A Bear Might Maul You, but Some Men Will Kill You Over Salty Food
In a world where men will kill women because they don’t enjoy their breakfast, bears feel like are a safer option
A lot has been said about women choosing bears over men. Humorous memes by women, angry memes by irate conservative men. I didn’t plan to chime in on the women choosing bears over men debate.
Sure, it’s funny how easily triggered some men are by women preferring bears to them, but their response is not surprising.
What changed my mind in favor of the bear was a post about a husband who murdered his wife because he was angry about the food she cooked for him.
He didn’t like it.
Usually, I would have sighed in frustration and moved on. Another day, another woman killed by a violent man. A far too common occurrence.
So I tend to move on with a knot in my stomach and try not to dwell on yet another woman’s life lost.
In this case, my brain got hooked on the story because the murder happened in Lagos, my hometown, and because the food in question was Indomie noodles.
Indomie are instant ramen noodles that are curiously popular in Nigeria. They come in different flavors and make a quick meal.
They might not be haute cuisine, but no one in their right mind would get so enraged they’d feel the urge to kill the cook.
I took a closer look at this story and quickly went down a rabbit hole of similar stories.
We tend to see horrendous headlines about men killing their girlfriends and spouses that somehow insinuate that the woman must have done something to deserve her fate.
The headlines frequently make it appear like the victim has somehow contributed to its fate. They scream about love triangles, new boyfriends, or the fact that the woman was about to move out.
The perpetrator becomes a “jealous lover,” framing the incident as a crime of passion or saying he was trying to “win her back.” As if any of this changes the fact that the man is a murderous lunatic who ended a life, he had no right to take.
Women are murdered over food more often than you’d think
We’re conditioned to believe women are killed during big dramatic events in their or the men’s lives. But the trigger for these unnecessary deaths is often just a profane, everyday occurrence. Like a meal not perfectly cooked.
Turns out being killed over a meal isn’t as rare as one might think — or hope.
It is mindboggling how many women are murdered by men over food-related disputes.
One Nigerian husband killed his wife over a loaf of bread. In Kenya, a man murdered his wife because there was no meat in his food.
But murder at the dinner table isn’t just an African issue.
One Indian man beat and then strangled his wife with a rope for putting too much salt in his breakfast while their 12-year-old son begged him to stop. Another woman was hacked to death with a spade by her husband because she didn’t serve salad with dinner.
But before you say, of course, all these violent men from underdeveloped countries are the issue. Hold your horses. In Indiana, a man murdered his girlfriend over a dispute on how to properly cut onions. And claimed it was self-defense.
Even geriatric men aren’t safe to be around. In Northwest D.C., an 85-year-old man killed his wife because he didn’t want to eat her pancakes.
What strikes me is the callousness with which some of these men kill and dispose of their wives. As if they had no value to them apart from their ability to provide food.
One husband beat his wife to death and sawed off her head because the food she served him was too spicy.
The fact that she cooked a meal for him that he didn’t like sent him into such a rage that he beat and tortured her for 12 hours before she died.
He then kept his wife’s body with him for two days before asking a friend to help him dispose of it. Unlike the neighbors who were acoustic witnesses of the ordeal, that friend called the police.
Two aspects stick out to me in this story.
The first is that insignificant details can trigger physical violence in men. Cooking a meal with too much spice, buying a new handbag, buying him the wrong beer, making him vegetarian food, not washing his clothes, any of these “transgressions” can get you killed.
Second, in many societies, women are still regarded as the property of men. If a man beats or abuses his wife, there are no consequences. So you can’t count on people coming to your rescue when it happens.
Society is willing to turn a blind eye to men’s violence; neighbors will ignore screams and pleas for help.
What makes these men kill women?
This brings me to the root of all this violence and aggression against women. Women with whom these men are in an intimate relationship and whom they should value and love as partners. Instead, they view women as possessions, servants at best. Something disposable if it doesn’t work as expected.
It has been shown that the man’s firm belief that the woman is his property, which he controls, is often the source of violence.
In a 2013 study, Elizabeth A. Bates et al. showed that men’s violence against women can be traced back to patriarchal values that motivate men to control women’s behavior, using violence if necessary.
Professors Rebecca and Russell Dobash, criminologists at the University of Manchester, spent ten years interviewing murders in British prisons, researching and writing their book “When Men Murder Women.”
What they found was that in the majority of intimate partner killings, the men considered the woman as “theirs.” When they realized she was leaving and wasn’t coming back, they destroyed them.
In an interview with Vice, they explained:
“What generally happens is he wants the woman and thinks she’s his, so he tries to get her back. Often, he tries cajoling her or, ironically, beating her up. In these cases, eventually they realize she won’t come back and change the project to annihilating her.”
Femicide occurs when men see women as property and not as equal human beings. They are a global problem. Any woman, anywhere, has a risk of running into a man who wants to possess and control her.
According to UNDOC, 47,000 women and girls worldwide were killed by their intimate partners or other family members in 2020.
High-income countries are no exception. Among them, the United States is the most unsafe for women; 70% of femicides occur here. Nearly three women are killed every single day.
When I look at the measly number of 664 brown bear attacks globally — not in a year, but in 15 years — I get it. As disagreeable as an encounter with a bear might turn out— statistically speaking, they’re still the safer bet.
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