In response to your article, 'Emotional abuse - the subtle killer' (Dec 5), I would like to pose a counterweight to the current obsession with men's abuse of women by reminding that probably just as many men as women are victims of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their emotionally marginalised and intellectually-challenged partners. It is just that there is no "Men's Aid Organisation" or "International Day Against Abuse of Men" to highlight the silent plight of men!

The more recurrent of emotional abuses by women of men are (off the cuff) as follows:

  • Isolating a man from other women, including women who are his business clients and associates. Many times, isolating him from taking care of his own mother!

  • Acting overly jealous or possessive; accusing a man of having affairs if he was seen having a drink with a colleague or business client; smelling his shirt (even underwear) for perfume or another woman's scent and looking out for tell-tale signs of lipstick smirches or any form of scratches on his body and limbs; combing through his telephone and credit card bills; contacting him when she is out of town, when he least expects her to do so, and calling him frequently on the cell phone to listen to background noises if they were made by other females, etc.

  • Withdrawing affection and sex due to unhappiness over other grievances; sulking; giving the silent treatment; unwillingness to resolve conflict; strutting and posturing; storming out.

  • Plaguing him incessantly for money and gifts as proof of his love.

  • Criticising a man constantly for his lack of promotion in work and comparing him with other women's husbands or boyfriends.

  • Using the children to control a man to get his time and splurge his money but not her own.

  • Enmeshing him in all happenings on her family's side;

  • Controlling his money - what is spent, how it is spent, and on whom it is spent.

    • The list is by no means exhaustive. Many men just want to drink with their buddies than go home early and face the spouse and her nagging, and in some cases sexual demands arising not out of genuine desire but more to gauge the male's sexual sensitivity as an indicator of whether he has spent his sexual energies elsewhere!

    The other point is that whilst it is important to ensure that women (as do men) be treated with equality and respect as is consistent with basic human dignity and common humanity, let us not, by having too many of articles as those written by the writer, over mollycoddle our women folk and treat them as if they were victims all the time.

    For to do so would create a breed of women who, like cry babies, will blame men for whatever their unhappiness and misfortunes caused by the individual woman's own personal failings insecurities and shortcomings.

    To correct the imbalance of gender power of the past, let not the current affirmative action to secure political, economic, and social equality for Malaysian women - and their votes - by organised political government as well as non-governmental activities degenerate to become a malignant cancer of western liberalism leading to male bashing - for it will only serve to widen rather than bridge the gender divide to the detriment of all.

    The position put forward here is that all forms of physical and emotional abuse are abhorred and all classes of victims, male or female, young or old of whatever race or religion deserve protection from community action groups, the government and the law.