By KKTaugamu
A few months ago, newly crowned Miss Universe 2019, Zozibini Tunzi of South Africa, in one of her interview responses made mention of the plight of the much talked about and debated issue of Gender Based Violence and Domestic Violence against women and girls in the world today. She said, in her response, that when approached for her opinion about GBV and DV against women, she always pointed out the obvious fact that she would not be in a better position to speak about it on an indepth level simply for the fact that she is a woman and would not be able to identify with a man’s perspective as to why they resort to domestic violence and that if there was anything to be said about GBV and/or DV against women, it should be the men who should be brought in to talk about it and that it should be men’s opinions that should be sought after as they were/are the perpetrators of domestic violence.
While I may concur with her in some way and that this statement may ring true on so many levels for her and her country and most other countries as well, I would rather go on a step further by reversing this statement to say that in my country Papua New Guinea, it is the women who should be brought in as well, as perpertrators of gender based violence and domestic violence, to talk about this issue head on.
For so long, men have always been seen as the perpetrators of domestic violence in most cases and that there has been very little or no sympathy and consideration at all, given to men when it comes to the issue of GBV and DV. The stereotype that only men are the abusers and women are the victims has conditioned men to think in such a way that they can never see themselves as victims too, and that they can never be able to discuss their feelings or talk about the abuse they go through in their personal lives. It has conditioned them to believe or assume that they should just deal with all the verbal, mental and physical abuse on their own . Sadly, this is what society has done to our men. The stereotype ideologies of society has labeled men to behave or act a certain type of way, to think a certain type of way, that they should maintain masculinity and show a strong front at all times.
Nevertheless, the underlying truth is that domestic violence against men has always existed in the past in PNG. Men have also been subject to violence and abuse from the womenfolk at some point in their lives. Men have also been victims of GBV and DV too but because of the so called cultural ideology of masculinity and steeped cultural views of conflict resolution in the melanesian society, it has never been a public point of interest for men to come out as victims and to seek help in the same way women do for the same issue.
It is only recently that men have slowly started picking up on the fight against domestic violence and are now determined more than ever to make this an issue of national interest. Just like the many women who have lost their lives and some who have been scarred for life as a direct result of domestic violence, men too have lost their lives, with women being the actual perpetrators resulting in these deaths and even still, some men continue to live with the trauma of experiencing abuse inflicted on them by women.
Recent reports in the media of the deaths of young men at the hands of the womenfolk, is a testament of the fact that yes, men are victims too and will continue to be so unless and until there is a complete end to domestic violence in our society. These men who lost their lives were indeed men of intellect, aspiring young men, men whose careers were only just taking off, men who were valuable assets and citizens of this country. In saying this, I do not intend to imply that the life of one sex is more important than the other or that the higher a man's status is, in society, the higher the importance and value placed on his life. Every life is valuable, every life counts. However what we can learn from all that has happened so far is that GBV and DV are not gender specific. Anyone can be a perpertrator of GBV and DV in the same way anyone else can be a victim of it.
Needless to say, men and women must stop this blame game and instead, sit down together to discusss this issue head on to identify where we have all gone wrong, not just as a gender but as a human race in general. I believe that if anyone were to take blame for GBV and DV, it should be the particular human being that should be blamed and not the gender itself. Because as I have mentioned earlier, both genders are capable of being perpertrators in the same way they can be victims as well. Unless we come to understand that and change the mindset of one human being at a time, then we can achieve one common goal which is to eradicate Gender Based Violence and Domestic Violence from within our communities, our society and our country as a whole. We can only try to change the country one human being at a time, change one human mindset at a time if we want real change to occur within the individual spaces that we occupy.
Gender Based Violence & Domestic Violence
#BlameTheHumanBeingNotTheGender
#ChangeOneHumanMindsetAtATime
#StandUpForViolenceAgainstMen
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