Incredibly, in recent days there has been talk of a case of violence which does not have a woman as its victim, but a man: the athlete Manuel Bortuzzo, who reported his ex-girlfriend for stalking and mistreatment, on whom it was imposed by the judge the electronic bracelet. Naturally, there is now a trial underway, only at the end of which will we be able to talk about guilt: the “sister, I believe you”, contrary to the rule of law as well as to the most basic forms of civilization, remains wrong even when it involves a “Brother”.

However, the case is worthy of attention for other reasons. Meanwhile, it is an almost unprecedented fact that violence against men is being talked about, therefore, despite all the regret for what Bortuzzo reported having suffered, the news of his complaint must be seen positively. It is clear, in fact, that this case was able to gain media coverage only because of the fame of both parties involved: normally, men who report stalking and domestic violence by their partners do not end up in the newspapers.

The different way of talking about violence depending on the sex of the victim

This, as we know, creates the perception that these men do not exist at all, or that they are so few that they constitute a truly irrelevant percentage (which is funny, given that, numbers in hand, we could say the same about women). It is no coincidence, in fact, that this episode is told as an exceptional event, whereas when news emerges of stalking or violence against a woman the headlines very often contain the adjective “yet another”, the adverb “again”, and so on.

In fact, the way in which the news is reported by the media is also interesting: the newspapers mostly report it in an aseptic manner, which would be absolutely right if the same was done when the victim is a woman. Television programs that live on gossip and news, on the other hand, have adopted a peculiar communication style, less heavy and painful than when the victim is a woman, with a background of love songs. In general, the affair did not cause any particular outcry, and above all it was not an opportunity to create debates, round tables, live broadcasts, interviews: again, all very right, if it weren’t for the double standard. Of course, there is still a lot of talk (and mostly shameful) about the ruling on the Cecchettin case, but it is reasonable to assume that if the stalking victim had been a woman, things would have gone differently.

The contents on Youtube, however, are decidedly revolting: the few videos made by creators with a large following feature gossipy previews (shocked faces, big yellow headlines) and embarrassing titles such as “The love story between Manuel and Lulù”. The comments, naturally, make you lose any shred of faith in humanity you may have retained: many girls even calmly say that they have done the same thing to their classmates. But, after all, no later than three days ago, during the show Belve, Elisabetta Canalis was amused about the time she chased her boyfriend down the street to beat him up, and the time she defaced his car. Everything is normal, the interviewer laughs, since we know that possessiveness is toxic only if it is expressed by a man.

In this competition, no one wins

My purpose in reminding you of these double standards is not – although it is easy to accuse me of this – to wage war between the sexes, or to say that men are more oppressed than women: this is an idiocy that I will gladly leave to my counterpart, particularly versed in this type of discourse. If anything, my intent is to show what should be obvious, namely that the way in which we communicate news causes citizens to interpret it as more or less serious, more or less frequent, more or less indicative of a systemic problem (for use the magic word in vogue when dealing with these topics). It would be very easy to completely overturn the public perception of the phenomenon of gender violence, hammering users with articles about every single man who reports, who shows up at the hospital scarred, who cannot react when he is beaten because otherwise he ends up on trial; and instead letting the news of the women who report, of the women who, despite having reported, have been ignored, pass by in silence, and so on.

This doesn’t happen not because we care more about women and hate men: it doesn’t happen simply because in this historical moment talking about men is not interesting, in terms of views, interactions and even – let’s face it – receiving public funds. Therefore, true feminists should not delude themselves: the trend could easily change tomorrow, if only the wind changed, if the algorithms changed, or if people went in search of a new theme because they got bored of the previous one. And this is not what I hope for, because bad journalism does as much damage when it talks about women as it would if it talked about men.

But the risk, however, is not around the corner: if you are not currently famous, you can be sure that no one will care about your history of domestic violence, as exemplified by the tragedy of William Pezzulo, scarred with acid by ex-girlfriend, who in years and years of struggle has achieved the highest recognition of being a guest on Elisa’s podcast TrueCrime. We therefore hope that the Bortuzzo affair ends in the best possible way, with a fair sentence (whatever it may be); but for the other men, dedicated days and blue benches are not yet visible on the horizon.