Women and Under Development in Jamaica

 Chapter 8 :Women and Under Development in Jamaica

Tracking the progress of Jamaican women is like negotiating and endless mind field without much result to show. As like every where else the contribution of women have been often undermined by the fact that history is recorded by men- trough masculine lenses. Women’s contribution to Jamaica’s historical progress has been reduced to basically Nanny of the maroons , the philanthropic Mary Seeacole, and the great cultural icon Louise Bennett -Coverly .The mother of the feminine movement Simone  de Beauvoir rightly points out that the word masculine and feminine are used symmetrically only as a matter of form, as on legal paper. But in actual reality women have always been enslaves among the human specie and deprived of the accolades of their contribution to human progress.

 I have always believed that all that is written about women is suspect because historically men have been the author, legislature and scribe of human history. Thus, the Jamaican Woman in pre and post independence has always been dependent on the Jamaican man to represent their accomplishment and in some circumstances- is used -as slaves to promote a masculine view of history. There are a few paltry exceptions of examples of men in Jamaica today that practice gender parallelism. The examples of policy and legislation that shape the lives of women is thin on the ground and when they occurs it smacks of a patronising offering and often lacks enforcement.

 In this chapter for the sake of organising the discussion I will focus on two sets of women in Jamaica. The first set is those that live above the poverty line and the second set who are a bit more fortunate. I will argue that women overall contribution has been remarkable but for the most part is stymied by hegemonic masculinity and often their achievements go unnoticed or unrecorded. Since the 19 70s women’s lot has improved educationally but they have not benefitted from that social advantage. I will broach the no- go -arena of the psychological undermining of women’s rights by a negative cultural trend in the Dance Hall movement that needs a rain check. A warning to the faint heart and politically correct that towards the end of this discourse there is a course set of descriptions that might be unsettling but necessary in order to expose a certain negative development.

 The domain of politics and cultural exposition in Jamaica is marked by entrenched masculinity. I have given an example in an earlier chapter of how female Prime Minister Portia Simpson’s short political rule was marked by a vicious a class war plotted by her male colleagues within the Peoples National Party. The other extreme is the manner in which misogyny lyrics by" mealy mouth" deejays continues to be aired in public spaces unchallenged. Despite the land mark reforms of the 1970s by the late Michael Manley which saw the introduction of equal pay for men and women a culture of masculinity have screened out women from the board rooms of corporate Jamaica. The problem with women is that they have not organised themselves to fight an actual battle against their male counter part historically.Mainly because they live dispersed among their oppressors and are sometimes  prisoners of their own biology.

The large amount of domestic violence in Jamaica and abuse of women in garrison communities is appalling and would mitigate an armed insurgency of women seeking a redress for their continued oppression. A perceived mass feminist upheaval with burning of braziers in front of Jamaica House the official Prime Ministers residence I am sure would be timely but perhaps not have the desired effect.

The most mediocre Jamaican middle class man or political don in the garrison considers himself as a demigod and looks down disdainfully on the bevy of women. The lack of a welfare system in Jamaica has made women living below the poverty line vulnerable to abuse .Irresponsible men in poor communities run off leaving their children behind subjecting women to the slavery of having to bring up the children on their own- In a man’s world where he is often devoid of any financial responsibility. The women, often single parents are left behind enslaved with the unpaid labour of bringing up children on their own without the resources to nurture them and the emotional and financial support from the children father. Usually they have to rely on their own bodies to rescue them so their biology becomes a prime currency of survival. As they use their bodies as a market place to trade on their own survival. Thus unfortunately they earn the undeserved labels of “bitches and whores” while their male counter parts warm the corners of the streets with a spilff in hand.

Children growing up in Jamaican inner cities reared in single parent families have to suffer the indignity of seeing the absentee father return occasionally to raid the grocery provided by her sex work leaving her in a cloud of dust with a ring around her eyes or a broken limb. Usually the assault is accompanied by accusing her of having an affair only to disappear again in order to escape the radar of a police warrant. In some extreme cases women are murdered in front of their children leaving their offspring’s to suffer without the financial help of the state social service apparatus often turn a blind eye due to a lack of resource. These unfortunate children are often left with their old and frail grannies lacking a Zimmer frame, others more fortunate are dispersed among relatives.

