Africa-Press – Eswatini. The patriarchal society we will live in, given, is preconditioned to give the boy child and men preferential treatment in many respects.
The boy child, by and large, will grow up with more opportunities and is socialised and prepared to take up leadership positions and better paying professions. In many households boys are still expected to be served by their sisters or female relatives. They can get away with mistreating their sisters through beating them in little fights, however, the girl child will suffer condemnation if she dares stand up for herself and fight back or if she initiates the fight herself. She is quickly reminded of her future role as a wife and how such would be unbecoming behaviour for a wife. Only in serious cases will the man be reminded that ‘indvuku ayiwakhi umuti’.
Cries
If the boy child experiences pain and cries, at an early age he is told that a man should never be seen crying (indvodza ayikhali). No matter what pain he goes through, he is expected to brave it and contain his emotions, because that is perceived as a sign of weakness. Expressing one’s feelings is also associated with the fairer sex and a man who is wont to speak or vent is soon reminded that such is a woman’s trait. So, the boy child grows up in a society that does not allow him to show his vulnerability through the proven therapeutic way of crying, nor is he allowed to talk much, lest he be told; ‘ukhulumisa kwemfati’. Later on in life when he has a partner, this proves problematic. The relationship demands that the couple communicates. Sometimes the issues on the table are emotive and tempers flare. The woman, having been socialised to be expressive, will almost invariably be the most vocal and mostly will win the war of words. Well, that’s if speaking the loudest is to be construed as such.
Disrespected
The man may not have his way because talking and whining are not quite his forte. If he finds himself in a corner and feels disrespected, provoked or in any way insulted during that argument or misunderstanding, that may lead to him using physical force. I hasten to say that this would be a choice he makes and is not in any way an involuntary action that can simply and solely be attributed to genetics or even socialisation. However, socialisation in a patriarchal society such as ours does rob the man of outlets to vent and deal with stress or frustration. It is no secret that for this reason, many men suffer in silence and end up with diseases such as hypertension and other cardiovascular illnesses. The highest incidence of suicide, statistics have proven, happen among men. Believe it or not, by 2019, Eswatini had the third highest number of suicides in the world per 100 000 people.
We have witnessed a rise in gender-based violence these days and if the numbers are anything to go by, women and girls make up the larger number of survivors. Conversely, we have also seen an upward trend in the number of men who are being abused by women. While incidences of men who are physically abused by women through beating and being scalded with hot water are far and few between, if media reports are anything to go by, we are seeing many men suffer mental health problems due to emotional abuse from women. Now, these cases will not normally make it into our dailies, neither will they be reported to the police for prosecution.
Fine
The Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence (SODV) Act, many people many not know, criminalises emotional abuse. It is another form of domestic violence and carries a stiff fine too. Unfortunately, the courts have not heard many of such matters for us to have a clear jurisprudence in this regard. I am confident though, that if people would bring these matters to the police and have courts deal with them, there would be a huge difference and many men would come out. That is not in any way to suggest that men are not perpetrators in this regard. The SODV Act is gender blind in its nature, but there remain gaps in enforcement of the law when it comes to men.
Readers may have heard of several instances of lackadaisical action on the part of law enforcers when men report abuse and a sense of urgency when the tables are turned. If we are really going to win the fight against GBV, which has become a scourge, we need a holistic approach in dealing with it. Let us not leave the boy child and the men behind in our attempts to fix society. We need both sexes on board and not alienate others. When you speak of men abuse now, you risk being labelled misogynistic and all sorts of things. Men abuse is just as real as women abuse. Neither is worse than the other.
Source: times
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