Exploring the Legal and Sociological Dimensions of Men, as victims of gender-biased laws
in India
Abstract
As per a survey conducted on 1000 men in Haryana, it was observed that about 52.4% of
married men had been victims of domestic abuse. Emotional abuse was the most prevalent
followed by physical abuse. Without a speckle of doubt, these statistics are contrary to the
pre-conceived notions viz. it is only women who go through domestic violence. While
various laws have been formulated for women to fight for their rights, rights of men in cases
of domestic violence and rape have been ignored by the legislature, hence, men are expected
to bottle up their emotions and subject themselves to omnibus allegations and the
consequential legal actions that follow.
Under the Constitution, both men and women have been regarded as equals. Yet somehow it
is the case that while fighting for the rights of women and correcting the prejudices that they
have been subjugated against, the rights of men are being forgotten. In order to ensure
equality, it is imperative that not only the discriminatory and gender biased legislations are
done away with, but gender-neutral legislations and policies are formulated. The primary
purpose of this study is to identify the gaps that exist in the current Indian legislative system
with respect to the rights of men and thereby, highlight the need for gender-neutral laws.
The scope of this review is limited. Most literature on domestic violence provides women as
the centre of the study while claiming men as the natural perpetrators. This material is out of
scope for this review except as it bears directly upon the question concerning men as victims
of gender-biased laws in India. Furthermore, while there is abundance of philosophical
literature on this topic, there are relatively few evaluation studies that use qualitative or
quantitative approaches to identify the prevalence of the issue in society.
Therefore, the present research proposal aims to identify the role that gender-biased laws of
the Indian legal system have on men who have suffered from domestic violence as well as
those who have not gone through it but are susceptible to it. The research questions that
would therefore, be considered are:
o What is the role that gender-biased laws play on the psychology of males in India and
how do cultural and social factors influence the reporting of domestic violence against
men in India?
o Are the men in India as aware of the biasness of the Indian laws as those that have
been victims of domestic abuse?
o How imperative is the need for introduction of gender neutral legislations?
o How does the exploratory qualitative data on the commitment of domestic violence
against men in India compare to the quantitative outcome data obtained from a
domestic violence instrument?
o Are there discrepancies between the qualitative accounts of domestic violence against
men and the quantitative measurements obtained from a standardized domestic
violence instrument in India?
