The head of the local bar association appeared on a talk-programme last night and encouraged men who are being abused or stalked by their (ex-)partners to seek recourse before the courts under domestic violence law. He says that men don’t explore this alternative because they are ignorant of the fact that the Domestic Violence (Protection Orders) Act offers protection to men as well as women. I’m not arguing with the truth of that statement, but I think that the more significant contributing factor is the other point that he raised: most Bajan men, deeply entrenched in their machismo, would be ashamed to go before the courts and confess that they are being beaten, abused or harassed by a woman, for fear that they become targets of public derision.* “Looka he, he’s the man that went to the police and complain dat de woman did ‘busing he, and he need protection. Wuh, he’s a bare mock-man. He ain’t no man at all, he could only be a mouse!”
The news report on the barrister’s comments was immediately followed by some “humorous” banter between two (male) radio personalities, in which they made a mockery of the notion of a man seeking protection under the law from an abusive woman, caricaturing such men as cowards and weaklings beaten into submission by their 300-pound Amazon wives or girlfriends, and laughing about the embarrassment a man would experience if his application for a protection order were to be publicised in the local media. They qualified their jesting by remarking that “But of course, this is no joke, physical abuse is nothing to laugh at,” all the while guffawing away as if they’d never heard anything funnier in their lives.
Physical abuse is nothing to laugh at. Domestic violence is nothing to laugh at. All people in Barbados, women, men and children, are afforded protection from domestic violence under the laws of the land. All people in Barbados should feel free to seek protection under the laws of the land without having to face ridicule for taking steps to ensure their personal safety and well-being. That’s the way it should be. When will that be the way it is?
think its not just a bajan or west indian thing. I just think its a man thing. Even if he isnt publicly derided for doing so a guy having to resort to going to the police to protect himself from a woman probably will feel like less of a man just because of how men are preceived in society. its wrong but its true
jdid · November 27, 2006