We claim to value truth. We build monuments to justice. We teach our children to speak up. Yet when a woman speaks about her violation, a different machinery engages. Our first instinct is not belief. It is interrogation. We demand evidence where there can be none. We question her memory as if trauma files a perfect report. We scrutinise her character, her past, her tone. This is not a natural response. It is a learnt, cultural reflex. It is a defence mechanism for a social o

I once sat in a room and helped a man build a cage for his wife. I did not lift a hammer. I did not twist a wire. I simply listened. A friend, a man I respected, dissected his wife’s character over a low table. He listed her flaws as if reading a defective inventory. He critiqued her failures, her tone of voice, the very space she occupied in his world. We called it venting. We called it a private moment among men. We nodded. We offered him more tea. We changed the subject.

What do we choose to protect when we call a violent man ‘good’? The phrase echoes in the aftermath, a haunting refrain that isolates survivors and shields perpetrators. We hear it from neighbours, from relatives, even from our own conflicted minds. “But he was such a good man.” This myth of the dual identity is not a nuance. It is a lie. It is one of the most pervasive and dangerous obstacles to ending gender-based violence. It is the social alibi that lets cruelty walk free.