Express News Service. 19 Apr 2010

CHENNAI: This is a stag party with a difference. Men, who accuse their girl friends, wives and fiancees of duping them or foisting cases against them, have come together in Tamil Nadu to put up a collective fight.

According to the general secretary of Association for Protection of Men, Madhu Sudhanan, more than 1000 members are aged below 25 years and 4000 members are below 40.

At a meeting on Sunday, attended by over 50 men, there was a talk about rights and laws favouring women. But the association is not to protect men from the the misuse of the Domestic Violence Act and Dowry Harassment Act alone but also youngsters falsely accused of eve teasing.

As one man said: “I was dragged by the police and beaten up in the station. If a girl has a personal enmity, she takes it out by falsely accusing men of eve-teasing. And there is no verification done by the police when it comes to women, they just accept what she says as the sacred truth.” Another member of the association said that he was right now on the streets after he registered his family property in the name of his lover, who conveniently duped him after that.

Madhu Sudanan said that many young men were being cheated by girl friends – they emotionally ditch the man, by marrying men of their parents’ choice. But such cheating was never taken as a crime, he said. Most of the association members had been harassed by women – wives, girlfriends, fiancées – or duped.

But the system is biased towards women, Madhu Sudanan said, and added there are 84 laws for the protection of women’s rights, but none for men.

“Gone are the days when women were exploited. Now, many women misuse the laws meant for their protection. Many young men have been trapped by the laws.

Many youth ditched by girl friends are unnecessarily harassed by police following false complaints, another association member in his mid-30s, said.

Topics: Association for Protection of Men

Comments:

Replace the word in Domestic violence act the men/women to person and husband/wife to spouse, let the punishment equal for all who do the domestic violence, will women organisations will agree, if they think they do not do the domestic violence against men?

By Swarup
4/19/2010 9:45:00 AM

… that’s what men’s organisations in the city are now looking to conduct

~ MANIGANDAN K R. Times News Network

Seeking to counter certain “exaggerated” claims made by some women’s organisations and in a bid to draw the attention of the government to the plight of men victimised by lop-sided laws drafted on the basis of such claims, men’s organisations in the city have now embarked upon the task of conducting a massive domestic violence survey.

The results of the nationwide survey, widely believed to be the first of its kind for men in the country, will be used to find out if whether Indian men too are victims of domestic violence, the percentage of Indian men subjected to such violence and the kind of violence they are subjected to.

The need for the survey has been triggered, it seems, by the controversial Domestic Violence Act – 2005, which seems to have been drafted on the assumption that only women suffer domestic violence.

Says Suresh Ram, member of the All India Men’s Welfare Association (AIMWA), an NGO working for the rights of men and boys, “Certain women’s organisations have been stereotyping the issue of domestic violence. They have presented a picture that conveys the impression that only women are victims of domestic violence while we have with us global surveys and over 250 scholarly studies that show that women are at least as likely as men to engage in partner aggression and that partner violence is often mutual. This fact is established if one goes through the Domestic Violence Study conducted by a well-known global organisation that has done the survey in over 32 countries including India. However, the Domestic Violence Act in India offers protection to only women and not men.”

He further adds, “So, to set things right, we men’s organisations have joined hands to ensure that a credible and transparent survey on the issue is done. Eight men’s organisations are involved in this effort which is being led by the AIMWA. We have begun negotiations with survey agencies to conduct the survey in certain cities of the country including Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad. We intend to publish the results on Nov 19, the International Men’s Day.”

So, what do they intend to achieve by conducting such a survey? Says Suresh, “We intend to create an awareness in society about the problems faced by men. We wish to present to them the real situation in society. We will also seek to draw the government’s attention to issues concerning men and reiterate our demand for setting up a National Commission for Men and a Men’s Welfare Ministry.”

Men in the city are delighted with the move by the men’s organisations. Welcoming such a survey, Shankar, a graphics designer, says, “I certainly welcome the move. It is high time that facts were presented on this issue.”

Women too seem to be for such a survey. Says Dakshayini Sampath, a media professional, “While I think that more number of women suffer domestic violence, it’s also possible that men are victims. I think the law should hold good for both genders and if this survey is going to help bring about a uniform law, then I’m all for it.”

News courtesy: Chennai Times.

Selective sex abortions and male-preference has been viciously twisted by feminists to unleash male-hatred and piggyback their sinister agenda onto it. As a result boys and men have to live a life without “FREEDOM of CHOICES” and they are forced to don the role of a PROTECTOR and a PROVIDER popularly known as the FREE ATM MACHINE and the UNPAID BODYGUARD.

