"You Can't Take A Grown Man Away From His Family"

A crime story in Minsk caused a stir on social media.

On Friday, September 11, Belarus was shocked by the news about 43-year-old Tatyana Martishchenko: the pregnant woman who went missing on the 8th pregnant woman was found dead. Her partner and the child’s father were detained on suspicion of murder. It turned out that he was married—and because of this, he and Tatyana had clashed on more than one occasion, with their last argument ending in tragedy. As soon as this became known, heated discussions about the incident began on social media. And alongside condolences, grief, and anger, one often came across the opinion: “Why was she even dating a married man in the first place?” Both men and women asked this question, thereby reinforcing the entrenched stereotype: men cheat, but everyone else is to blame. Irina Sidorskaya, Ph.D., , explains why this happens for "Zerkalo".

Irina Sidorskaya

Ph.D. in Communication, researcher of media, government, and gender. For over twenty years, she taught at the Faculty of Journalism at BSU, where she headed the Department of Communication Technologies and Public Relations from 2010 to 2020.

In 2020, she openly supported the pro-democracy protests, after which she resigned from the university. She continues her research and expert work in Poland.

Why, in situations of violence, do we once again ask what the woman did wrong

The news that Tatiana, a 43-year-old pregnant woman from Minsk who had gone missing, was found murdered—and that the alleged killer is the father of her unborn child—unfortunately fits the pattern of violence against women. According to the UN, 60% of women who are intentionally killed are murdered by current or former partners or other family members. Pregnancy offers no protection: studies show that it is precisely during this period that a woman may be particularly vulnerable to intimate partner violence.

This incident has shaken public opinion. People are shocked, sympathize with the victim, and want to know the details. Particular attention in the discussion was drawn to the fact that, according to the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the alleged killer was in a formal relationship with another woman.

In light of this, comments began to speculate on why the victim was seeing a married man, why she entered into such a relationship, and what she expected. At the same time, we have no precise information on whether Tatiana knew that the father of her unborn child was involved with someone else, how he himself described his situation to her, or what their relationship was like.

But as a gender researcher, that’s not even what interests me. The question arises again and again: Why, in a situation where a competent adult has committed specific socially reprehensible and criminally punishable acts, does public attention so easily shift to the question of what the other party should have done to prevent these acts from occurring?

This is by no means the first instance of such a shift in responsibility. When a married man enters into a relationship with another woman, it is she who “steals him away from his family,” while the wife is portrayed as the one who “failed to keep him.” When a man commits harassment, society asks whether the woman gave him a reason and whether she set clear enough boundaries. After a rape, people discuss the victim’s clothing, how much alcohol she had consumed, and why she was with that man in the first place. In cases of domestic violence, women are asked why they didn’t leave sooner, and often—why they chose such a partner in the first place. The situations are completely different, but the logic behind the allocation of responsibility is the same: it falls on the woman.

“They took the man away”—but where is he in this story?

The very phrase “taking a man away from his family” is telling. You can take away a child who is not yet capable of making responsible decisions. You can “take away” a dog left tied up outside a store. But what does it mean to “take away” an adult with full legal capacity who makes his own decisions about entering into a relationship, continuing it, hiding it or not from his partner, and staying in or leaving a marriage?

And here lies the paradox. The traditional gender model grants men significantly greater agency than women. Men are considered more rational, independent, and capable of making important decisions, leading people, managing money, and governing organizations and the state. For centuries, it was precisely these qualities that justified men’s dominant position in virtually all spheres of public life. But as soon as we move into the realm of romantic or sexual relationships—especially when it comes to behavior for which a man must take responsibility—his agency seems to vanish.

It’s not “he cheated”—it’s “she led him on.” Not “he began harassing a woman”—“she provoked him.” Not “he violated her boundaries”—“she didn’t make it clear enough that she was uncomfortable.” Not “he used violence”—“she pushed him to it.” The reasons for a man’s behavior turn out to be alcohol, jealousy, sexual arousal, circumstances, love (!), “male nature,” and, of course, the woman herself. In other words, a man remains an active agent as long as his right to act and make decisions is at stake, but he strangely loses this agency when the question of responsibility for the consequences of his own actions arises.

Responsibility Without Power

The opposite happens with a woman. She cannot decide for a grown man whether he will cheat on his wife, harass a female coworker, respect her refusal, or control his own aggression. Yet it is the woman who is attributed the ability—and at the same time the obligation—to manage all of this. She is supposedly expected to build relationships “correctly,” recognize danger in time, not give him a reason, clearly, yet not rudely, to preserve the family—and, when it comes to her own husband, to ensure he doesn’t feel the need to seek relationships on the side.

This could be called responsibility without authority. A woman has no means of controlling the behavior of another adult, yet she is held accountable for failing to anticipate, prevent, or steer that behavior in a safe direction. Moreover, this responsibility is presented not as an additional burden, but as a recognition of women’s unique abilities. We’ve all heard that a wise woman knows how to manage a man, a good wife knows how to keep the family together, and the “atmosphere at home” depends on the woman. It sounds nice and even complimentary, but let’s take this idea further: if it is the woman who is responsible for the atmosphere at home, who will be to blame when that atmosphere turns sour?

