Domestic Violence: Men, the real Victims?

Domestic Violence in T&T:

A Man’s Viewpoint

Ravi, not his real name, is currently serving time for attempted murder. Some six months after his conviction, his wife, now two months pregnant, returned to their marital home with the couple’s young daughter after spending time with relatives.

Six years later, following her no-fault, triumphant divorce, she quickly married her five-year-old child’s father, and together with her teenage daughter, stealthily moved out of the ‘inhospitable’ neighbourhood.

Since his heavily publicised arrest, both the media and the public had condemned Ravi to hell and cloaked his female victim in a tender blanket of empathy. Indignant cries of ‘unmitigated male abuse’ sounded voluminously in the print and electronic media.

Photos of candlelight vigils for female victims and potential victims of ‘this increasing male thuggery’ went viral.

Modern society had long decreed: there exists no excuse, absolutely none, for a man to abuse a woman, physically or emotionally. Men are required to put their tail between their legs and simply walk away.

In Ravi’s neighbourhood, away from the judgmental ear of mainstream society, neighbours and family huddled together and in low, sotto voices regaled the other side of the story.

It was less than a year since the wife, Marilyn, moved to the neighbourhood with her mother and six siblings, ranging in ages two to eighteen and of varying ethnicities.

The marriage was announced the day after Marilyn’s stout and ferocious mother had bombarded Ravi’s family home, accusing him of abandoning her pregnant daughter. A nineteen-year-old Ravi swore to all gods that it wasn’t his. After questioning both of them separately, Ravi’s docile father gave in. He didn’t want trouble. His religious mother comforted herself with the notion that the child could possibly be his, though Marilyn’s stomach was unusually large for a six-week expectant mother.

The newlyweds lived with Ravi’s family for roughly two years until they moved to an unfinished house next door, which Ravi struggled to build with his meagre labourer’s income, his father’s crops, and his mother’s seamstress work.

When their firstborn daughter was no more than six months old, Ravi had observed a change in his wife. Aside from depending on Ravi’s mother to cook and babysit their child, she would spend the better part of the day at her mother’s home. She later complained of pain due to breastfeeding and bullied Ravi into buying a bottle.

Months later, Ravi sought comfort in the nearby rumshop. The disputes with his mother and father over his indifference to his wife’s neglectful behaviour worsened. His rumshop cronies prodded him into bloody fights with taunts like ‘mousy man’ and ‘panty-wearing father’. To cut to the chase, he gradually morphed into one of society’s invisible victims of abuse. The Trini male. When he returned home from the rumshop, she would roll him off the bed, pelt objects at him, push him to the floor…The next morning, he would find the money in his pocket gone.

Except for his drinking buddies, villagers assumed the ‘buss head’ and the black-and-blue marks were from barroom fights. He hung his head to the demasculating taunts: ‘Boy, what kinda man you is?’ Boy, I shame for you. You shaming man’. ‘ Doh mind she bigger than you, you name man. Show she who is the man.’ ‘ Yuh sure de chile is…’

He reluctantly submitted to his father’s pleas to go to the police, ‘just in case…’ In a drunken stupor, it slipped out. ‘Yuh mad or stupid?’ ‘Police would laugh at yuh.’ ‘Boy hit she some kick and show she who is boss,’ his partners rebuffed.

Two days later, while on a jobsite, he was confronted by police officers. They handcuffed him and threw him behind bars. Hours later, the cell door opened, and he was forced to sign a statement. His wife and mother-in-law reported multiple incidents of wife abuse and death threats. To secure his release, he had to agree to counselling.

Following a few police visits to their marital home and stern warnings, Marilyn spent a little more time at home. ‘A planned strategy,’ his father suspected. They hardly spoke, and he silently tolerated her insolence, seeking solace in the rumshop.

He was the last to learn that a married man from a neighbouring town had been seen visiting her at her mother’s house. He was aware that his buddies’ silence was a humiliatingly patronising gesture to steer him away from trouble.

With bottled up shame and anger, he would stagger home and clamber into bed.

No one, not even his parents, knew what really happened that Friday night. The police kicked the door down and arrested him for attempted murder.

When he came into the station, he was told that he had beaten his wife with a chair, which was found in broken pieces on her bed. They produced a knife with his fingerprints, claiming he had stabbed her in the body. The first time he saw her after his incarceration was in court.

The above account is based on a true story.

