Two days ago I got tangled up in a conversation that I wasn’t prepared for. A friend had posted a picture on Facebook which said: “It doesn’t matter what she did! It’s never okay to hit a woman, EVER!!!”

I agreed with this statement and was ready to hit the “Like” button and probably react to it with some “Love”. That was before I read the comments below and they shifted something in me. So even though I liked the picture, I ended up getting into a debate and never really got to “like” it.

One of the comments asked: “Even if she hits you?” then the response came: “kick her ass”.

My automatic default reaction to things that I don’t agree with is either extreme anger or extreme anger. I’m a passionate person and always address things with the same passion, regardless what they are. Sometimes I would just not comment, not like and just scroll down while shaking my head. But I couldn’t this time.

I was mad at these people for saying these things. How can anyone advocate that a woman should be hit, regardless the circumstances? It made me furious that after so much fighting and campaigning, there were people who made light of the situation. As if that was not enough, another comment came in:

And women still cry about gender equality.

Now this set me off on a rampage. What do you mean “still”? How could they? Do they know what we’ve been fighting against and for, for all these years? What made it worse was that the person who had posted this was “liking” and agreeing with these comments. This is someone I believed to be liberated and understood that the freedoms for just the one are the things we fight against. But no, he was perpetuating the issue with his own comments like: “self defense has nothing to do with abuse”

I was so mad that even the stickler in me let go of the fact that he spelt “self-defence” incorrectly. But what I soon came to realise was that he was having fun, laughing it off and wanting to up one on my enraged comments. “You won’t win this,” he said. Now that saddened me.

This was not about winning for me. It was about trying to help someone else understand the damage they do when they say “It’s OK to hit a woman.” What about the other people reading this, what do they think?

But I let it go, understanding that I was angry and not getting across to either of them.

But the person wasn’t done. The following day they shared a video that clearly advocated to men raising their fists to women, with the argument that they are fighting back from these “abusive” women. The video was shocking. This was when I realised that the issue is hardly raised. So I thanked him for sharing his views and giving me much to think about.

What does a man do when a woman is hitting him? Does he walk away as the insults of him being a coward or a bitch fly behind him? Does he go lay a charge against this woman and let the law take its course? Does he join the “brotherhood” and advocate that men need a place to go to, to talk about these without judgment? What does he do?

They say it takes a bigger man to walk away from that. I agree. But then how do we address it going forward? Because it’s not all men who will be able to walk away from a beat-down, especially when they are also angry. It’s not all men who won’t listen to that friend who telling them that he needs to put her in her place; to be a man. It is not all men who can take the chance of being laughed at by their friends. It’s not all men who would even talk about it to anyone? So what do we do?

We have taught our young men (and we’re still trying to teach them and the older) that it is not OK. You do not raise your hand to a woman. But then they come and say, “well, you wanted to be equal so let’s see who’ll be the last man standing.”

Now this is true. There are some men who will fight and show a woman that he is stronger and if she wanted equality then even in a fight she must be able to raise ‘em up and bring it. I feel that we still have so much ground to cover and we have a lot of work to do. How do you change perceptions that are embodied in this kind of thinking?

I went to my Google and typed: “Organisations for abused men”. The results were shocking.

The top 3 were organisations that dealt with drug abuse, rehab centres (in New Zealand) and women organisations. Then there was Moshate. They work towards getting abused men to be taken seriously by the law and help counsel these men. Great, I thought, they are out there. But are they?

Do our brothers in Nyanga, Langa, Mfuleni, Gugs, (and these are just some of the townships in Cape Town) know how to get help when they need to?

I don’t know. So I ask you reader, how do you think we should go about this? Does a man have the right to say we must be equal and fight it out? Does he become less of a man in society if he walks away from being slapped silly by a woman? Where does he go to deal with these issues?

These are the questions I find myself asking, for the commenter and the friend who posted the picture, for my brother whose girlfriend “walks” all over him, for my sister who keeps getting pounded, for person who got beaten up, is being beaten up by another.

No one should feel they have the right to raise their hand on another. Nobody; male or female. Let’s stop the cycle of abuse and educate each other, talk about our grievances and help our nation heal.

Tell us: Do you know of organisation who can help abused men? Share them below and on our Facebook.

Written by Zimkhitha Mlanzeli

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