“A man goes public about facing domestic violence, abuse, or harassment against a woman, that time not only is his masculinity questioned, but he is also humiliated for not being able to stand up to a woman.”- The Quint.

Misandry is a word that I learned during my first year in college, and I know most of you are still unaware of this term. Misandry means hatred or prejudice against a man. Sounds weird right? Since childhood, we have been taught that women are oppressed by men in society. Moreover, we also find thousands of articles on social media and newspapers about the accusations on men raping women, domestic violence, hate speeches, etc. but have you thought about their sufferings? Probably No.

According to a survey conducted in Haryana by the Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 52.4% of the population has agreed to face gender-based domestic violence from which 98% were male. A recent case came into a highlight this year on 28th January when a woman tried to throw acid on her lover for betraying her. There are many crime articles on the internet that focus on women doing violence against men.
The crime rates against men have seen seamlessly increasing from the past couple of years. It has been seen that women are misusing their power to dominate them, from which one of their primary weapons is dowry. India has witnessed an increase in the number of dowry and bride harassment cases in news channels with a headline such as ‘crime alert’. The howl is made strident enough to drown any sane voice. There are more than 40 laws made for the protection of women, for example the IPC Section 498A was created in 1983 made to protect women against domestic violence has also been misused by some to extort money.

On 19th November 2019, The Quint released a video on their Youtube channel where they took interviews of 4 victims of domestic violence. The men in the video said that they all are framed for domestic violence. Whenever a woman files a complaint about rape against a man, the news goes viral on social media and other news channels for weeks, but when the claim turns out false then no one talks about it.

The misandry in India can be judged by the number of suicide and crime rate against men. According to the National Crime Record Bureau, a total of 62,443 married men committed suicide in 2011 and the numbers are increasing in each passing year. And it’s also seen that 92% of the crimes against men don’t get proper attention as compared to women.
The ignorance of men’s sufferings finds its roots from our ancient Indian mythology Mahabharata. Shantanu, the Kuru king of Hastinapur of epic Mahabharata married Satyavati with a condition that he could never ask questions on her actions and decisions. Satyavati kept killing her 7 newborns one after another and finally when he questioned her on the attempt to kill her 8th child. She left him alone as a punishment for breaking the promise. Even though Mahabharata justifies her action of killing her newborns but it never bothers to empathize with Shantanu.

The hatred didn’t stop here, man-hating has become a trend now. Hashtags like #allmenaretrash #menshoulddie #allmenaredogs trends on social media platforms. Surprisingly videos of popular youtube channels such as Buzzfeed India, iDiva, Old Delhi Films, etc. promote man-hating in their skits. I was shocked when I saw a video of Debiparna Chakraborty, one of the anchors of iDiva made a statement saying “I don’t think I am ever gonna give you a grandson, I’ll have a daughter and I know this and if I do have a son, then I’ll parcel it to you”. Just imagine if a guy would have said the same thing, the whole social media would have ripped him off in every possible way.
There are umpteen numbers of videos on the internet that promote man-hating, and today’s generation is getting inspired by such videos especially girls. Yes, I know that women suffer way more than men by domestic violence and internet trolling but that doesn’t give them the right to take revenge but falsely accusing them.