Especially in movies where violence against men is seen as humorous or not that big of a deal. Such as getting hit in the groin, blunt objects thrown at them or getting hit by vehicles. But as soon as a woman gets hit or raped it’s considered dramatic and a big no no. Why the double standard?
That’s a fascinating question, if you happen to be a sociologist who specializes in such things. Strangely, I just happen to be*.
The short answer is that it would take a very long time to give a comprehensive answer to that question.
It wasn’t always the case, and is not always the case now, that violence against women is seen as taboo. I hate to use them as an example, but look at the Muslim world. They have television shows where "Islamic scholars" explain, in a very considered way, the proper way to beat one’s wife, don’t they?
And there are shows where it was made clear from the outset that the society is egalitarian in all respects, and in those shows, they tend not to pull their punches. For example, in the remake of Battlestar Galactica, fairly early on in the first season, Starbuck and Apollo get into an argument and she punches him in the face. Without missing a beat, he punches her right back, and the show goes on with no one blinking an eyelash. In that show, violence is handled pretty evenly.
The same is true with the movie Starship Troopers. In that movie, it’s the male lead who’s emotionally uncertain and available, and the female who comes off as more distant and unconcerned. Women are portrayed as being just as sexually predacious as men, and they are subjected to the same violence and death as men with no dramatic distinction made.
So, the situation isn’t quite as concrete as you’re making it out to be, but there are several reasons why violence against men is generally seen as more acceptable than violence against women.
As I mentioned before, violence against women has not always been taboo. In fact, Western society has a very long history of abusing women, and you need not even look back fifty years to find them being portrayed in all sorts of derogatory, stereotypical ways, where it’s suggested violence against them is acceptable or even funny ("one of these days, Alice! Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!").
That very history of abuse is one of the reasons why the taboo against portraying violence is stronger where women are concerned. Society was largely ignoring or covering up the issue until about the 1960s and moreover the 1970s, when women began to really confront social injustice and put what was being done into the public eye so it could no longer be ignored.
If you haven’t noticed, any time a societal abuse or shortcoming is revealed and put under scrutiny, our reaction is often one of shame and guilt, and society often moves relatively quickly from a position where they have been too lax about allowing a particular abuse to trying to show an overabundance of caution and sympathy. In the wake of the Civil Rights movement, people tried to ensure everyone understood they weren’t racist against Black people. In the wake of the feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century, it was violence against women. Today, it’s becoming violence and discrimination against gays. What will be next? Who knows?
Also, you have to consider that while women have been improving their social status (and rightfully so), men really haven’t had the chance to address how society has been giving them short shrift quite as much. There has been some progress made on the parental rights front, but when it comes to violence against men, a lot of different social attitudes come into play that make it permissible to show them being harmed.
First, they are the more violent sex, regardless of social values. That’s just the reality of the situation, and we know it, so violence among males is more normative. We therefore are less shocked by it.
Second, the masculine values we tend to cling to suggests it is a sign of weakness in males to complain about such things. Part of being a man is being tough, so you’re supposed to be able to suck it up, ya wussy. That makes males reticent to bring up the issue, for fear of appearing weak and being ridiculed… and they really don’t want women to bring it up, because it would look so much worse if it seemed like men had to rely on women to protect them. So, the issue remains sidelined.
Finally, as much as we don’t want to admit it as a society, we consider males more expendable than females. When push comes to shove, men are expected to put themselves in harm’s way to protect a female, and even die to protect them. It’s men who are expected to do the dangerous jobs (which is why they suffer nearly 90% of on-the-job fatalities). It’s men who were expected to be police, who were expected to be soldiers, who still are expected to be our primary source of combat troops. Women are not expected to do the same for men, because we understand that in the end, we need all the females we can get, but we only really need a few good men to take care of them.
So, as much as they may have traditionally had it better in most every other area of life, it isn’t as big a deal to us when they’re hurt or killed.
