Notes on gender-based violence in Guyana

Dec 13, 2016 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
It is difficult to obtain a complete picture of gender-based violence in Guyana because it often remains hidden.
A person who is being abused may have been a victim for a long time before seeking support, while some survivors never tell anyone about the abuse. A person who is abused may endure it before seeking help, while others may never tell anyone or have the opportunity to speak out.
Some psychologists are of the view that persons who are being abused may be reluctant, unable to talk about, or report abuse for many different reasons, including having a strong emotional attachment to the abusive partner; having a strong belief about keeping their relationship or family together and paramount of them all is the economic situation of the woman.
It is no secret that women are approximately three times more likely than men to report being sexually assaulted, beaten, choked, or threatened with a gun or a knife by their partner or ex-partner in the previous five years (34 per cent versus 10 per cent). According to reports from the Ministry of Public Security, just under half (45 per cent) of female victims of abuse were harassed by a former intimate partner, while an additional six per cent were abused by a current intimate partner.
Conversely, 23 per cent of male victims were abused by either a former or current intimate partner.
Some researchers have noted that women also experience higher levels of certain types of emotional abuse. Compared to men, women:
* Were four times more likely to report being threatened, harmed, or having someone close to them threatened or harmed;
* Were four times more likely to report being denied access to family income;
* Were more than twice as likely to report having their property damaged or their possessions destroyed;
* Reported a higher incidence of being isolated from family and friends;
* Reported a higher rate of name-calling and put-downs.
The principal impulse of an abuser is to have control over the victim. Most abusers use strategies such as isolation, threats, and occasional indulgences, demonstrations of omnipotence, degradation, and enforcement of trivial demands. These tactics prevent victims from leaving abusive relationships.
In his paper titled, “Feminism Against Science,” Professor Steven Goldberg argues that the cognitive and behavioural differences between men and women are established through their respective physiologies, and that society and gender are a reflection of biological realities.
Advocates of Biological Determinism have argued that men and women are the same in aptitude, skill, or behaviour and that biological reality reveals a comparative relationship of sexual asymmetry. The argument raised by Goldberg is allegedly based on solid scientific findings. However, these ‘findings’ and results are often filtered and manipulated to strengthen the denigrations of abuse.
Debates about gender equality refer to the asymmetrical power balance experienced between men and women due to differences in their gendered identities. On this, Anne Sisson Runyan in her Global Gender Issues in the New Millennium contends that:
‘… the social construction of gender is actually a system of power that not only divides men and women as masculine and feminine, but typically also places men and masculinity above women and femininity and operates to value more highly those institutions and practices that are male-dominated and/or representative of masculine traits and styles’. This is a contemporary analysis of modern gender constructs and the relations between the sexes, yet the idea of gender equality has been a major international principle of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I believe progress towards achieving gender equality has failed to substantially materialise, and that there still exists an unambiguous gap between formal commitments to the equal rights and responsibilities of men and women and against discrimination and subordination based on sex of gendered realities of women’s lives.
Gender is an organising principle of social life, and change towards equality will require exceptional institutional and gender identity reform. Realising gender equality is strongly weighted on the contribution of males, because the very gender inequalities in economic assets, political power, cultural authority, and means of coercion that gender reform intend to change (ultimately) mean that men control most of the resources required to implement women’s claims for justice. It is no doubt that men are the indispensable enablers for gender reform.
Masculinities and male stereotypes must be studied and deconstructed in order to effect change in how men relate to women. Stereotypes, or gender profiles, play an important role in the discussion of gender equality. They attribute certain characteristics to whole segments of society with the intention of presenting perception as truth. In relation to gender, stereotypes form the basis of how society believes men and women should act.
I have strongly believed that men who exhibit the traits of traditional masculinity and are considered to possess hegemonic masculinity are a major contributing factor for gender-based violence. These social classifications that include power/strength, rationality, risk-taking, dominance, strong leadership, control, and repression of emotions are nothing more than negative masculinity that continue to promote gender-based violence.
Adel Lilly

---

---