This model becomes particularly evident in situations of male infidelity, because the responsibility of one man can be shifted onto two women at once. One “couldn’t keep him,” the other “stole him away.” These women may condemn one another, compete, and try to figure out who destroyed the family, but the one person without whose decision the infidelity would never have happened at all ends up being a passive object of their actions. And here I’d like to ask a simple question: why do we demand that an outside woman take greater responsibility for preserving someone else’s marriage than we do from the person who is actually in that marriage?

That said, I do not believe that a relationship with a married person is ethically neutral. If a woman knows that a man is in a monogamous relationship, one can discuss her moral choice. But it was the man himself who took on the obligations to his partner in the first place. And certainly, no possible violation of moral standards by the woman makes her responsible for the violence committed against her.

“I managed—why can’t she?”

There is another aspect of this issue that I have repeatedly noticed when stories of harassment or domestic violence were discussed publicly, and which seems important to highlight here. Other women—especially older ones—can judge a victim’s behavior particularly harshly and critically. For victims, this reaction is especially painful: they expect support, understanding, and a motherly willingness to protect from older women. But instead, they hear: “That happened to me too, and I always knew how to put a man in his place and never complained to anyone”; “A smart woman should know how to handle men”; “If you behave properly, nothing like that will happen.”

It seems to me that to understand this reaction, we need to take these women’s experiences into account. Many of them have lived for decades in an environment where sexualized jokes and unwanted touching by coworkers, intrusive attention from a boss, or the need to constantly calculate whether ordinary friendliness might be interpreted by a man as an invitation, were considered a normal part of the female experience. No one explained to them that a man is obligated to respect others’ boundaries, and that the organization is responsible for creating an environment in which a female employee does not have to defend herself against her own boss.

Instead, women were expected to learn how to handle such situations on their own: to joke it off, step away in time, avoid being alone with him, “not give him a reason,” and, if necessary, put a man in his place—but in a way that wouldn’t result in negative consequences for anyone. And many did indeed learn—moreover, the ability to handle such situations could be perceived as proof of one’s own maturity, strength, and the much-talked-about “feminine wisdom.”

Therefore, when a young woman today says, “I don’t want to learn how to ‘properly’ fend off my boss, because my boss shouldn’t be hitting on me,” it’s not just a clash of two assessments of a specific situation, but a clash of two different norms. What one woman has grown accustomed to seeing as an unpleasant but inevitable part of life—something she must learn to overcome on her own—another calls harassment and demands that the very conditions in which such behavior becomes possible be changed. And this can be perceived almost as a demand for special treatment: why should it be easier for you than it was for me? Why is it that what caused me so much pain and disappointment—something I couldn’t speak openly about and eventually learned to cope with—becomes, for you, a reason to demand protection, empathy, and a change in the rules?

There is a similarity here to hazing. Having experienced injustice does not automatically make a person show solidarity with those who face it later. Sometimes, on the contrary, it becomes an argument in favor of preserving it: “It was hard for me, but I endured it—so you should too.” Moreover, acknowledging that today’s women have the right to demand different rules also means taking a fresh look at one’s own experiences and asking oneself a difficult question: Perhaps what I considered for many years to be proof of my “feminine wisdom” and ability to handle men was actually extra work to prevent someone else’s unacceptable behavior—work that society, for some reason, had placed on me?

What should she have done to stop him from doing that?

That is precisely why I think the comments about a “married man” under the news story about Tatiana’s murder did not appear by chance. They follow a long-familiar pattern in which a man’s actions are very quickly linked to a woman’s behavior that supposedly could have prevented them. The circumstances and the severity of the incident may change, but the question itself remains virtually the same: what should the woman have done to prevent the man from doing what he did?

It is precisely here that the selectivity of male subjectivity becomes particularly evident. As long as the discussion revolves around the right to make decisions, take action, allocate resources, and set the rules, the man remains a full-fledged agent. But as soon as the question of responsibility for the consequences of one’s own actions arises, explanations emerge that erode this subjectivity: he “couldn’t resist,” “was in a state of passion,” he was “carried away,” “provoked”… In other words, subjectivity as a whole is not rejected—only the part of it that implies responsibility.

We do not know whether Tatiana was aware that her partner was involved in another relationship, just as we are unaware of many other circumstances surrounding their relationship. But even if we accept the version most convenient for those who condemn her today—that she knew everything, consciously entered into a relationship with a married man, and wanted him to leave his family— Then we can discuss her moral choice, disagree with it, and criticize it. But that choice did not force the man to enter into a relationship with her, continue it, or—much less—commit a crime.

It is impossible to “take a grown man away from his family” the same way one might take a child by the hand. He can leave or stay, be unfaithful or remain faithful, tell the truth or lie, end one relationship and start another. And he alone is responsible for each of these decisions.

Therefore, when, after a woman’s murder, we once again ask what she did wrong, we should reframe the question. Not “What should she have done to prevent him from doing this?” but “Why do we continue to look to her behavior for an explanation of an adult man’s actions?”

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