Men can be victims too: Chef Kunal Kapur and Cricketer Shikhar Dhawan faced spousal abuse

Society and Spousal Violence:  Abuse is morally and legally wrong irrespective of the gender at the receiving end of it. Still, in a society where the ratio of cases against women is statistically higher than men, the latter half of the lot often finds them in situations where the law and society fail them in delivering justice. 

The recent case of Chef Kunal Kapur brings back the conversation on men being the victims of abuse as well. The matter gets further inextricable in the light of spousal violence in a country where the stats of spousal abuse are still unacceptably high against women. The gendered ratio of victims however should not be the ground for making rules for a crime to ensure we uphold our law and order as supreme.    

Men in the dynamics of victimhood 

Violence, assault, and cruelty are not rooted in gender and yet we are at an intersection where mental and physical abuse against men is discerned only to either humiliate them further by attacking their masculinity or simply take it lightly.  

Physical and mental violence against men is perceived as something alien and out worldly, and hence is on many occasions overlooked or taken for granted. Victimhood has become synonymous with women,  diluting the gravity of assault and abuse against the rest of the genders or sexes.       

Popular Instances where Men were Victims 

In the recent instance of Chef Kunal Kapur, the court sided in favor of the man sanctioning the divorce of the former couple on Tuesday. The court called the conduct of his estranged wife Ekta to be “devoid of dignity and empathy towards him.”  

Going further back to October 2023 Indian cricketer Shikhar Dhawan was also granted a divorce on the grounds of ‘mental abuse’ inflicted by his partner who also forced Dhawan to stay away from his only kid.     

While there is no denying that the rate of crime against women in India is 66.4 per the last records, the rest approximately forty percent are the portion of men in the category. It will also be biased to turn a blind look against the cases where the men were and are victims.