

Domestic violence

Research shows that most times, men are the perpetrators of domestic violence. It must be that we are so used to seeing men as perpetrators of violence that we have become numb and indifferent when they become victims.

Our society shames them. Men are expected to fight back — to man up. And what kind of man “allows” a woman to attack him anyway? We ask. That’s why GBV against men thrives amid silence.

Stigma and shame are always part of the deal, and the media, civil society, and corporates are all complicit in this. We need to do better than this. Male victims need to know that they can count on us for support. That’s the only way to have the just and equal society that we all yearn for.

  @FaithOneya; [email protected]