Women unleash Domestic Violence – Times of India

http://bit.ly/bvRRTE

Dear Madam,

I was pleasantly surprised to read an article from you on MEN’s issues in an otherwise FEMINIST Times of India.

Congratulations to you for writing this article and convincing TOI to actually publish this piece!!

Domestic Violence is not a gender issue.

And, as carried out in your article as well, no matter how good a leader or achiever a man is in the outside world, within his own house he can be a subject to domestic violence perpetrated by his female partner. And while lot of feminists and their sympathizers are quick to stand up in support of the women facing DV, there is no such support available to MEN. And this is just because some false notions among govt/society/media that MEN are strong and can never be at the receiving end of DV.

This false notion can be corroborated by the fact that there is ministry for Women and Child Development, National Commission for Women, even ministry for animals. But there is no ministry or commission for MEN.

Even society does not encourage men to come out with their problems openly and blindly assumes that only women can be victims.

Moreover, the laws have been made gender-biased, where only women can file cases and rules have been made to favor women when deciding such cases.

This is the reason why the reported cases of abuse faced by men are less in number while the actual number is much bigger.

Not only this, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, is an example of a gender-biased and poorly drafted law which mostly aids in mis-carriage of justice by allowing false complaints. There is no provision to punish women who misuse this act by filing false complaints.

There is an urgent need to make laws as gender-neutral and also to start a systematic study to identify and quantify the issues faced by men.

Media should play a role by highlighting issues faced by men as well as regularly as it does for issues faced by women.

Regards,

Abhishek