Ending violence against women

Feb 27, 2025 Editorial, News

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Editorial…

Kaieteur News- On Sunday news broke about the gunning down of 27-year-old Kenesha Vaughn allegedly by her husband at their Diamond, East Bank Demerara home.

Vaughn died while receiving treatment at the Diamond Hospital, this newspaper reported. Her husband, Marlan DaSilva, 32 was arraigned at the Diamond Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday. Investigators had said that at the time of his arrest, DaSilva’s alcohol level in his body was 83%. The report stated that initial investigations revealed that DaSilva was drinking at a popular drinking establishment on Main Street, Georgetown, prior to the shooting. His wife, according to police had called him to come home and it reportedly annoyed DaSilva. He arrived home around 20:00hrs. and met Vaughn in the kitchen. They got into a heated argument and it reportedly escalated into violence when DaSilva slapped Vaughn. Allegations are that the woman then ran for a knife and returned. As she allegedly approached him, DaSilva pulled out his gun and began shooting her. She fell to the ground wounded and he called police immediately after.

The killing of Vaughn is one in a series of murders of our women in this country over the years. Just last week, the government reported that there were 1,863 cases of domestic and gender-based violence last year. The Ministry of Human Services in outlining its plans to tackle the scourge has outlined several strategies to address these social issues, including strengthening policies aimed at removing discrimination and violence against women, providing shelter and financial assistance to vulnerable groups, implementing gender equality and mainstreaming initiatives, and expanding rehabilitation programmes for youth in conflict with the law.

When we think of Vaughn’s killing and that of countless other women at the hands of men, the question is asked why are men so violent (to women)? What triggers that violent behaviour? The patriarchal culture? The macho image that predominates?

Modern theories seek psychological explanations. Men who have experienced rejection and feelings of inadequacy in childhood suffer in adult life from the same inadequacy and impaired ‘ego-function’, and have antisocial and pre-morbid personalities. They may also have witnessed, or suffered, violence as children. Some researchers think that “the love/hurt/rage reactions that helpless boys feel towards their abusive, powerful parent/s were replayed by these men in their marriages. Such men experience mood swings, pain and anger, they may be seriously depressed. Poverty and monetary frustration trigger violence in many men.”

While all of that may be true, women have also undergone all sorts of dysfunctional pressures when they were children – including the violence in all shapes and forms from the hands of men that we are discussing – but their infliction of violence against men is but a minuscule fraction of what they suffer. Ultimately, the issue is one of power: men have it, and use that power to oppress women, who are generally bereft of it. The effort, therefore, by the Ministry of Human Services to attack the problem of violence against women by focusing on strengthening policies and providing shelter for the victims, while commendable and necessary, does not go to the root of the problem. It is a case of dealing with the symptoms and ignoring the cancer that continues to metastasise in every relationship between men and women at all levels of society.

In our society, notwithstanding all the protestations to the contrary, women are not considered as equal to men. The situation starts with the very birth of the girl child: she is extolled as a “delicate flower” that must be protected. Protected by the men, that is. Such a relationship is by nature unequal, since the protector inherently is assumed to have the power to protect the “flower”, which the former, just as inherently, is assumed to lack. And since we know that all power corrupts, we ought not to be surprised that the male consistently abuses the power conferred simply by his biology: biology becomes destiny.

If Guyana ever hopes to get a handle on the overwhelming one-way violence directed by males against females (who may be even socialised to accept that violence), it will have to deal with the basic inequalities that define the male and female roles in the society. These have to be engendered at two levels: at the level of values that insidiously undermine the worth of females, and in the political-legal realm. In the first level, the role of the religious bodies is critical: more than any other institution, they construct gilded cages for females.

In the political-legal realm, more job opportunities for equal wages with men is a good place to start. When, for instance, Guyanese families migrate to the North, where the struggle for gender equality has progressed much farther than here, women very quickly become empowered to take control over their lives and end abusive relationships. The simple fact that women in the developed societies have greater access to jobs that can support them gives them the courage to resist violence from spouses and other family members. We hope for more progress in defeating this scourge of violence against women.

(Ending violence against women)

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• DaSilva, Editorial, Kenesha Vaughn, Marlan DaSilva, popular drinking establishment

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