Violence against men VAM consists of violent actions that are performed against men overwhelmingly or exclusively. As both victims and perpetrators of abuse, men are overrepresented. Sexual violence against men is viewed differently than that perpetrated in most societies against women and is generally unrecognized by international law.
Perceptions and facets
Social attitude surveys indicate that aggression is considered to be more or less extreme based on the victim's and perpetrator's gender. According to a survey in the publication Violent Conduct, violence against women was about a third more likely to be reported to the police by third parties regardless of the attacker's gender while the most likely to be reported to be gender combination He was a male victim and a female victim. The use of law enforcement stereotypes is a recognized issue, and international human rights law scholar Solange Mouthaan argues that sexual abuse of men has been overlooked in situations of conflict in favor of an emphasis on sexual violence against women and children. One reason for this disparity in focus is the coercive dominance that men retain over Women, with this gender configuration, makes people more likely to condemn violence. The concept of toxic masculinity rescuers goes against social perceptions of the role of the male gender, leading to low recognition and few legal provisions. There is almost no legal framework for a woman to be prosecuted when trying to commit violent offenses against a man.
The belief that violence against women is separate from
violence against men is called into question by Richard Felson.
In almost all aggression, regardless of gender, the same motivations play a role:
to gain power or revenge and to facilitate or protect self-image.
Cathy Young, reporting for Time, criticized the feminist movement for not doing enough to question double expectations in handling sexual assault victims of physical harassment and sexual misconduct.
Domestic abuse
"In 2013, John Hamel, editor-in-chief of the journal Partner Abuse, set up the Study Group on Domestic Violence to create the "Partner Abuse State of Information Project (PASK)." PASK found parity in rates of both male and female perpetration and victimization.
At times, men who are victims of domestic abuse are hesitant to disclose it or to seek assistance.
A survey finds a higher prevalence of physical aggression committed by women. For example, in the National Family, Violence Survey studies 4.8% of wives reported using violence against their husbands, and whereas 3.4% of husbands reported using violence against wives.
[A Review of Research on Women’s Use of Violence with Male Intimate Partners]
According to the National Family Health Survey, 2004, violence is not always inflicted by the female partner/wife but a lot of time by a male relative of the wife attacks or threatens the man. Many researchers convey that cases of violence against Indian husbands come from the upper-middle class and the middle class. From all over India, 98% of the males had suffered domestic violence more than once in their lives.
There is also a paradigm, according to some commentators, that only males perpetrate domestic violence and are never victims. Shamita Dasgupta and
Erin Pizzey is among those who argue that intimate partner violence is usually less, as with other types of violence against men,
Identified in the community when the victims are men. Relationship abuse by women towards men is also trivialized since women are physically weaker on average than men; the use of dangerous objects and guns is ignored in such cases. Since the 1990s, research has established problems of perceived and real sexism when police are involved, with the male victim being negative.
Women’s motivations for violence
· self-defense:
“He hit you one time, you give him that authority to hit you once, that’s it. He feels like he in control now, he can bust you upside the head anytime he wants now. That’s why he hit you one time, you bust him right back . . . Bust him and run.”
· Fear:
“Like me, I’m the type that I’m violent with a man because before you getting me, I’m getting you because I’m so scared now. The past relationship that I’ve seen with violence . . . I’m not gonna allow anyone to talk to me or hurt me any type of way.”
· Retribution:
“I got a very jealous violent streak . . . if I’m in love with [somebody] and they do something like . . . bring another girl around me or he tells me to pick up his cell phone knowing it’s a girl, I’m gonna react. I might just throw something at him, you know, I don’t know what I might do.”
[A Review of Research on Women’s Use of Violence with Male Intimate Partners]
Female abuse in relation to men
According to journalist Martin Daubney, "...there remains a theory that men under-report their experiences [of violence by women against men] due to a culture of masculine expectations." In the United Kingdom, for example, the official figure is about 50 percent of the number of acts of violence by men against women, but there are reports that only about 10 percent of male victims of female violence report the events to the authorities, primarily because of taboos, fears of confusion, and fears that authorities do not believe or even mock them, generated by a culture of violence. Roughly 1.2 million of the 1.9 million were female and 713,000 were male. However, in a Canadian survey, in their current relationship, 22 percent more men than women reported becoming victims of abuse. Researchers Stemple and Meyer also report that sexual violence against men by women is frequently understudied or unrecognized. A report titled "Domestic Violence: Not An Even Playing Field" was written by family violence scholar Richard Gelles and accused men's rights organizations of distorting research results on men's and feminist's violence to advance a misogynistic agenda. Some academics and proponents of domestic violence have dismissed the analysis cited by social justice warriors and challenged their arguments that such violence is.
