A Dilemma of Pakistani Men
Who’ll raise the voice for blokes
Worldwide hundreds of International Non Governmental Organisations (INGO) and not-for-profit organisations are working for the rights of women — right to education, right to access to healthcare, right to vote, right to live, right to own property and the list is so long.
Whenever any woman commits suicide due to domestic issue, human rights activists raise hue and cry and press the governments to promulgate mental health laws and policies to prevent the suicidal rate of women in the society.
However, the society utterly forgets that it’s not only women who always suffer mental health problems due to their intimate partner violence.
But, women in some cases cause men to go through mental health problems which in turn lead to depression, anxiety, suicide ideation and other mental health problems among men.
But the media portray the women as miserable creatures and men as scoundrels and public see the only one side of the coin.
No one wants to write about how domestic disputes put toll on mens’ mental health because readers are least interested in it.
So, if no one reads the article then how a writer’ll monetize his/her writing.
Nevertheless, no articles or lack of articles on mens’ mental health linked with domestic quarrels doesn’t mean that the problem doesn’t exist or the matter is not crucial.
The problem, of course is an epoch-making which needs to be highlighted and addressed.
Domestic conflicts between wife and in-laws put a man between a rock and a hard place.
In a pickle
In Pakistan and other Asian countries, wives and in-laws always lock horns against each other and try to belittle and humiliate each other. The repercussion of the domestic brawls not only shatter the peace of the home, put negative impact on children but also put men’s mental health at risk.
When exhausted men returned to home for relaxation at the evening after a job and finds the tense situation at home he finds himself standing on a border where armies from both hostile sides trying to win his support with a threat of killing in case of showing unsupportive signs or behaviour.
In such a situation, men feel themselves between the devil and deep blue sea as on one side his wife stands while on the other his mother. So, if he takes the side of his wife, mother will get angry and if he takes the side of the mother, wife gets angry. So he finds himself nowhere to go as he doesn’t want to angry both of them.
However, when the domestic quarrels get severe and the situation gets out of control men decide to leave the house of his parents and live separately with his family — wife and children — which is a major cause of breakage of joint family system in the country.
But, getting separation from the parents sometimes not resulted in the solution to the problem.
Separation from his parents and constantly facing domestic disputes develop aggression, depression, anxiety in men.
Be a man bro
Men are being mocked if they spell the beans about their mental sufferings due to domestic issues and their friends taunt them of not to controlling the wives.
Men are being advised to be a man and stop acting like a woman.
So, instead of becoming a laughing stock men prefer to suffer in silence.
Although, it is said that silence is gold but sometimes the silence causes tornado.
Men store up the mental pressure in themselves but at the end of the day blow up like a pressure cooker and cause damage to himself and his surroundings.
Drip-drip effects
Abusive and ill-tempered wives play a crucial role is spoiling the environment of the home and agitating the husbands to perpetrate the crime.
A crime of domestic violence, a sin of uxoricide, an heinous act of killing his own children.
In a fit of rage, men sometimes murder their wives and spend rest of the life behind the bars or oft-times commit suicides over domestic disputes.
World Health Organisation (WHO) that 19,331 suicidal deaths were reported in Pakistan in 2019 of which 14,771 were male and 4560 were females.
So, domestic disputes are not only killing women but also men annually in Pakistan.
Lives of the men are as precious as the lives of women and its the need of the hour that the problem needs to be resolved.
