Why is it Okay for a Woman to Hit a Man But Not Okay When a Man Hits a Woman?

A hard-hitting experiment has revealed how strangers react differently when they see domestic abuse depending on the gender of the abuser. ManKind Initiative, a charity organisation which aims to provide support for male victims of domestic abuse made videos filmed with hidden cameras at a London park.

In the first video, they made a male actor attack his ‘girlfriend’ in front of onlookers who immediately rushed to help the lady, with one shouting: ‘Oi mate, what's wrong with you?’
The man is told ‘someone will call the police if you carry on doing that to someone’, before a passer-
by said to the woman: ‘You don't have to put up with that honey, he's not worth it’.

Onlookers immediately rushed to help, with one shouting: 'Oi mate, what's wrong with you?'

Another told the man that 'someone will call the police if you carry on doing that to someone', before a passer-by says to the woman: 'You don't have to put up with that honey, he's not worth it'

The experiment was then conducted with the same actors - but this time, with the woman as the aggressor, attacking her boyfriend and saying: ‘Don't try to walk away - listen to me when I'm talking to you.’

However, instead of reacting with shock, none of the onlookers watching even attempted to help the man. They actually seemed rather entertained by the incident, stopping to stare and laugh about it.

The clip was made just days after multi-millionaire rap mogul Jay Z was punched and kicked by his wife Beyoncé’s sister Solange Knowles during a violent confrontation in a lift in New York. The charity claims 38 per cent of domestic abuse victims are male and that more married men and cohabitating men suffered from partner abuse in 2012/13 than married women and cohabitating women.