Interpretation:

Quite recently, men were the intended target of a dog whistle alarm sounded by the collective voice of society. The message was in no way cryptic or vague. At least not to men.

Domestic violence is a singular action: it’s all about men unleashing their menacing venom of male insecurity and cowardice on vulnerable women, whom they are supposed to protect.

It didn’t end there. A group of intellectuals announced a grand plan. A panecea to “strengthen men”. Men are guilty by default, and any female victim audacious enough to kill her male abuser is, in the eyes of civil society, a heroine whose bravery is deserving of a national award.

For a level-headed person to find any comfort in such an absurdity, he/she has to first believe in the green genie.

Of course, there are brainless men who unprovokedly unleash their insecurities on innocent women. But that is hardly the case in every incident of domestic violence.

If we, as a society, are serious about confronting this ‘escalating scourge’, we first need to clearly define the responsibilities of both the man and the woman. Certainly, women have a scripted (female) role to play.

But the chances of curing this ‘mental disorder’ are unlikely. To achieve a breakthrough, we must cast aside perverse notions to separate the fairytale from reality. As such, society has to first redefine its existing schema on the root cause of domestic violence.

We talk about the modern woman, who has morphed into man’s equal in every regard. The problem with this fantasy lies in its superficiality. It’s nothing more than a societal evolution, which is far removed from a biological transformation. If one were to compare men of past generations with modern men, I’m certain that men would not have undergone any significant biological changes. Not unlike other male species, man was made to provide, protect and lead. If we strip our men of their instinctive role to lead, are we not demotivating their inclination to protect? Can one instinct survive without the other?

If there is credence in the equality theory that women have evolved into men’s equal, then what of men? The logical, or rather illogical, conclusion is: Man has evolved into a robotic scapegoat stripped of all human emotions and feelings. His role is arbitrary. Whatever conveniently stokes the ego of the ‘modern’ woman at a particular time. Even the traditional wedding vows have been altered to satisfy the liberated woman. No more are women required to repeat that obscene word obey.

It gets even more complex. Biologically, men and women differ in certain ways. Though the brains of men and women are wired to detect the same taste cues, when it comes to sexual cues, things are different. Men are more aroused by visual cues; women are more aroused by psychological cues. In other words, the sight of a woman’s breast or derriere triggers an immediate sexual urge in men. The sight of a naked man does not have an immediate effect on women’s desire. The female brain is more complex, as it requires psychological stimulation as well. In other words, regarding sexual stimuli, the biological evolution process has rendered women’s sexual brains more sophisticated, while men’s brains are trapped in a primitive mode.

This begs another question. Since the sexual brain of women requires more than a mere visual cue and the sight of a woman’s breast and shapely derriere triggers an immediate sexual desire in men, do men have to struggle all alone to quell their primitive desire, or do women have a part to play? In other words, should women present themselves in public scantily dressed, leaving nothing to the imagination or should women help men to control their desire by covering up?

Modern society holds the view that all men were brought up in a ‘dignified’ manner and can easily control their overpowering desires. In other words, our colloquial culture is only endearingly unique in cultural settings. In the societal context, are ‘colloquial’ men not responding to an open invitation to react to immorally dressed females? Just asking.

Abstract notions such as ‘strengthening men’ are nothing more than academic misnomers. What is needed is a realistic understanding of the dichotomy between men’s and women’s biological structure.

Why has society failed to set behavioural standards for women? If society is serious at all about quelling domestic violence, then the role of the woman must be clearly defined and assessed.

The answer cannot be found in reconciling a superficial notion of societal evolution (which has rendered women equal to men) with the true biological nature of men and women. One is fiction; the other is human nature.

Not unlike other species, men and women have unique and inherently specific roles to play.

If society continues to go against nature and hold steady to the equality theory, then accept the fact that women have evolved into men’s equal and men have been reduced to emotionless robots to be used as societal scapegoats when relationships sour.

To put it bluntly, when women rise a notch on the social ladder, men are pushed one notch down.

The opening story, based on a real case, is included for one reason: to illustrate the point. To reveal nuances and outliers. Oddly, the answers to effectively addressing domestic violence lie not in the story’s core, but inside its deep shadows.

We make rash judgments about strangers and situations we know nothing about based on part of a story.

Only the truth will set us on a clear path to recovery.

RPJ

Interim Editor

Bucked-Up Men’s Zine