‘Men don’t cry,’ this line, this very line has been told to every man at least once in their lifetime. Manliness is portrayed as a trophy with gems of strength, emotionlessness, and a savior. How can you be a victim when you are supposed to be a savior?

It is a saddening thought that even the Indian legislation believes this to be true. All the IPC Sections that deal with sexual harassment, dowry, rape, and stalking only accept women as victims and men as perpetrators. The first thought that crosses one’s mind when the word ‘sexual assault’ is mentioned is of a woman being harassed by a man. Never is the opposite scenario been taken into consideration because we are conditioned by society in a certain way.

Recently, Akshay Kumar confessed about being abused as a child, at a seminar on women’s safety that was reported by Mumbai Mirror. He said, “When I was 6, I was on my way to a neighbor’s house when the lift man touched my butt. I was really agitated and told my father about it. He filed a police complaint. Investigations revealed that the lift-man was a history-sheeter.”

At Maharashtra State Commission for Women’s International Conf. on Women Trafficking 2 address this global problem on an international level pic.twitter.com/WON83VUnah

— Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) July 27, 2017

This came as a surprise to so many people while many may not have the same reaction when Sonam Kapoor too confessed being molested.

Such are stories of many boys from your neighborhood.

In a blog post written by Vinodhan, he talks about being gang-raped twelve years ago at the age of eighteen. He says, “Even when it happens to a man, rape is gendered violence. It happened to me because I was feminine because the men thought I deserved it for not acting like a man. Sometimes rape is inflicted on men just to shame them; to, supposedly, insult their masculinity. In whatever way it happens, it loops back to the question of gender. This is ONE of the reasons my politics is grounded in feminism. This is one of the reasons I am a feminist. I was one even before I was raped by men. I didn’t need this violent lesson to turn feminist. But if I was to live with it, I decided to make this experience of violence, which I now felt in my bones, an embodied site of my feminism.”

We fail to see men as victims. We fail to embrace victimhood in male-hood.

Where to start? Maybe, from a conversation with your son and letting your boy cry when he falls from that tall bicycle.