If men need protection from women's conduct, what about vice versa?

"I propose a sexual harassment act to protect men from the actions, words and clothing of women, which can cause men to be seduced to the point they can commit acts such as incest, rape, molestation, (watching) pornography and likewise.”

The distasteful proposal above was put forward in the Dewan Negara recently by PKR senator Mohd Imran Abdul Hamid.

Although the proposal was later retracted by the retired navy veteran, it got me thinking.

If the senator really believed that men committing crime should be given legal protection if their actions were caused by the way a woman conducts or presents herself, then what about women who commit crime as a result of men's actions?

For example, if a man has converted his children into a religion they were not born into without the permission of his (ex) wife, hence causing her a lot of grief and duress, would the law protect her if she ends up inflicting a lot of pain on her (ex) husband like kicking him in the groin multiple times?

Or if a man practices polygamy without the consent of his first wife, and later fails to practice fairness between one wife and the others, can the emotionally abused wife be protected legally if she ends up chopping her husband's genitals into a thousand pieces before flushing it down the toilet?

Or if a man cheats on his wife, can she be protected, if, in an act of vengeance, she attacks him with his golf clubs and, when he is down, stabs him with a vegetable peeler?

Or if a man who abuses his wife emotionally, physically or sexually, driving her to kill him in his sleep by suffocating him with a pillow or better still, stabbing his chest with a meat cleaver, will she be protected by the law?

Or if a man fails to provide child support, leaving the responsibility of caring for his children to his ex-wife while having the means to commit into a new marriage, will the ex-wife be legally protected if she attacks her ex-husband out of rage and emotional distress?

Fairness and equality for all

My premise is simple. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Legal protections should be in place to level the playing field and equality should be our end goal. Fairness and equality for all.

If men need protection from women, this suggests that women are superior to men. Thus, it does not follow that Muslim men can have four wives yet Muslim women cannot have four husbands.

Muslim men retain parental rights to their children despite remarrying after a divorce, while Muslim women have to relinquish those rights if she remarries after a divorce.

By merely uttering three sentences of talaq, Muslim men can legally divorce their wives. Meanwhile, their wives, even if victims of marital rape and physical/emotional abuse, have to endure a long and biased legal struggle to escape their abusive husband.

And Muslim men ensure that their male privilege continues in embedded Islamic legal principles, such as the unfair assurance that their male heirs will inherit disproportionately more than their female heirs.

So why are we talking about more protection for men when women have not even received basic protection?

Women need protection, not men.

Women are in desperate need of legal protection against men who, intentionally or not, cause harm to them every second of every day.

By the sheer fact of being born as a woman, a woman is already at the losing end.

I would like to remind Mohd Imran that in Malaysia, a woman’s vote is equal to that of men. The senator was elected, presumably, by men and women, in equal measure, with a mandate to represent and protect all their interests.

There can be no greater way for the senator to do this than to advocate for policies that ensure equal protection for all – men and women.

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FA ABDUL is a passionate storyteller, a media trainer, an aspiring playwright, a director, a struggling producer, a photographer, an expert Facebooker, a lazy blogger, a part-time queen and a full-time vainpot. - Mkini