A UNICEF report done in 2007 revealed that 37% of the Jamaican population are children and one in every two Jamaican who live in poverty is a child. The same report showed that at that time there were 2000 children living in sub standard government institutions across the island deprived of a normal standard of care. “Womensphere” a global news organisation monitoring women’s civil liberties covered the 10^th anniversary launch of the Victim Support in Portmore St Catherine in August 2009.This is an area that houses the largest housing development in Jamaica. Among the guest speakers present was Carol Palmer Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice. It was revealed that since 2005, 22,739 cases of violence was seen by officers of the unit. Of this number 13,997 were females 8760 were male. Carol Palmer in her address commented “Women are more Vulnerable to become victims of violence as the seven groups which fall under the VSU are rape, carnal abuse, incest, attempt rape, indecent assault, domestic violence and murder. It is for this reason why women in Jamaica suffer” According to the latest Economic and Social survey carried out in Jamaica 9,625 incidents of domestic violence was reported in 2007, a 29.2 percent rise. A proximately 4.4 percent of the murders reported were attributed to domestic disputes, 0.1 percentage decline over 2006.

So in essence women below the poverty line   have become prisoners of their biology and have been starved by a lack of resource. Ironically it is their own biology has often come to their rescue at the expense of unwanted pregnancy, single parenting, domestic violence and sometimes death is the ultimate price. Furthermore their historic and cultural significance have often been undermined by their male counterparts.

Before exploring the experience of women from middle Jamaica it is important for me to lay out my own philosophical stall. Like many other Jamaican men I grew up under the ignorance of viewing the world through masculine lens. My readings of the work of great feminist writers such as Simone de Beauvoir and my foray into the social sciences rid me of the scales of ignorance concerning women’s rights from my eyes. Like Saul on the road to Damascus I am pro feminist and a very dripping wet left leaning liberal. So, in essence I am an advocator for gender parallelism. If there is one thing that separates us from the animal kingdom is our ability to define nature on our own terms.

Historically as human beings were originally hunters and gatherers with the division of labour clearly define between men and women. Men were the providers and women the carers. The role of hunters and our acquisition of wealth and the acquisition of property gave us the false notion that we were superior to our female counterpart. The wheel of history is enigmatic but it has an equitable component that often spins us from injustice towards justice. The industrial revolution fell at a fast pace and rapid new technologies are developing constantly it has caught men on their “back foot” unbalanced. The club that man used to wave over his head is replaced by new technologies whereby the only need is the press of a button. Mans muscular strength in most cases is no longer significant as all that mass of muscles is replaced by the click of an electronic mouse attached to a computer.

Today men and women have a level playing field and the rise of the feminist activism have signalled the warning to roll back the archaic laws against women that are unjust. According to evolutionary biology we all began life as a single cell and it seem as if history is compelling us to return to that liberating position of a single cell. It therefore seems unjust for men on the basis of their strength or the gender position or space that they occupy should unfairly assume that they should automatically hold a hierarchical space as opposed to a parallel on. Indeed a fair position should be assumed where by we see or role as complementary to rather than occupying an oppressive position where one gender sits above the other.

The middle class Jamaican women are divided into two categories the first set for the sake of this discussion will be called the rising middle class some of whom are pretenders or aspirants consist of mainly educated professionals and functionally literate small business women, IT workers and middle managers who are able to function with some amount of financial independence but are still vulnerable to the ebb and flows of living in an inflationary economic environment. The second set of women are Upper middle class and own property and wealth or those that are managers of financial insttutions,or high ranking Civil servants, Doctors, Lawyers or those women who have acquired this status by virtue of marrying a wealthy Jamaican male. The middle class have one thing in common they acquire a taste for European and American lifestyle and are quite ambitious and hard working and competitive among each other.

 It is also important to note that in Jamaica there is an overlap between social class and social capital. Hence social capital may take the form of high academic achievement, family fortunes or women receiving favourable acceptance if their complexion is of a lighter hue. In Jamaica women have a higher level of education than men. The ratio for enrolment at the University of The West Indies is a staggering 82: 12 loaded in favour of women. It would seem to suggest that men see higher education in the region as women’s domain there are four female students for every one male at the regions elite institution. There are more female University graduates in the Jamaican labour force than men but this progress has not been reflected in the corporate board room or in the elected parliament.