At the same time, the most risky, menial and dangerous jobs are heaped on to men and the burden of responsibilities of maintaining the family – parents, siblings, wife, children, in-laws, etc. has also been thrust onto men leading to ever increasing and skyrocketing expectations from them and nose-diving acceptance levels for their shortcomings and weaknesses.

And it is because of this skewed balance of responsibilities between men and women, that the society prefers male children over female children. After all, everyone wants someone to take care of in the dusky days and why to have an offspring that cannot be imposed upon with responsibilities. It is not because of some over-flowing extra love for men that male children are preferred.

The situation can be very well explained in terms of economics. Because of preference and because of natural birth ratio of 950 females for every 1000 males, there is an over-supply of men and under-supply of women. As a result, obviously, women have become the prized asset enjoying aggravated levels of protection, pampering and concessions whilst men have become the surplus asset presumed to require no protection and something that can be disposed off with. This phenomenon, which is worldwide and irrelevant of culture or country, has led to the establishment of the Male Disposability as defined below,

Male Disposability is a psychological behavioral and attitudinal syndrome that considers Men as “Disposable and Expendable” and invests very low emotional resources with males which ultimately leads to an environment insensitive to the problems of the male world or one that automatically eliminates weak men (or men finished off with their utility) viewing them as liability,

An explanation of the above definition with statistics is also available at Male Disposability – Myth or Reality.

From a pure economical point of view, the dynamics between returns and risks is a direct function of the investments. Higher the investment, higher the returns and higher the risks involved as well. Big Corporate Houses have a lot of corpus fund to put into business, commerce and trade and as a result they make a lot of money as well but at the same time they do carry heavy risks and the needed potential to absorb huge losses as well.

Similarly since the society invests heavily in women (in terms of social, legal, emotional, economic and academic resources), the returns as well as the risks are extremely high. The returns are available in form of a very balanced and strong emotional health of women that gives many a positive results and the risks are in the form of extra precautions and laws needed for them and the negative results of strong emotional health of women and enhanced expression abilities.

Similarly, for men, as the investment is low (actually very close to zero), both the returns and risks are low. The low returns are manifested in the form of lack of expression from men, reduced capability of emotional confrontation, deformed and mutilated psycho-emotional health and low risks are obviously visible in the various instances of “Male Disposability” and expectation of high risk appetite from men.

However, society is facing a lot of problems. And each problem seems to stem from a string of such problems and also leads to multiple such strings and the whole situation looks like an entangled mesh of problems where each thread is stuck. And if things continue in this way, then it won’t be longer before societal structures crumble and societal power equations dissolve for all time to come with little or no scope of repair.

But as the old adage goes, “World lives on hope”, so is the case here. Still the choice lies with the society to “LIBERATE MEN from RESPONSIBILITIES”, increase its investment in men – socially, legally, emotionally, economically, and academically – and in turn get high returns.

However, one may argue that when things are running, what is the need to take higher risks? It is pertinent to mention here that things are definitely running, but where are they heading to? Are we to wait seeing things run to end? Or take a stand now and alter the future forever, because, nothing in life comes for free. THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH AVAILABLE. Everything comes associated with a price tag and many a times the price can be way costlier and precious than money or financial price; a loss that may not be recoverable at all if we do not prevent it now by LIBERATING MEN FROM RESPONSIBILITIES.

How will it help?

Liberating men from responsibilities and dissolving the freedom of choice of responsibilities across both the genders has many advantages.

First and foremost, it will provide men with the much needed space and time that they need for them to do something in life that interests them rather than just donning the humdrum role of a PROTECTING and PROVIDING male. This role often requires men to enter into a rat race and makes the male world extremely competitive, insensitive and violent and in such a case the possibility of the violence and aggression spilling over to other areas of life cannot be ruled out.

In other words, liberating men from responsibilities and giving them the freedom of choice will actually reduce the violent behavior of men to a large extent as opposed to the current style of punishing men. It is but obvious that the methodology is not working because rather than improving the lives of men and the society in general, it is reducing the quality of life. This is clearly evident from the enormously high stress levels in the life of men corroborated by an extremely high and exponentially growing suicide rate of men, reduced life expectancy and mostly men becoming victims of diseases like cardiac arrest, high blood pressure, diabetes – all of which are the direct consequence of abnormally high stress levels.

Lack of expressional capabilities, is a serious and known problem with men; a problem with which even the most renowned psychological counselors are grappling but unable to solve. Liberating men from responsibilities will give men the emotional space needed to develop expressional capabilities as they will move closer to their experiential domain. This will improve the life-quality of men in general and society at large. And this is something that needs to be implemented with our current generation of boys for they are the MEN of the FUTURE.

Liberating men from responsibilities will also mean giving an equal opportunity to women to take upon the same. This will be true empowerment of women as opposed to current and proposed ones which specifically target at punishing men – and it has already been shown above that it is not working.

