Three occurrences in relation to domestic abuse perpetrated on males have stuck to my mind like the proverbial leech.
The first one concerns a headmaster who worked in Mashonaland East.
Whenever they had a domestic dispute at home, his wife would wait until the whole school was gathered at the school’s assembly point and she would go and violently drag the unfortunate old man back to their house by the collar, (they lived within school premises) serving him claps and unprintable words in front of staff, schoolchildren and community members.
The second one relates to the husband of one of my former female bosses, a gentleman and a genius who supported and helped his wife to run her organisation.
Ironically, the wife would often humiliate the husband in front of everyone, scolding him and treating him like a kid. The husband neither answered back nor showed emotion.
The third relates to a veteran teacher I worked with when I was on teaching practice in Masvingo.
He had a young wife, young enough to be his daughter, but she always breathed fire against him in public, showing all types of disrespect.
Like the headmaster’s wife, she would chase him around the school with all manner of weapons; it could be a hoe, a knife, a pot etc.
She also had the embarrassing habit of following him to the local shops to create ugly scenes for the benefit of community members, dragging him home and shouting obscenities at him including what she termed poor performance in bed due to his old age.
These were mature adults (between 40 and 60 years of age).
One can imagine what happened behind the scenes every day of their long years in marriage.
These men never complained or said bad things about their wives. They suffered in silence and no one, as far as I know, came to their rescue.
In our society today, it is generally expected and accepted as normal that men should suffer abuse at the hands of their female partners quietly “like men”.
People are quick to cry “Abuse!” if gender-based violence or abuse is perpetrated against a woman.
Men usually suffer in silence because they fear being disbelieved if they disclose the abuse; they fear being ridiculed for “being weak” and they fear social stigmatisation.
The biggest problem in today’s world is the narrative portraying gender-based violence as gender specific.
According to this popularised school of thought, only women suffer domestic violence in intimate relationships.
This skewed narrative has been promoted both materially and psychologically so hard that gender issues are now viewed by most people as women’s issues and domestic violence as violence committed by male partners against their female partners and not the other way round too!
Abuse in an intimate relationship is not gender-specific; it is an instrument used by both men and women to control and dominate the other partner.
A friend once remarked to me that “Competition for dominance is central in marriage.”
It now makes sense because the root cause of domestic abuse/violence is the need to keep power and control over the partner-victim.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline defines abuse in intimate relationships as “a pattern of behaviour used by one partner to maintain power and control over another in an intimate relationship”.
This cuts across classes and almost all relationships, only that men suffer in silence more than women.
For instance, Wesley Onsando cites the example of Ron Mattocks, a former senior army officer and senior executive who suffered contumely and disgrace at the hands of his ex wife.
Onsando in the text, Can men experience abuse in marriage? Why is it so hard to see a man as a victim of abuse? highlights how Mattocks’s ex-wife abused him for years.
The ex-wife would abuse him generally in the following ways among others.
- She would ask him when he would ever be a man.
- She would often call him a 14-year-old boy who was trying to get laid.
- She would tell him often that his parents were abusive and to cut ties with them.
- She made him endure passive-aggressive silence for hours on end.
Some of Mattocks’s huge offenses according to his ex-wife included (a) hanging pictures up too high (b) making the bed the wrong way (c) folding T shirts poorly.
Onsando consequently warns: “This means army officers, business executives, professional athletes, college professors, and many men often suffer abuse silently at the hands of their wives because to speak up would show weakness.”
Why do men endure abuse silently from their partners? There are several reasons but some of the most prominent I have summarised below.
- Male abuse is not taken seriously — usually it is perfunctorily dismissed but if it is a woman, as one writer puts it, “Call 911”.
- In a patriarchal society a man should “toughen up” and not be a “sissy”— reporting abuse shows lack of “toughness” and is regarded as “sissy” behaviour.
- Men endure abuse for fear of losing both masculine status and social status — imagine that your boss is being abused at home; wouldn’t it be best he kept that under wraps to preserve status?
- Fear of losing children and everything they worked for — remember divorce is costly and the courts are more sympathetic to women especially if young children are involved.
- Religion — false Bible teachings eg the man may feel he has to bear his cross.
- Fear of ridicule — a man is afraid of being laughed at or ridiculed, which is usually the case if the secret of being abused goes public.
- Desire to be married—many men value marriage so much that they can go to any length to preserve it including enduring abuse till they die.
- Men can disconnect from emotions and live like robots.
- Men can pursue an addictive thing to mask denial — this could be an obsession with a sport, gambling, church activities, excessive drinking, taking drugs, casual sex, etc.
While occasional physical violent cases against men by their partners make male abuse conspicuous, in most cases the forms of abuse are psychological or emotional and these are neither easily detectable nor easily recognisable although they are woven into daily interactions.
These break down a man’s self-esteem. They target the man’s core existence as a man to leave him shocked, distressed, embarrassed and confused. Some of the most devastating tactics are summarised below.
- Withholding affection (including sex) and giving the partner silent treatment.
- Dismissing any idea or almost anything the man suggests as silly by either word or deed.
- Being barred from contact with certain friends and relatives that she does not approve of — we know friends and relatives whose own relatives are never welcome at such people’s homes.
- Accusing the man falsely, especially concerning extra-marital affairs, abuse of funds etc.
- The abusive woman acts like an investigator — analysing messages in the man’s phone, probing where he was, when, and with who, doing what etc. The “investigations” may include physical checks at the man’s workplace, places of entertainment etc.
- Insulting the man in front of others and belittling him in front of others (like my former lady boss above).
- Criticising everything that the man says whether in private or in public.
- Being made to account for every cent or being made to surrender all income to her.
- Isolating the man from all likely pillars of support such as friends, work colleagues and close relatives.
- Turning children against the man too!
In our adult lives we have seen friends and/or close relatives who show signs of being abused in relationships and either we were not aware of what they were, or we ignored them. Below are some of the glaring signs of an abused man.
- They are afraid of their partners or they exhibit an exaggerated sense of wanting to please their partners.
- They may start drinking heavily, or taking other addictive intoxicants.
- They have no access to social media—we have seen men with a kambudzi phone only while their spouses have smart phones that go on social media. A relative used to come privately to me to communicate with his friends on my smart phone via Whatsapp because his wife did not allow him to own a smart phone although she owned one.
- The abused man may frequently call his partner, updating her of geo-location, current companions and activities. I had one such friend.
- Some abused men may not be allowed to go out without their partner, either the partner is there or they don’t go out in public, period.
- Another sign is when the partner subtly or openly goes along with what the female partner says; in fact they usually wait for some cue from their dominant female partner before they say anything to avoid contradicting them.
- Some abused men do not enjoy being home so they try to find excuses for not being at home; they may indulge excessively in clubbing, sporting, socialising etc
I can go on and on but the bottom line is when we tackle gender issues, we should spare a thought for the multitudes of men who suffer domestic-violence/abuse silently every day.
