Nigeria Content Online

It is hardly a new
thing to hear of men who assault their wives. After years of advocacy
and encouraging women who have been domestically abused to speak out,
their plight is hardly unknown to the world. But an interesting
phenomenon is emerging. The tables appear to be getting turned. We are
now hearing more about women who beat up their husbands.

We seem to be
oblivious to this fact because the shame and ego-bashing attached to
the idea of a wife (woman) beating her husband (man) will not allow or
encourage some men to report such abuse. The notion that men are
victims of domestic violence can be unimaginable to the extent that
some men would rather not report.

The impact of
domestic abuse is less apparent when it is men who are at the receiving
end than women. For instance, when a married man is seen with bruises
or burns or any sort of injury, it is always assumed that he got it in
a bar fight or domestic accident. No one ever thinks his wife might
have given him that black eye as is the case of women with bruises.

There was a report
on 234next.com website about a 75-year-old man, Fatai Bakare, who
appealed to an Ikeja High Court to save his life from his wife. He
wanted his 18-year-old marriage dissolved on grounds of domestic
violence and “wickedness”.

Mr. Bakare alleged
that his 55-year-old wife was very violent and would beat him up at the
slightest excuse. He said he was scared for his life since he was an
old man.

When one reads or
listens to stories like that, the image of a giant woman pounding a
small man comes to mind. “Just how huge must this woman be to
successfully beat up her husband?” many of us would wonder.

On March 1, 1999,
The Oprah Winfrey Show aired a show on wives who beat their husbands.
On that episode, it was ascertained that while men beat their wives to
shut them up, women beat their husbands to make them listen. Some
abused men who spoke at the show said the reason they did not speak up
was because they felt they were supposed to take it like a man. So like
women who have been physically abused by their husbands, they usually
cover up for their wives when people ask them about a bruise or injury.

Gone are the days
when women were referred to as the weaker sex. Most women now want to
take up the mantle of leadership in every sphere of their lives,
including their homes. Some do that in the most derogatory ways as they
abuse their husbands both physically and verbally. In a way, what women
do not consider domestic abuse almost always comes across to their
husbands as abuse.

Domestic violence
to both men and women involves physical acts like beating, shoving,
hitting, kicking but domestic violence can also be emotional or mental.
Unkind and cruel words hurt and linger longer in different ways for
different people. According to an expert, men hurt more from emotional
abuse than physical abuse.

Many women no
longer find sitting at home to bear children and tending the home
comfortable. Most have taken charge to the sad point of flexing muscles
with their husbands. They have forcefully pulled the pants from their
husband’s waists, replaced them with wrappers and amended the pants to
their own size.

Where women lack
physical strength, they make up with verbal power. Sometimes, you are
left aghast at the words some women use on their husbands.

How much more
abused do you expect a man whose wife calls a coward, impotent or lazy,
to be? Domestic violence in any form is bad and even more cringe-worthy
is the fact that more women seem to resolve to the act.

It is an evil that
needs to be flushed out because it ends up having an adverse effect on
the seeds of a marriage. The children grow up believing that a normal
home is one defined by a feisty and fire-spitting mother.

There is a dire need for domestic violence to be discouraged,
regardless of who is giving or receiving it, in order to breed saner
generations of men and women.