Masculinity has developed a potentially more harmful element to this concept in previous years. It was first coined in around the 1980s, Michael Salter writes in his article for The Atlantic (Salter, 2019). There are arguments that “traditional” masculinity traits are linked to aggression, misogyny, and negative health outcomes.
In a New York Times article from 2019, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (author of We Should All Be Feminists, 2014) is quoted, saying:
“By far the worst thing we do to males — by making them feel they have to be hard — is that we leave them with very fragile egos.” (Salam, 2019).
You can clearly see through these examples and any studies of the concept of masculinity that it is a damaging thing to the male state of mind. Of course, there will also be many feminist articles and concepts that could have opposing views – much like there is a statistic to support everything, there is always an opposing argument too and opposite masculinity is femininity, which brings its own challenges and controversies.
The idea that men are supposed to come a certain way, and there is the same expectation of women in society, is dangerous and harmful. Everyone knows that no two people are the same, even identical twins will differ internally; so this 50/50 divide of men must act one way, women another is a preposterous and archaic ideal that is thankfully being slowly removed from society as we work towards equal rights and true freedom of expression.
Looking at this in terms of domestic abuse support, the concept of masculinity is damaging to the ideology of what a man is supposed to be, whilst also creating a preposition of abusers being male, further categorising men into a certain trait of aggression or misogyny. This lack of representation of men as victims who don't fall into the abusive or misogynistic category, could create a catalyst for those innocent men to feel villainised, misrepresented and unable to seek the help they could need as a victim. Just because men aren’t statistically the majority of domestic abuse victims, does not mean they should be given unequal opportunities of seeking guidance, support or safety.
The word emasculation came to mind when writing here as it may for many people.
emasculate: to make a man feel less male by taking away his power and confidence (Cambridge dictionary)
I refrained from using this word until now as there is a serious issue with the terminology here. By saying that when you emasculate a man, it takes away his power and confidence implies that a man is expected to even obtain those very qualities in the first place. This cycles back to the concept of masculinity and the ideas that society is working towards removing, that a man is not a man without power and confidence.
How is a male victim supposed to feel safe in seeking support when he could effectively read into the advice of domestic violence as emasculating, thus implying he is not a man, or lacks the appropriate traits that his identified gender should uphold?
When a man seeks advice, given the male mental health facts I will soon explore, he could be less likely to spend time seeking advice – as could any gender victim of abuse in a possible moment of strength or safety from their abuser. There should be easy access to all genders, no matter the statistics.
Men are less likely to speak up. This is a proven fact and is also fairly well-known in society given the campaigns such as the Man Up or C.A.L.M. campaigns. The Mankind Initiative which uses statistics from the Office for National Statistics (O.N.S.), proves that 1 in 6 men inform the police that they are a victim of domestic abuse, a further sign that men are less likely to come forward to professionals. Furthermore, in 2017/18, 50.8% of men told anyone, including family, friends, professionals, helplines, victim support etc. In that same year, a greater percentage of women spoke up – 81.3% told someone. Finally, 4.7% of the men involved in the O.N.S. figures used a helpline, whereas 5.9% of women contacted them. 2.5% of men told victim support, against the 10.8% of women who did. This can all be easily found online.
It is worth mentioning, for the devil’s advocates out there, that these are percentage statistics, implying that as more women are abused than men, the actual number of cases will differ, therefore meaning the split of percentages between gender doesn’t represent the same amount of people. This is true, but for most statistics the gaps aren't that big anyway when you take away the percentages. Also, no matter what way you look at it, these are lives that could be better supported – no matter the gender.
Finally, a perhaps more shocking statistic would be the following:
27,301 women between the ages of 16 and 59 experienced a form of domestic abuse between March 2016-18.
23,092 men faced it under the same factors. This shocked me given how little representation of male victims there is in the media.
No matter what way you look at it, these are thousands of lives damaged by domestic abuse and if there can be more support, there should be. Some of these male statistics could involve male abusers in homosexual relationships, some of them will be female abusers in heterosexual relationships – but it should not matter. I'm not campaigning on behalf of abusers - this is about the victims and what matters, is that they are given the support they need - no matter their gender nor what society expects of it.
For more facts/sources visit THE FACTS page and check out the free pdf document.