Jamaican woman’s sexuality have been hung dry and laid bare by the Deejays mainly male but a few women have joined the sordid bandwagon. The notions of feminine sexuality have long been defined along narrow lines and often are confined to the physical sexual act. In dance hall parody woman becomes the object of disgrace as opposed to be the subject of great celebration of mutually exclusive erotic desire. The male penis is seen as a ‘stiff object’ to inflict pain and visit humiliation upon the woman’s body. Marion Hall aka Lady Saw confirms this fact in one of her most celebrated narrative she pleads incessantly in one of her popular songs for men to stab out the meat meat: meaning vagina to be roughed up. There has always been a suspect relationship between sex and violence but it would seem as if the Jamaican dance hall deejays are working overtime to establish a concrete relationship between both variables. In other society’s sexual advantage is regarded as a consolation that is conceded to a female. In the dance hall world of ‘slackness music’ this female consolation receives an undignified battering. So for example Grammy award winner ‘Shabba Ranks’ describes the woman’s vagina with a creative but course narrative suggesting that it is made out of foot bottom material and it ‘cant run dung’ meaning that it deserves a battering because it cant be damaged.The self proclaimed doctor of Jamaican Dance Hall ‘Beenie Man’ makes a more a less course but outlandish disclosure that an old dog like him- has girls in twos and threes- much to the delight of his cheering and unashamed male and female audiences.

 Dance hall is an off shoot of main stream Reggae music is often sometimes a force for good for example Shaggy became popular internationally by catch lyrics and beats that celebrated women and often integrated sexual innuendos and a reasonable amount of hyper masculinity that left women dignity in tact. Few cultural writers have focused on the psychological abuse visited upon the Jamaican women and if they do it is done selectively. The reason for staying away from the subject is because any analysis of the subject involves getting down in the gutter of course descriptive language.

 According to most sexual performance psychologist women’s sexual satisfaction has universally stem from the erotic satisfaction of  experiencing multiple orgasms’ while men in general derive their satisfaction from the pursuit and having a single ejaculation often leaving their pursuit unsatisfied. Women sexual satisfaction has been portrayed in dace hall narratives as an oppressive erotic episodes that begin with a hard and stiff penis and the only consolation for the woman is to ‘wine good’ meaning to gyrate their hips in celebration without having an organism to show for it. The gyration of the hips is a central feature in African dance culture that portrays a celebration of sexual virility but the dance hall culture has put a negative reworking of woman’s sexuality that is psychologically demeaning and creates an object subject relationship where woman’s sexual liberation is smothered.

 If dance hall music is to redeem its credibility it mush shake of the negative promotion of woman as a passive object to be bombarded with violence and unfulfilling understanding of female sexual erotic experience that enslave them psychologically among the human specie. While the dance  hall movement has taken traction internationally and has cemented itself an exportable cultural offering that earns revenue fro those involved in the entertainment industry by even those Jamaicans living in the Diaspora. It is done so sometimes at the expense of women’s dignity. So any attempt by protagonist to explain it away and accept it as a rebellious reaction to class prejudice and social deprivation is an attempt to peddle a fancy fairy tale explanation that lacks justification.

So the development of women in Jamaica has been asymmetrical trough our countries history. During slavery they were often used as passive objects to provide a much needed labour force for the Colonial masters, they were care givers to their own children and that of their oppressors. They were a reservoir of substitute labour on the plantations. They were donned the hat of wives to their husbands and concubines to their oppressive masters entertaining their whims and fancies as objects of exploit and desire.

During pre and post emancipation the fought alongside the Jamaican men for their freedom with their contribution unrecognised. They fought for political independence and universal adult suffrage without their freedom and positive rights enshrined in the constitution.

In post independence they war accorded some civil liberties and began to see education as a tool of liberation. Towards the bingeing of the new mellllinoum they outnumbered men in higher education by about five to one and had third first women founder of a political Party Antoinette Haughton-Cardenas and in 2007 their fist woman Priminister who had a short stint in office.

Although modest gains have been made class prejudice and a lack of resource have pitted women in two camps the middle class and the under class. The old boy net work in Jamaica which consist of a re representation of the plantation class ideology refuse to open the board room to educated middle class women their years of mismanagement and corruption has visited a plague of poverty on the underclass women who often have to rescue themselves with their own biology out of desperation. All categories of women are expose to domestic violence structural prejudiced and are unable to enjoy the social advantage that they have worked hard for and is been screened away from them by the masculine brigade.

Donovan Reynolds is a U. K. based Social Worker and Human Rights campaigner. Persons wanting to comment or give feedback are encouraged to respond in the space provided by this blog. Alternatively, they may email me at: donovan.reynolds@hotmail.co.uk.