What is himpathy? Understanding the social protection of men accused of gender violence
Vocal Africa officials Yurub Isaak (front left), Mitchelle Ijai (centre) and Unicon official Jackline Anyango (right), among other members, address journalists on the alarming rise in femicide in Kenya, at their offices in Nairobi on May 6, 2026. The lobby group called for urgent government action, improved police investigations and stronger judicial measures to curb gender-based violence and ensure justice for victims.
What you need to know:
- Himpathy protects male perpetrators by shifting blame onto women while silencing victims seeking justice and accountability globally.
- Misogyny and himpathy reinforce gender inequality by excusing male violence and undermining women’s testimonies and lived experiences.
Himpathy is the disproportionate and unwarranted sympathy extended to male perpetrators of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, or misogynistic behaviour. It prioritises male reputations, condemns female victims, deflects accountability, obstructs justice, and protects perpetrators, while inflicting verbal abuse and excruciating pain on women through blame-shifting.
This grotesque phenomenon offers instant gratification to men while compounding the victimisation of oppressed women. Boys and men who commit acts of sexual violence or engage in entrenched contempt towards women often receive sympathy and concern over their female victims. This societal tendency aggressively judges aggrieved women and encourages men irrationally to defend male perpetrators while blaming female victims.
Women murdered by men are accused of being gold-diggers and complicit in their own deaths. Schoolgirls who are kidnapped and sexually assaulted are humiliated by society for allegedly being careless about their own safety, despite their vulnerability. Blame is shifted from the accused to the victim, diminishing the will to seek justice.
Many men are comfortable with the oppression of women, regardless of the severity of the transgressions committed. Men possess an insatiable misogynistic desire to dominate hierarchies, resources, opportunities, and privileges. Therefore, whenever one of them is singled out for crimes, that challenges patriarchy, causing men to feel threatened and resort to himpathy to neutralise that threat.
According to patriarchal systems, it is considered unconscionably absurd for an illustrious man to answer serious and credible accusations of sexual misconduct, murder, or criminal investigation. There is often no comparable empathy towards victims or their families, despite the fact that these same men are fathers to daughters and sons to mothers.
Himpathy encapsulates many of society’s dynamics and perfectly captures the concept of entitlement, which elevates the widespread perception that a privileged man is owed something regardless of the crimes he commits. It makes male criminals appear to be the real victims, emboldened by displays of misogyny. Himpathetic crowds of naysayers, including doubtful women, deliver harsh language aimed at tearing down female victims.
Read: Kenya's worrying femicide statistics exacerbated by victim blaming: Where did we drop the ball?
Cornell University associate professor Kate Manne emphasises that himpathy should not be understood as a monolithic, deep-seated psychological hatred of girls and women. She states that it magnifies several aspects of misogyny and should be conceptualised as the “law enforcement” branch of patriarchy. It is a system that functions to police and enforce gendered norms and expectations, involving girls and women enduring distinctly hostile treatment.
Rape, sexual assault, child abuse, and domestic violence fit this description, as girls and women are more likely to be subjected to such violence than their male counterparts. Himpathy is, therefore, a tyrannical arm of misogyny that is typically, though not invariably, a response to a woman’s violation of gendered “law and order”.
Women who speak up against such violations are often abused and receive death threats. To a himpathetic society, questioning a man and enforcing the law to deliver justice amounts to ruining his life. Himpathy makes male criminals appear to be the real victims, and men repeatedly respond with fury towards women when a perpetrator is questioned or caught in the act. In her book Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women, Kate says himpathy is similar to the electric shock collars used on dogs to keep them behind invisible suburban fences.
Cover of Kate Manne's book Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women.
Even when himpathy is not actively harming anyone, it discourages girls and women from venturing out or seeking legal recourse. If they stray or make mistakes, they know what awaits them: a barrage of vitriol from men. This is all the more reason why the testimonies of female victims should be regarded as courageous.
Kate tackles a wide range of ways in which misogyny, himpathy, and male entitlement work in tandem with other oppressive systems to produce unjust, perverse, and bizarre outcomes. Many of these stem from the perception that women are expected to provide “sex, care, nurturing, and reproductive labour” to men without question. Women are also expected to refrain from assuming traditionally masculine positions involving “power, authority, and claims to knowledge”.
These roles and privileges can be understood as those to which men are tacitly deemed entitled, and from which men derive himpathy when such privileges are perceived to have been taken by women. The book portrays an illegitimate sense of male entitlement that fuels a broad spectrum of misogyny.
When a woman fails to give a man what he believes he is owed, she faces reprisal—from him, his supporters, or the misogynistic social structures within which she exists. Within this system, women are deprived of guarantees to both feminine-coded and masculine-coded benefits. This results in inequalities ranging from inadequate care for their pain, accusations of sleeping their way up into traditionally male positions of power, to being denied the rightful authority to speak on subjects within their expertise.
Himpathy correlates with blaming and erasing the victims of misogyny. When sympathy is directed towards the perpetrator, women are subjected to suspicion and aggression for drawing attention to their attackers’ misconduct. Those who display himpathy subsequently find endless excuses for perpetrators, causing victims’ testimonies to lose credibility.
The writer is a novelist, former Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative, and founder of Jeff’s Fitness Centre (@jeffbigbrother).
