A lot has been said about why men don't ask for help and why they don't talk about their problems. A lot more will be said about it. Its all totally useless. Let me tell you why.
In my life I have been beaten up three times in broad daylight. It happened every time when I went and came from school. The streets that I knew and had taken a thousand times before had become the backdrop of violence against me.
Well what did you do to them to get beaten up?
That is the question that I must defend myself against every time I talk about the violence I had suffered. Because I am a man people assume that I must have done something to provoke the attacks.
Every single time I have gone to the police, the perpetrators where identified and taken to the police department for interrogation. Afterwards I was called back to the police department. The police told me three times there was no reason for the attacks.
They were unprovoked, at random. Arbitrarily, I was selected to get beaten up.
When I say this to people, they can't believe I didn't do anything to provoke the attacks. They don't believe gangs are patrolling the streets looking to beat up school boys.
A man must not only defend himself during the attack, he must also defend himself after the attack. People assume male victims always provoke violence against them.
This is the reason why I almost never speak of it. Because I can't bear the prejudice people have. This has nothing to do with toxic masculinity. Its simply common prejudice.
If there is one thing that I learned from these attacks is that even when you are the victim of violence, because you are a man people will treat you like scum. Even the female police officer in the police department treated me as such when I told her I was there to file a complaint for having suffered violence.
I would like to close this mytake with two statements.
1. When people talk about violence done against men, nobody lets the victims speak.
2. What does this teach boys and men? it teaches them that nothing but might makes makes right.
Most Helpful Opinions