Historian, women and gender groups explore causes of increased violence in women

Recent social media videos showed the violent attack of a young school girl by her peers – unfortunately just one example of woman-on-woman, girl-on-girl violence in TT or the Caribbean.

Traditionally, patriarchal concepts view women as peaceful, non-violent beings. But is that changing?

The Women’s Institute for Alternative Development (WINAD) held a panel discussion on June 5, entitled Countering Challenges to Small Arms Control: Local, Regional and Global Perspectives, and participants called for women to play a greater role in ending gun violence. This prompted inquiry into whether women in TT are becoming more violent and a look at the possible causes.

Newsday spoke with historian Jerome Teelucksingh, WINAD’s executive director Folade Mutota and CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice director Angelique Nixon on the matter.

Mutota said based on research done by the organisation and information from the police’s Crime and Problem Analysis, a small percentage of women committed serious crimes: homicides, serious felonies etc.

“For example, we don’t have women being held under the gang legislation,” but in 2019, a woman was among three arrested and expected to be charged under the anti-gang legislation, and in 2023, a Jamaican was charged and convicted under that country's anti-gang legislation.

Also from WINAD’s research, when women were found committing these serious crimes, it was usually prompted by men, Mutota said.

“As far as the information that we have from the TTPS, because they gave us the data and we also had a discussion, there is not a significant number of women involved in serious crimes.”

When asked about the gendered dimension of crime and violence, she said women are more involved in other crimes like petty theft and it is important that countries focus on those known to be the main perpetrators of violent crimes – young, urban men.

“That is the gender perspective of violent crime in TT and Caricom states. It is young men, in the most productive time of their lives, we are seeing as the main perpetrators and victims.

“Subsequently, that has a potential impact on our productivity and economy.

“Therefore, when we have to be thinking about policy and legislation, we have to take into account that you are not just dealing with an abstract force that is perpetrating crime or are victims of crime, but a productive labour force that is engaged in violent crime and criminality.”

Governments have to weigh what that means for societal development, she said.

And while there are reports of women involved in violent criminal activity, those reports are anecdotal.

“In TT, you have several reports coming about women leading gangs. In our case (TT), it seems to be more a situation of her intimate relationship with the gang leader.

“It is like a co-leadership,” she said.

There are also reports of girl gangs and talks of women leading other young women to engage in criminal activity, but there is no hard data supporting this.

Mutota said although incidents of violence against women and children are increasing, largely by men, the organisation finds that there is not an uptick in violence by women against men in response to this. She does not know if anywhere in TT or the region that kind of construct where women organised against male violence and pushed back exists. And although on a global scale women are consistently rising to positions of authority, Mutota warns against thinking that misogyny is on the decline.

“Misogyny does not sleep...

“Misogyny employs an adaptive strategy that quiets us and puts us into a false sense of security and accomplishment.

“You start to see numbers increasing in relation to where the numbers were in the past, and that increase can give some of us a false sense of accomplishment and comfort that misogyny is on the retreat.

“But it never does. What it is doing is managing your expectations,” she said. Mutota is fearful that women give too much space to that adaptive strategy.

“It is a milestone and not the end of the line. We have to continue working and delivering our work and arguments, campaigns and advocacy to challenge misogyny on a continued basis.”

She said one of the things women in the fight for equity and autonomy have to figure out is whether they wish to live in an oppressive system or work to dismantle it. Rejecting a violent, male-created system in a non-violent way require women to reject some of the values, structures and customs they are expected to uphold.

“That has been a very successful way for women and women’s organisations,” Mutota said.

It starts with the family

Historian Jerome Teelucksingh believes violence witnessed and experienced by women have had a lasting effect – making some women bitter and angry.

In two specific cases he can recall, women hired hitmen after witnessing the deaths of loved ones by violent means.

And while he does not have the statistics on hand, he said violence is affecting everyone despite gender.

“Although we see men being involved in the crimes, murders, we are seeing young women being violent...

“I am seeing it and the public is seeing it, at the secondary school level, at the primary-school level, this violent nature is occurring.”

For him, globally, women are becoming more violent because of the wider violence transuding through society.

“Violence was a form of revenge and the only form of settling grievances. I am seeing this coming up in TT, where there is nothing like mediation or counselling.

“There is nothing like, ‘Let us solve this peacefully.”

TT is not alone in its fight against violence, he said.

“It is difficult when we are trying to promote peace...we are preaching unity and we have this violence occurring on a daily basis.”

Teelucksingh believes wars and other multi-country tensions will only make this worse as time moves on, and he calls on international organisations such as the United Nations to be more firm and to remind countries about the dangers of rearming as well as nuclear and other war technologies.

“The future looks gloomy, and, as small countries we have to speak with one voice when we see these things happening.”

He said ineffective justice systems also play an integral role in the swelling global violence.

He believes a resolution to violence must start with the family, and once a child is disciplined at home, a classroom could be unruly but the child will stay calm.

The classroom, he said, is supposed to be the second indiscipline truckstop, but nipping it in the bud starts with the family. And while governments are not to be blamed for indiscipline in children, enough resources needs to be allocated to address these problems.

Meanwhile, Nixon sees violence as a defining characteristic of the region through conquest, colonialism, slavery and indentureship.

“We are still living with these legacies of violence that affect other forms of violence based on gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, and migrant status, among other social identities,” she said in email responses to Newsday.

Gender justice activists and women’s rights organisations have been saying, for years, that there is a national crisis around gender-based violence (GBV), family violence and intimate-partner violence, where the rates of femicides and violence against women and girls continue at alarming rates, she said.

The network of NGOs, called The Alliance for State Action against GBV, has repeatedly called on government to do more to address violence, enact more social protections and invest more in GBV prevention.

Another growing area of violence, Nixon said, is violence against people based on their real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity, which is alarming and largely unacknowledged by the state.

“However, CAISO: sex and gender justice has been documenting these violations through the Wholeness and Justice Programme through Insights Reports produced and published annually since 2021,” she said.

Nixon does not believe women are any more inherently or naturally violent than men. She said women and girls are socialised to be less violent and accept more forms of violence because of gender and sexual norms.

In response to whether women are becoming more violent because of acts of violence perpetrated against them, Nixon said, “I have not seen any research or data on this, but I would say based on working with survivors and being a survivor myself – that it is very complicated and each situation is different.

“I think anyone is capable of committing violent acts to defend oneself or protect someone they love.”

She said TT and the region’s violent legacies need to be decolonised to begin the healing process, and this has to be infused into how the region’s children are educated, how young adults prepare for the world, and how the region’s people care for themselves and others.

“We have to get at the root causes of violence, generally and gender-based violence in particular – facing the reality that all forms of violence are connected – from how we treat children to marginalised people in society.”

There is currently an intense wave of backlash against women’s and human rights, more broadly with regressive laws against sexual and reproductive health and rights as well as LGBTQI+ rights, Nixon said.

“I have not seen any research or data to suggest that women are becoming more violent, but perhaps if women and other marginalised groups, people of diverse genders and sexualities, among other oppressed people were to respond with the same acts of violence (enacted through sexism, misogyny, patriarchy, etc) then maybe we would be having a different conversation.

“What if women were to take up weapons and fight back against sexist violence at the same alarming rate that men have been killing and harming women? Let’s think about it – how would the state respond?"

Nixon said people need to stop asking how women can defend themselves against violence and male aggression and instead ask how a society can better protect women and other marginalised groups. Society should instead ask men to hold each other accountable for violence enacted upon women.