HOW many more ‘Breaking News’ reports of abused women do we have to see before we realise that the scourge of violence against women is rooted in systemic, structural problems that simply cannot be solved by telling a woman to leave an abusive relationship? I wish I knew the answer.

Just recently, two women were killed by their partners. The body of 20-year-old Shonnette Dover was discovered in a shallow grave, in Linden, after it was revealed that she was allegedly shot dead by her boyfriend before he buried her in his backyard. There was also 43-year-old Nicola Wilson who was stabbed to death by her partner who later committed suicide.

Since 2019 it was revealed in a UNDP study that more than one in three Guyanese women experience intimate-partner violence (IPV) and some 20 per cent of women in Guyana have experienced non-partner sexual abuse (NPSV) in their lifetimes. Late last year, Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Dr. Vindhya Persaud, said that over 210,000, or three out of every five women have experienced some form of violence, either sexually or physically.

Again and again, these extremely unfortunate things happen. And again and again, we share these stories like wildfire and we talk about how sickening our society is becoming before a few days pass and we forget our anger and disappointment until the next breaking news hits us. It seems to be a daunting, unending cycle.

As I have referenced before, women’s rights activist Danuta Radzik emphasised that domestic violence and gender-based violence are not just a man getting drunk and beating his wife, or him beating his wife because she is not a good housewife. While these are issues that should be addressed with much alacrity, she clarified that those occurrences are symptoms of a system that oppresses women and women’s rights.

The root causes, according to her, include gender inequality, gender discrimination, and the social system of patriarchy. According to Abeda Sultan (2010), feminists use the term ‘patriarchy’ to describe the power relationship between men and women, as well as to find out the root cause of women’s subordination.

The need for transformed power relations has been touted as the way forward, since the entrenched system of patriarchy yields power over women, and even those men who are perceived to be “weaker.” These power relations are about who can make decisions and take action, and who does not. They are about who is accorded respect and authority, and who is not. They are about who is seen as the property of another person, or merely a sex object, and who is not. These power relations are pervasive because though the status quo is continuously challenged by people like our activists and advocates, the rest of us are only proactive for the short while we are angered and are mourning.

These unequal power relations between men and women are also pervasive because our socially constructed beliefs, norms, and traditions have legitimised how men interact (degrade and disrespect) with women, and on what women are supposed to stay silent. So when we talk about gender inequalities, these are all factors that must be considered and interrogated.

The thing is, if we are genuinely interested in seeing this scourge of violence against women eliminated, we have to be willing to understand that domestic violence is a systemic issue and we all interact with the system of oppression every single day. Our advocacy, activism, or simply, outrage must not end after a WhatsApp status or Facebook post. We have to be willing to do the hard work in dismantling these structural causes- whether that hard work means being activists and advocates, or supporting the activists and advocates, whether it means interrogating those relations in our private spaces, or whether it means sharing the knowledge with other people.

The deaths of these women must not merely add to yet another report from an international partner. These women and their utterly untimely and unfortunate deaths must be more than just statistics that are used to decry the scourge of action. There must be real, tangible efforts taken by each one of us to dismantle this systemic scourge that bedevils our country and the women in this country.

To answer the question of whether violence against women will ever stop, I will say only that it has to. It has to stop.

If you would like to discuss this column or any of my previous writings, please feel free to contact me via email: vish14ragobeer@gmail.com