They indicated that this is the main reason why cases of assault appear to affect more women because men resort to beating up their wives and girlfriend instead of reporting them.

Men also wanted to know if the Department of Women's Affairs has ever conducted a study, since its inception, to establish the cause of violence by men. They believed that what the department is currently doing is to address the end results without establishing the root cause of the problem.

They indicated that they cannot create space for women in decision making positions because the women's population is higher from primary school level up to tertiary education level and yet they do not take advantage of their numerical superiority. "At elections they are the ones who vote in large numbers but they choose to support men at the expense of other women."

They further said even the department's name 'Women's Affairs' excludes men, which indicates that its programmes are tailor made to help women and sideline men. They maintained that both sexes are equally affected by abuse and that while women suffer physical abuse men on the other hand suffer emotional abuse.

They also believe that empowerment of women have left men behind in that it failed to prepare them for these challenges. They also said the current generations have graduated from the era where men were expected to be breadwinners and women as housewives.

"Our law does not consider emotional abuse on men by women and there are no penalties against women who abuse men and we want to know when the law will include clauses that will punish women who do so otherwise we will never stop beating them up."

The men lamented that even when they try to report abuse to the police, officers laugh at them for being cowards and pointed out that they are often sent back to solve their issues amicably with their wives at home, while the police are quick to arrest them when it is the woman who reports. "The law has turned out to be a scapegoat for women and we demand laws that will equally punish women."  

Participants further indicated that there has to be balance in the way in which a boy and girl child are raised and that domestic chores must be equally delegated to both of them so that men do not end up cohabiting because they are used to a culture that a girl child should do all the domestic chores.

Senior gender officer Tebogo, Motlogelwa indicated that challenges faced by the girl child during their education process, like dropping out due to pregnancy and their tendency to opt for fragile courses, puts them at a disadvantage as they do not become assertive enough to take up positions of responsibility. She said they usually conduct researches to establish why women do not reach senior levels in the decision-making process. She added that to some degree women are also to blame because they do not support each other. She stated that men are not sidelined from the Women's Affairs Department and indicated that they have even proposed during the National Development Plan Ten (NDP 10) to have the department renamed the Gender and Development Department.