ABSTRACT
Since the late 1990s, a number of signifi cant developments have helped push the issues of masculinity, culture, and power to the fore in the public discourse on women’s empowerment in Ghana. Since 1998, Ghana has recorded increasing reports of violence against women and mostly female children by men in a variety of situations, including brutal serial and spousal killings of women that generated headlines and attention in the public domain from 2000 to 2002. The spousal killings have been “justifi ed” under different framings of male rights and privilege. Media reports, for example, suggest that the wife-killings are frequently related to husbands’ constructions of their roles as family heads and providers, women’s failures to accord men their due respect by seeking permission before embarking on certain ventures, or perceptions about women’s sexuality.2