Entrusting someone with responsibility is a true recognition of capabilities and an undisputed sign of empowerment. This will also lead to increased preference of female children and will solve the problem of gender ratio as well.

Hence, as we see, with a slight change in our attitudes and social perceptions of gender, we can solve some of the most difficult problems the current society is plagued with as opposed to the current way of formulating a new law for every social problem faced.

So do we agree to LIBERATE MEN FROM RESPONSIBILITIES?

Male Disposability is a psychological behavioral and attitudinal syndrome that considers Men as “Disposable and Expendable” and invests very low emotional resources with males which ultimately leads to an environment insensitive to the problems of the male world or one that automatically eliminates weak men (or men finished off with their utility) viewing them as liability.

Since time immemorial, be it the life-endangering activity of hunting or saving the country-land or guarding the parameters of geographical boundary or maintaining law and order situation in the society – the latter two correlate to hunting human life – this role has always been attributed to men who have donned the same willingly boosted by their testosterone and chivalry. In a nutshell men have been hunters primarily and that is a defunct role in today’s era of pacification and intellectual progress.

However, the traits of history are hard to remove and the hunter’s traits have continued into today’s men as well who are actually a misfit in the society with their hunting background and their genetic and evolutionary affiliation to a hunting tribe. No wonders problems of men have skyrocketed and courtesy the Male Disposability Syndrome, no one is bothered about it.

Before talking more on Male Disposability, I would talk a bit on its genesis, taking cue from the article, Paradigm Shift in Male Identity: Freedom from Being a Hunter. During the hunting days, when men used to go on long hunting expeditions, any hunter talking of a minor leg pain or a slight backache was detrimental to the morale of the hunters and was silenced, trivializing his pain.

Even today the society has been pretty much the same for men. Earlier it was hunting, in today’s world its taking huge risks – financial, intellectual, emotional, physical, political – to name a few, that men are expected of and in such a situation, talking of small problems like an emotional turmoil in a relationship or facing lack of freedom of choices will bring down the morale of other risk-taking hunters and thus men are discouraged from expressing their pain.

This leads to a lot of psycho-emotional suffocation within men which has a direct bearing on their lifestyle, life-expectancy, health and suicide rate as visible from the following data collected from various sources of the Government.

Interestingly, in this so called MALE DOMINATED WORLD, the DOMINATED MALES never get a voice as corroborated by the following figures.

Life Expectancy Data:

Plotted as a Graph looks something like,

The data about suicides is also not very welcoming but a true and sad reality to which currently the society is insensitive and cold.

Plotted as a Graph, looks something like

The above data clearly points to the stress in men’s lives due to which they not only commit suicide in large numbers (approaching double that of women) but who survive the turmoil, live shorter. That being the reality, there is also another grim reality and that is

NO SOCIAL / LEGAL / PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT STRUCTURE AVAILABLE FOR MEN.

Quintessentially the problems of the male world are oblivious to the society and as long as men are discharging their duties no one really needs to bother about them and can readily dispose them off, after all even Mother Nature produces them in abundance; what with the normal gender birth ratio being 950 females : 1000 males.

Choice is left with readers to decide whether Male Disposability is a Myth or a Reality?

If Gillette chooses to term all Indians who grow beards as “lazy”, then their campaign denigrates the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh who sports beard as per the custom of his religion, the Sikhism, as “lazy”. Is it not an affront to the honour of the whole nation?

Gillette owes a public apology for denigrating the high office of the Prime Minister of India.

Here is an excerpt from the report of DNA:

“In the Gillette campaign, men who do not shave or those who wear stubble are shown to be lazy, so their women have every right to detest and demean them,” said Mumbai-based PR Gokul of the All India Men’s Welfare Association (AIMWA). “Gillette also tags this campaign as women on the warpath. We feel it portrays men negatively and tries to curb their choices” said Mumbai-based PR Gokul of the All India Men’s Welfare Association.
Proctor and Gamble (P&G) claimed that the campaign was based on research findings. “Serving men since 1895, their well-being is at the heart of every decision that Gillette takes. In that spirit we respect all ideologies, communities and opinions that men have. WALS is a creative expression of research findings by AC Nielsen which state that a majority of women prefer their with a men clean shaven look. Our campaign is not an imposition of such views on men who feel differently or wish to grow facial hair out of choice. Our endeavour is to provide superior quality shaving products to men who wish to shave,” said P&G spokesperson.

“By calling men with stubble lazy, P&G have made a communal statement,” said Myth Kumar from Bangalore. Terming the campaign in bad taste, the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid said, “Sikhs and Muslims wear beards due to religious reasons. But their wives do not complain. Companies should be careful of religious sentiments before running campaigns,” said Bukhari.