Forced Childbirth
"Some organizations consider non-therapeutic male circumcision to be a form of violence against young men and boys. Compulsory circumcision is deemed to be an "inhumane act" by the International Criminal Court. Several court rulings have found it to be a violation of the rights of a child. In some countries, such as Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines. In a survey, researchers notice that males ages 18-24 who are college students are approximately 5 times more likely than non-students of the same age to be a victim of rape or sexual assault.
While a 2012 court's decision in Germany challenged the act of male cutting, calling circumcision "grievous bodily harm," the German parliament passed a law to keep boys' circumcision legal. As of 2016, it is still legal worldwide to cut boys' pre-skins.
Massive scale assassinations
Men and boys are often marked and killed in circumstances of systemic violence like war and genocide. Reports of civilian male victims of mass killings indicate that the targeting of victims by sex during the Kosovo War accounted for over 90% of all civilian casualties.
The most common targets of mass killing and genocidal murder, as well as a number of lesser massacres and violations, have been and continue to be non-combatant men and boys. Gendercide Watch, an independent human rights organization, tracks many males (adult and child) gendercides: The Anfal Campaign, (Iraqi Kurdistan), 1988-Armenian Genocide (1915-17)-Rwanda, 1994. Gender-based brutality against men may also be known as forced conscription.
Sexual harassment
"bereft of terms and phrases which accurately describe male rape "bereft of terms and phrases that describe male rape accurately. "SGBV (sexual and gender-based violence) against men and boys has generally been specified as a footnote in reports’ (sexual and gender-based violence) against men and boys was generally mentioned in reports as a footnote.
Per the 2002 SAVI (Sexual Harassment and Violence in Ireland) survey, 9.7% of Irish men reported adult sexual contact assault (when they were 17 years of age or older); 0.9% of those involved penetrative sex. Another such 2.7 percent reported unwanted sexual encounters without touch.
By contrast, 20.4% of Irish women reported witnessing sexual harassment as adults, 6.1% of which involved penetrative sex; a further 5.1% reported inappropriate sexual encounters without touch. The Australian police reported 4,100 male victims of sexual abuse in 2016, as compared to 18,900 female victims that year, according to the 2018 Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence in Australia survey (thus, male victims constituted 17.8 percent of all victims). For male victims who have encountered sexual violence since the age of 15, a female perpetrator was reported by 55 percent, while a male perpetrator was reported by 51 percent (some who have experienced sexual violence many times were abused by men and women).
Sexual abuse from wartime
Sexual violence against men in wartime impeded at the international level by gendered representations that associate men with power, strength, and, especially when comes to violence. In order to demoralize the enemy, wartime sexual abuse perpetrated by men against men is used as psychological warfare. The practice is old and was reported as happening during the Crusades.[56] Men can be abused, sexually mutilated, sexually humiliated, or even enslaved during times of military conflict. In particular, castration is used as a form of physical punishment with heavy psychological torture.
Like two sides of the same coin, Silencing cases of conflict-related sexual violence against men and focusing narratives about women in the war on sexual violence. During wars, just like men can be victims of sexual violence whereas, women are victims of other types of violence. The problem is that when a woman gets tortured by different forms while in detention, attention is usually focused on this type of component, but when it comes to men’s experiences of war, everything but sexual violence is worthy of attention, such as (non-sexual) torture, amputations, imprisonment, etc. Thus, men’s experience of violence is desexualized, while that of women is depoliticized.
Killings
In the U.S., crime figures from 1976 onwards indicate that, regardless of whether the victim is female or male, men make up the majority of homicide offenders. Men are often over-represented in a murder involving both male and female suspects as victims. Women who kill men are expected likely to kill associates, partners, or boyfriends, as per the Bureau of Justice Statistics, whereas men are more likely to kill strangers. In many cases, women kill men because they are victims of intimate partner violence.
Cop killing
Police killings are one of the leading causes of death for young men in the United States. A report by Esposito, Lee, Edwards estimates that 1 in 2,000 men and 1 in 33,000 women die as a result of police use of deadly force. The same study predicts that the risk for black men is greatest, as police would expect about 1 in 1,000 black men to be killed.
Conclusion
The family structure and society are changing, and the same is true with the norms and values regarding gender violence. Men also are physically and mentally harassed by their spouses and in-laws. Hence, their problems must be recognized as a social and public health issue, and appropriate strategies and interventions should be implemented. They too need help in crisis and family violence, especially spouses. Even the laws and legislation must include domestic violence against men as a punishable offense. Men and women are the pillars of society and a family. Hence, laws are needed to offer protection to both from spousal violence.
Additional Info:
[A Review of Research on Women’s Use of Violence with Male Intimate Partners]
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