By Kemol King
Women in Guyana are nearly twice as likely to be killed by an intimate partner than by a stranger. The data proves it. In 2024, based on a Guyana Standard analysis of reports from six major news publications, there were 20 killings of women and girls. Nine of them were murdered by their intimate partners — husbands, boyfriends, and one fiancé. Five were killed by strangers. That means women in Guyana are almost twice as likely to be killed by a man they loved, lived with, or trusted than by a random assailant. And if you also count a killing where a man went looking for his ex and shot her twin sister instead, the role of the intimate partner in these murders becomes even more pronounced.
This state of affairs is not only the case in Guyana, but across the globe.
Yesterday was International Women’s Day. Another day of speeches, of social media posts, of celebration. There are many gains to celebrate. But celebrating women in 2025 should not come with complacency about all the work still left to do in a country where they are being murdered by the men closest to them.
For this study, the reports surveyed were from privately owned publications: Stabroek News, News Room, Kaieteur News, Guyana Times, Guyana Standard, and iNEWS Guyana. Killings occuring during the period January 1 – December 31, 2024 were recorded. The study excluded deaths involving vehicular incidents from its scope, unless the facts conveyed clear malicious intent — there was none.
Of the nine intimate partner killings, six were committed by husbands, two by boyfriends, and one by a fiancé. The manners in which these women were murdered also reveals the sheer brutality of these crimes: stabbings, choppings, beatings, and one beheading. These are men who made a decision to kill, who did so in ways that were vicious and personal.
And yet, every single time another woman is murdered by her partner, we go through the same cycle. Social media explodes with outrage. There is an outpouring of grief. A vigil. Moments of silence. Public figures release statements about how tragic it is. And then we wait. We wait for the next woman to be killed.
And when that happens, there will always be men ready to justify it. Every time a husband kills his wife, a boyfriend kills his girlfriend, or an ex kills the woman who left him, you will find men saying, “How much can a man take?” As if there is any excuse for murder. As if women are not also cheated on, betrayed, insulted, and hurt.
Trust that for every horrible thing women do to men, men do 10 times worse to women. There is only all of history as proof of this. Yet, they don’t kill their husbands and boyfriends at this alarming rate.This is not just about the women who die. Many more women are injured but survive. Many more live in fear, navigating relationships where anger could turn deadly.
Domestic abuse cases are everywhere, many of them involving men brutalizing the very women they claim to love. And beyond that, there is the pervasive sexual violence, the rape, the coercion, the entitlement that so many men feel over women’s bodies.
This is the reality: too many men feel entitled to women. They feel entitled to their time, their attention, their obedience, their bodies. When they don’t get what they think they deserve, their response is rage. And when their rage builds up, they kill. There are people who still like to say that women are the more emotional gender while men are the more stable one. A rancid lie. A fiction. Do they not see the overwhelming pattern of men killing their wives, girlfriends, and exes?
If men were the more stable gender, then why are they the ones who can’t handle rejection and a lack of control without resorting to murder? Why do so many of them act like toddlers who were never told “no” before? If they are so much more logical than women, then why is their reaction to anger not reason, but brutality?
And it’s not just the murderers. It’s the enablers. The men who defend them. The men who, when a woman is killed, go online to blame the victim — accusing her of cheating, disrespecting her man, “pushing him too far.” And this discourse is not complete without mentioning the pick-me. The women who pander to men’s excesses at the expense of their own self-respect. At the expense of all women.
When a woman was recently shot 12 times by her husband, the excuses came flooding in: she was unfaithful (as if that justifies execution), she must have done something (as if men are incapable of controlling their emotions). How is it a proportional response to take someone’s life and leave your son alone in the world without a parent to care for him? This can’t be the behaviour of the so-called logical gender. Infantilism is what it is. And entitlement. This is the learned belief that women exist to serve men, that their actions must be regulated, and that if they step out of line, violence is an acceptable response.
It starts from boyhood. Boys are not taught by this society to regulate their emotions in the same way girls are. Women are socialized from birth to be more keenly aware of other people’s emotions, to cater to them, to de-escalate situations. Women learn emotional intelligence for their survival. Men, on the other hand, are not to the same extent taught to handle their emotions in healthy ways. They grow up thinking that their anger is always justified, that their feelings are paramount, and that they have the right to control the women in their lives.
Last year, the Guyana Parliament passed a Family Violence Bill. It’s an important step. But let’s be clear. This is not a solution to the problem. This bill prosecutes gender-based violence, but it does not prevent it. It reacts after the fact. This is important too. But the problem also needs more pre-emptive solutions to address why men feel so entitled to kill their partners in the first place.
If we actually want to change this, we have to start with boys. Are our Health and Family Life Education curricula doing enough? Are schools teaching boys that masculinity should not be about violence and domination, but about self-control and respect?
But it can’t just be schools. This has to be an entire cultural shift. Men themselves need to hold each other accountable. Abusers are enabled by loved ones who contribute to normalizing their behaviour. It should not take a woman being murdered for men to speak up about misogyny and violence. Everyone doesn’t need to be an activist. But they should call out problematic behaviour every day, among their own friends and family. They have to live it.
Society needs to stop rewarding entitled, emotionally unstable men with excuses, second chances, and understanding that is not afforded to women.
I am tired of vigils. I am tired of moments of silence. I am tired of people acting shocked every time another woman is killed. This is not shocking. This is a pattern. This will not stop until men change. Until men stop being raised with entitlement and emotional immaturity. Until they stop believing that their rage is a justification for taking a woman’s life. Until they stop enabling the murderers among them. Until we recognize that our socialization of boys and men carries problematic dimensions that contribute to the problem.
It’s okay to tell women to be careful. But do not be deluded into thinking this is the solution. Women are killed when they say yes, and when they say no. When they are pliant. When they are defiant. Such is the nature of a man-child. The killers are the problem.
