In recent days, Belen Rodriguez was interviewed by Francesca Fagnani in her program ‘Belve’. As always, the guest is asked personal questions, stimulating a sort of confession. When it comes to the topic of romantic relationships, a scene appears that we have already seen, in the same programme, as well as in many others: the interviewee describes with amusement that she was ‘nasty’ with her boyfriends, at one of whom she threw a cactus – but he only got a few scratches!

Violence against men is hilarious

Everything is narrated with lightness and irony, as in a female drama in which males are spoken badly of. The story of violence is inserted among many others, among which it does not particularly stand out. In fact, if we search on Google for “Belen belve manesca”, only one of the articles in national newspapers bears this title. In fact, the others mention this element offhand, casually, putting it on the same level as the stories about work experiences and his recent ‘conversion’ to homosexuality. In short, a gossip like any other.

As always, one of the underlying problems is that someone is interested in the personal life of a woman who is not particularly known for her abilities or notable actions, but simply because she is beautiful. It is a matter of public interest that she dated Tizio or Caio and is now having sex with Sempronia instead; or that she suffered from depression, or that she argued with her sister. The consequence of this absurdity is that the words of a woman, we can say, without art or part, are listened to seriously by the public, who takes her as a point of reference: in short, she holds a power that is neither motivated nor deserved, with which she can influence the people who adore her.

The influence exerted by a famous woman

It therefore goes without saying that the fact that a person with this reputation enjoys talking about the violence committed against boyfriends is normal, indeed, almost comical: that one over there is the ex who took it the most, but I beat them all. What a laugh! But I am a sensitive woman who was depressed and courageously came out of it. According to the opinions of the public, the latter would be a medal for valor: the usual awareness-raising story done by VIPs, who instead simply play the mental illness card to move and appear ‘resilient’. And therefore, since she is courageous and resilient, her message is really important: who cares if she brought violence into the mix.

Indeed, according to the newspapers, Belen was criticized mostly because she didn’t expose herself completely! She responded in monosyllables, she wasn’t exhaustive, in short she didn’t satisfy our thirst for gossip. The problem is not that it is normal for her – and for the presenter – to hit her boyfriend. Luckily, among the Instagram comments, we can also see some indignation and heavy criticism about this: it’s not funny, and it’s certainly not the best historical moment to talk about relational violence with this lightness.

Is there an opposition between violence against men and violence against women?

Some have asked the now frequent question, “what if a man had said that?”. It is clear that this could never happen in a public space, it would be crazy: no one would laugh, at least in front of others, at something like that. It is usually argued that violence against men is not systemic but occasional, and therefore it is not the same thing. Leaving aside the many objections that could be made to this statement, it seems clear to me that it misses the point in the slightest and is just a way of diminishing the seriousness of the matter. Even assuming that abused men are a minority and are not victims of an entire oppressive system, what would change? Violence against children is not systemic, but no sane person would laugh about it. The same can be said for other forms of violence, such as violence against the elderly or disabled people.

The truth would be very simple: it’s not funny, under any circumstances. It’s serious, either way. All the other reflections on different types of violence, on different levels of gravity, have nothing to do with this. So why is it so difficult for us to say no, I don’t like this, this isn’t good, without thinking that we are implicitly making a comparison with violence against women, therefore belittling it? The two things are not in opposition to each other.

And instead, violence against men continues to be diminished, if not denied, in an increasingly sensational way; there are even those who make it a flag, under the passive and indifferent gaze of the citizens.