Name:-Dhruv Panikar

For now, let’s assume there exists a 17-year-old boy named Rahul, when he picks up his phone there is no one for him to call when he boots up his Instagram, there is no one for him to text, his DM’s always stay empty (unless he texts first of course).

Whenever he opens his phone and access any form of media, he is bombarded with reasons like, why the men are so cruel and when he opens his Instagram, he finds random people comparing his gender (and by extension him) with a chicken nugget covered in solid excrement. Imagine how must he be feeling? He has no one to express his feelings to, he never feels wanted, because no one made him feel wanted by the way the media portray his gender. He even feels sorry to be a male.

For a moment let’s imagine that Rahul does not exist, for a moment let’s imagine that Rahul is you. How will you feel? How will you feel when between the slogans of “you can cry!” People forgot to ask what is making you cry? Think about what you felt while imagining all of this, that’s exactly what millions upon millions of Indian men feel on a day-to-day basis. They feel as if they are the abandoned ones because of the wrapped view which the media created of men due to which men are forced into isolation.

One of the worst forms of torture that a person can endure is solitary confinement. Being closed in a small room with only four walls around you and no sky above is one of the worst feelings that a person can experience.

This is how a large number of Indian men feel, but the only difference is that they see the open world as a form of solitary confinement, the sky doesn’t feel like a sky to them, it feels like a prison where they are alone with no one to listen to them or help.

The dangers of a lopsided narrative

On one hand There is no doubt that the majority of the violent perpetrators of all abhorrent violent crimes are men.

On the other hand he most likely person to intervene when witnessing a crime and the least likely to get help when they become a victim of a crime is a man.

As the No.1 bestseller Sebestian Junger explains,” Humans are so extremely wired to help one another and enjoy such enormous social benefits that from doing so, that people regularly risk their lives for complete strangers that risk-taking tends to express itself in very different ways in men and in women. Men perform the vast majority of bystander rescues and children; the elderly and women are the most common recipients of them.

Children are helped regardless of their gender as are the elderly.

Women of reproductive age are twice as likely to be helped by a stranger than men are.

Men all over the world  have to wait on average, until age seventy-five, before they can expect the same kind of assistance in a life threatening situation that women get their whole life”(this is taken from the book Tribe: on homecoming, and belonging for further detail click here)

Despite majority of rescue done by men this is only a half part of the story When a crime occurs, news will use gender specific words like, “man”.

And even though the majority of those who intervene during a crime are men, at that time too these news of rescue  shares gender neutral terms like ,”people”, “good Samaritans”  are used in overwhelming amounts.

Isn’t it obvious that men will develop such a skewed reputation in the world if only their vile deeds are shown and their good deeds are downplayed. If we are only seeing men’s bad side why will people not want to,” kill all men”? Why are we telling only half of the story?

This skewed presentation of men leads to the stereotype of,” every man being potentially extremely dangerous” due to this narrative, which is formed thanks to highlighting the violence done by men and downplaying the good act done by men, Men are bombarded with media content which makes them feel guilty to be even a man. and while they are feeling guilty of being a man, they can’t even express it to anyone. If they talk about their issues they are ridiculed at. The epidemic of loneliness is so high in India that dating applications have discovered a new market of greed which flourishes by exploiting men and their loneliness.

A study reported by WHO  said that India is the most depressed country of the world(for more information click here) and it’s also widely known that the majority of people who suffer from depression, stress and loneliness are men.

These dating apps especially target the loneliness which resides inside men, using artificial bots to talk with men to provide them with emotional support with a promise of getting romantic with these men.

And for these psychological compassion  men must first shell money to buy their membership, after that they pay for it, then the women will force these men to make further purchases and then they would either block them or blackmail them(for more information click here and here ).

And the source of their misery is how abandoned they feel, most men desire positive attention while women often are drowned in it

This is the world we live in, where Men quietly fall down the crevice of our society and become invisible to the public whereas women often suffer from the intense burns of unwanted horrendous attention.

Most men will spend their entire life feeling as if no one desires them whilst women are often desired so much that people start treating them like objects.

And I am sure that so many women have a desire to not be seen.

While men are crying their hearts out just to be seen.