A video was posted by MoeAndET on YouTube in 2014 that went viral and caused quite a bit of a stir. It was a social experiment dealing with public domestic violence. When the male actor was publicly abusing the female actress, many male bystanders stepped in to stop the abuse; some even got into physical fights with the actor in order to protect the actress’s honor. However, when the roles were reversed, not one bystander stepped in to help the actor. He was being actively abused, even as far as having his head banged against the windows of stores and being thrown to the ground and kicked, yet no one came to his aid. In fact, some onlookers even laughed. Why is it wrong for a man to hit a woman, but perfectly fine for a woman to hit a man?
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Society has a specific stereotype for men to follow: extreme masculinity, showing little to no emotion, and aggressiveness. Women also have stereotypes perpetuated by society such as being weak and fragile, having no control over emotions, and only being around for show and not actually contributing to conversation. The media has a huge part to play in the stereotypes that are formed. In fairytales, for instance, there was always a damsel in distress with a prince charming to save her. The woman was always shown as weak and defenseless. If a man was to let a so to speak "stupid" and "fragile" woman physically beat him, he was seen as a loser and weak, and would often the object of ridicule for his peers. Due to the possible ostracization of actually admitting to being abused by a woman, many men are quite reluctant to go the authorities with what are usually legitimate cases of abuse. According to the National Institute of Justice, 835,000 men are abused each year and every 38 seconds a man is abused(Whittaker). Though men are not nearly as likely to be abused by women as women are likely to be abused by men, the numbers are still staggering. Furthermore, there may even be more cases that go unreported that are not factored into the
Society has a specific stereotype for men to follow: extreme masculinity, showing little to no emotion, and aggressiveness. Women also have stereotypes perpetuated by society such as being weak and fragile, having no control over emotions, and only being around for show and not actually contributing to conversation. The media has a huge part to play in the stereotypes that are formed. In fairytales, for instance, there was always a damsel in distress with a prince charming to save her. The woman was always shown as weak and defenseless. If a man was to let a so to speak "stupid" and "fragile" woman physically beat him, he was seen as a loser and weak, and would often the object of ridicule for his peers. Due to the possible ostracization of actually admitting to being abused by a woman, many men are quite reluctant to go the authorities with what are usually legitimate cases of abuse. According to the National Institute of Justice, 835,000 men are abused each year and every 38 seconds a man is abused(Whittaker). Though men are not nearly as likely to be abused by women as women are likely to be abused by men, the numbers are still staggering. Furthermore, there may even be more cases that go unreported that are not factored into the