How Masculinity Fuels Violence Against Women

Ask someone what makes a “good husband” in most Indian households, and control quietly slips into the answer. He should provide, protect, and keep the household in line. That last part is where things get dangerous. Somewhere along the way, “keeping the household in line” has come to include a husband’s right to lose his temper, and in far too many homes, his right to raise his hand. This blog looks at how the everyday expectation that men stay “in control” of their wives feeds directly into domestic violence, why it stays hidden despite being an open secret, and why any real solution has to include men, not just protect women from them.

When control becomes an entitlement 🔗

Masculinity, as it is taught in most Indian families, comes bundled with authority. A man is expected to make the final decisions, manage the household finances, and ensure his wife’s behaviour reflects well on the family. The trouble is that this authority is rarely questioned, even when it turns physical. Many husbands genuinely believe that if a wife fails to “comply” – whether that means an argument, a delayed meal, or a decision he disagrees with – anger, and even violence, is a legitimate tool to restore order.

What is more troubling is how often this belief is shared by women themselves. A large-scale nationally representative study using NFHS-5 data found that women’s justification of physical violence dropped sharply when they had greater financial independence, decision-making power, and asset ownership, suggesting that acceptance of violence is not innate but learned through years of conditioning that leaves women with little power to object.

The wife as someone to be managed 🔗

This conditioning starts early. Girls are raised to be adaptable, patient, and non-confrontational, while boys are raised to expect deference. By the time both reach marriage, a husband’s temper is treated as a natural hazard of married life rather than a warning sign. This is precisely why so many women do not report violence, or even recognise it as wrong: they have been taught for years that a husband’s authority, including his anger, comes with the territory.

How common is domestic violence in India, really 🔗

The numbers are hard to look away from. According to NFHS-5 findings, 45 percent of women and 44 percent of men in India agreed that a husband is justified in physically assaulting his wife under at least one specific circumstance, such as going out without informing him or arguing with him. That men and women report near-identical levels of justification says a great deal about how deeply this belief is shared across genders, not just imposed by one on the other.

State-level data adds more texture to this picture. A detailed breakdown of NFHS-5 data found that Karnataka reported the highest share of women experiencing physical, emotional, or sexual abuse in the country, at around 48 percent, while states like Goa and Himachal Pradesh reported the lowest. Yet even in states with lower prevalence, the pattern of underreporting persists: most women who did seek help confided in family first, and turned to the police only as a last resort.

A private matter, publicly known 🔗

Perhaps the most uncomfortable truth is that domestic violence rarely happens in complete secrecy. Neighbours hear the shouting. Relatives know about the bruises. Yet it is treated as a “family matter” that outsiders should not interfere in. This social silence does more than protect individual abusers, it protects the entire system that makes violence an acceptable extension of masculine authority. When a community consistently looks away, it sends an unspoken message that a husband’s control over his wife, even through violence, is nobody else’s business.

How violent masculinity gets passed down 🔗

Domestic violence does not just harm the couple involved, it actively teaches the next generation what marriage and gender roles should look like. Children growing up in violent households absorb very different lessons depending on their gender, and those lessons tend to replicate themselves decades later.

What boys learn, what girls learn 🔗

Research on childhood exposure to interparental violence in India found that men who witnessed their fathers beating their mothers had significantly higher odds of justifying wife-beating themselves and of perpetrating spousal violence in their own marriages later in life. This is intergenerational transmission in action: boys do not just witness violence, they internalise it as a normal, even necessary, part of being a husband. Girls growing up in the same household often internalise the opposite lesson – that enduring violence quietly is simply what being a wife requires.

Folklore’s role in normalising aggression 🔗

This messaging is not confined to the home. Popular folklore and cultural narratives across India frequently glorify male heroes whose aggression and temper are framed as proof of their devotion or strength, whether toward rivals, in-laws, or even their own wives. When violent temper is romanticised as passion rather than named as abuse, it reinforces the idea that aggression and masculine love are somehow linked.

Provider, protector, disciplinarian 🔗

Alongside control, Indian masculinity is built around the idea of being a provider and protector, someone responsible for the family’s honour and reputation in the community. This responsibility is often stretched to justify discipline. A husband who beats his wife for “talking back” or a father who restricts his daughter’s choices may see himself not as an aggressor but as someone protecting the family’s dignity. The line between protection and control becomes dangerously thin, and violence becomes the tool that enforces it.

Why ending this cycle needs men at the table 🔗

If violent masculinity is learned, it can also be unlearned, but not if the conversation about gender-based violence continues to exclude the very group whose behaviour needs to change. Feminist scholar and activist Kamla Bhasin spent decades arguing that gender is not a synonym for “women’s issues.” In her view, ignoring how masculinity is constructed, and what it costs men themselves, has left a critical gap in how society understands and prevents violence.

Partnership, not blame alone 🔗

Bhasin’s central argument was that reducing violence and building a more equal society requires men and boys to be active partners in the process, not passive subjects of criticism or bystanders to a movement led entirely by women. Her well-known phrase, “men of quality are not afraid of equality,” captured this idea succinctly: gender equality is not a threat to healthy masculinity, it is a redefinition of it. Organisations working in this space today, including networks that engage men directly on issues like gender-just behaviour, caregiving, and non-violence, build on exactly this premise.

Legally, India already recognises how broad and layered domestic violence can be. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 defines domestic violence to include not just physical harm but verbal, emotional, sexual, and economic abuse, and extends protection to a wide circle of women in a household, not just wives. But laws alone cannot undo decades of social conditioning. That requires reshaping what boys are taught about control, temper, and what it means to be a “real man” long before they ever become husbands.

Breaking, not just surviving, the cycle 🔗

Women have led this fight for generations, often at enormous personal cost. But if intergenerational transmission is the mechanism by which violent masculinity survives, then breaking that cycle has to start in the same place it begins: at home, with how sons are raised, what fathers model, and what communities choose to normalise or challenge. A movement for gender justice that only speaks to women addresses half the problem. Lasting change needs men, in large numbers, choosing to participate rather than simply being asked to change.

What do you think? If both men and women in India show similarly high rates of justifying domestic violence, what does that tell us about how deeply gender conditioning runs on both sides? And what would it actually take to get more men actively involved in gender justice movements rather than staying on the sidelines?

References

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11694290/
2. https://www.guwahatiplus.com/india/survey-highlights-widespread-justification-of-domestic-violence-in-india
3. https://www.factchecker.in/data-dive/data-dive-more-women-own-houses-but-even-more-think-domestic-violence-is-justified-790140
4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213425001164
5. https://www.thedailystar.net/news/exploring-masculinity
6. https://kamlabhasinawards.org/
7. https://wcd.delhi.gov.in/wcd/protection-women-domestic-violence-act-2005