Gender Equality

 

We don’t realize that harassment can happen to anyone despite age, gender identity, religion, and attitude. The attention on harassment towards men is not as much attention shown towards women.

 

Whenever we talk about sexual assault, the only thought that comes to our mind is that it only happens to a woman. But in today’s era, we should not forget the fact that sexual assault can happen to other genders too. When we compare the amount of information available on the internet, we will find that most of the information on this topic is related to sexual assault of women. This is because it is difficult to gather information on the experiences of men who have faced sexual assault at some point in their lives. There could only be one possible reason for this lack of information and that is that the world has still not accepted that something like this can happen to men too and so, men don’t come out and speak up against such things due to the fear of facing societal backlash.

 

Recently men's rights activists scored a significant victory in India when the Supreme Court essentially identified them as the victims in domestic violence cases. The judges weren't making the law gender-neutral, however. They stated that Indian women were filing inaccurate claims of domestic violence.

If using the rights given by the Indian constitution for threatening somebody and still being safe is a women's right, then the woman doesn’t deserve these laws? Women's rights are given for protection, and these days, women are using it as a shield to make the victim sound like their culprit.

 

This assumed belief leads to disappointments that courts are places where innocents get harassed, so the only way to get justice is to harass the opponents. That harassment will force them to come to the bargaining table and close the cases.

 

The only way to stop false cases is to work towards rigorous prosecution of all false claims and false pieces of evidence, including the wrong investigation by police.

 

The time has come to recognize their problem as a social and public health issue and develop appropriate strategies and interventions. They are no longer more assertive than women. They need help in crisis and family violence: Particularly violence by a spouse is a crisis. Male victims of violence can be saved/helped through appropriate intervention such as recognizing violence against men by women as a public health issue, helpline for the male victims of violence, education, awareness, and legal safeguards.

 

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