ON the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day, Help & Shelter joins in saluting the women who have struggled and survived to achieve dignity and equality in Guyana and around the world. Help & Shelter remains concerned at the intensity of the violence against women, which continues despite the national initiatives that are in place. Help & Shelter reinforces its call to the Guyana Police Force to establish the domestic violence units to monitor and implement the GPF’s strategy to deal with domestic violence. The lack of resources is not an excuse for the lives lost due to domestic violence.

The Guyana Chronicle of 5 March, 2011, reports that the President talked about men succumbing more and more to the pressure of ‘feminisation’ of men. Those comments, which were made in a context of the launch of the Men’s Affairs Bureau and seem to indicate that  being feminine is a bad thing, are a cause for concern, especially since the President noted that the Men’s Affairs Bureau is not meant to be anti-female.

Help & Shelter’s experience has shown that many of the men who are displaying the negative tendencies that the President spoke about do so to prove that they are masculine and not feminine.
The President and the Ministry of Human Services should clarify these comments as the underlying philosophy does not bode well for the relationship between men and women in Guyana.
Help & Shelter nevertheless welcomes the establishment of the Men’s Affairs Bureau and wishes them all success in their endeavours to improve the lives and status of men in Guyanese society. It is however important to recognize that the problems and challenges men face should not be confused with the achievement or over-achievement of women or changing gender roles in society.
The advances made by women have been the result of hard work, sheer determination and perseverance under the most difficult of circumstances. Over the past 100 years, women have heroically chartered their own course for freedom and equality, as should every group that faces marginalization, discrimination and oppression.
While there is evidence that girls and women are surpassing boys and men in many areas, this trend is not uniform by any means, even here in Guyana. The political landscape of Guyana has been dominated by men and continues to be even though representation of women as ministers of government and parliamentarians has increased. The top executives and ‘captains of industry’ in Guyana are also predominantly male, even though the glass ceiling has been pierced by a few women who are now company CEOs.
In sport, males also tend to dominate, especially in the most popular fields of cricket, football and basketball, which receive the lion’s share of funding. In the field of education it is a well known fact that as salaries and the status of teachers decreased and declined so did the exodus of male teachers from the primary and secondary institutions.
In the context of education, the President needs to clarify what he meant as reported in the Chronicle article about ‘boys not receiving the same standard of education as girls’. This is an extraordinary statement, as it seems to imply that there is a systematic practice of gender discrimination against boys in Guyana’s schools and educational institutions.
It is indisputable that the poorest households in Guyana still tend to be single parent households headed by women, and the poorest persons continue to be women and children. According to surveys conducted, one or two out of every three women in Guyana suffer domestic violence at the hands of their male partners.
This is a good indicator of which sex continues to exert power and control through the use of violence in the context of gender relations in Guyana. We look forward to all efforts of the MAB to work with men to eliminate the growing problem of domestic violence and other forms of violence against women.
In 1995, women constituted 51% of the world’s population, did 90% of the work and yet owned only 10% of the land and less than 1% of the world’s wealth. It was these statistics that fuelled and energized women to organize for their empowerment, development and emancipation from gender discrimination and invisibility.
This struggle and fight for equality for all women continue and are not knee-jerk responses, but are based on determination and commitment to resistance against oppression and inequality.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Several of Chronicle’s senior staff members were present at the Umana Yana, and neither by inference nor word did the President suggest at the MAB launch that being feminine is a bad thing; and it is very mischievous of anyone to suggest that he did. However, there are predators in the society – of every sexual predisposition and preference that influence and corrupt the minds of Guyana’s children, and if anyone disputes this then they have a dishonest agenda.
The President addressed a delicate situation very sensitively, because, just as heterosexual adults are influencing young girls to become licentious even before they mature; likewise homosexuals are doing the same to children of both sexes, but primarily to boys.  No one in their right minds would deny that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.  It is not okay for boys without a predisposition to homosexuality to be lured into that orientation – either by persuasion or psychological indoctrination.  While not denying an adult’s right to choose their own lifestyles (within the confines of the law) it is the right of the president of the country to seek to protect those youths without role models who are vulnerable to influences that could direct them toward an orientation that is not natural to them, and boys in female dominated households are specially susceptible to such influences.
Also, the President did not say that boys do not ‘receive’ the same education(al) standards as girls.  Our reporter has acknowledged his mistake, for which the Chronicle apologises.  What the President expressed concern about was the fact that boys do not ‘achieve’ the same educational standards as girls; which no one in their right minds can dispute, because the records are there and cannot be disproved.
This newspaper will no longer respond on this issue, because the clarification that has been provided is adequate explanation to the concerns raised by persons mainly in the Kaieteur News.