Indische Männerbewegung engagiert gegen häusliche Gewalt

Die indische Männerbewegung bleibt besser als die deutsche, wenn es darum geht, die Anliegen und Probleme von Männern in den Medien zu verankern. Aktuell berichtet die Times of India vom Kampf der indischen Männerrechtler gegen häusliche Gewalt:

Boys don’t cry, especially when they grow up into men who are hit by their women. As stories of battered men come out of the closet, it’s clear that more and more women are losing control and giving in to their wild side.

Tales of rudeness, shouting and violent outbursts are more in the news. Recently, two Iranian women in Bangalore beat up a traffic cop; almost a week later, a drunk woman in Bangalore hit an auto-rickshaw driver.

Take this: Men are getting punched, boxed, kicked with pointed stilettos, and even having hot coffee thrown on their faces. As women initiate assault in an intimate relationship, men become the silent victims. Says Swaroop Sarkar, co-founder of the Battered Men helpline in Delhi, “I was a victim and on the brink of committing suicide. There were days that I wouldn’t get out of bed. I almost lost my job.” But Sarkar didn’t give up. He started a helpline in Delhi, “We get 20 troubled men who come to us for help every week in Delhi itself. They just need our gentleness,” adds Sarkar, who is a textile engineer.

The stories are stark but real. There’s Ravi in Bangalore, all of 31, who studied at IIT, Delhi, and he narrates how he was traumatised by his wife after she discovered he had one kidney. “She threw me out of my own house. Men in our country don’t cry and certainly never get beaten,” says the engineer, who works for an MNC in Bangalore.

These are educated, well-settled and independent men. Says Kiran Bedi, former police commissioner, “These cases are not any different from what causes violence in men against women. For an aggressive woman, it’s determined by the environment she grows up in. She is an equal now. In the beginning, it may be a gradual slip. Or one she feels powerless to resist.”

Hier geht es weiter.