Little Nothings

19May09

someone recently left this comment on my blog:

If a lot of the women were not so fast with themselves, then they would not be in front of the courts begging for money.

Keep their legs shut.

i decided not to post it because i was not willing to waste time & effort responding. i subsequently received this comment from the same person:

Coward

Were you afraid that if you posted my comment too many people might agree with me and you could not allow that take place?

Censorship is never good, you coward!

i just love how the internet brings out the best in people…

Filed under: blogging   |  4 Comments

Making/Breaking Men

18Apr09

My favourite little cousin was born and raised in Town. Anyone who knows Barbados knows that the neighbourhoods in town maybe categorised as urban villages or working class communities some would even say depressed communities.

On attending one of our islands better schools (according the the Common Entrance pecking order) he was routinely beating by his middle-class peers for not conforming to the hypermasculinity that is usually associated with working class men. He was bullied throughout his school life, bullying that often lead to him needing medical attention. The school did nothing about it. The boys continued to beat him and he refused to fight back.

He has always been an outgoing and friendly child and the attempts of his peers to discipline him to a violent, aggressive, masculinity have not changed his personality. He is a happy, well-adjusted young man with a wide circle of friends.

He’s since left school and is now recognised as a young leader in his church. While i admire his strength Carl Walker’s story reminds me that life could have taken a very different turn for him- the bullying could have killed him or caused him to take his own life.

i’ve written before about homosociality in the Caribbean (it’s actually the most viewed on this blog), but not as much about homophobia and the way we seek to discipline men to a narrow, heterosexual masculinity premised on violence and misogyny. Men for whom this straight-jacket does not fit, who refuse to make the stereotype reality, who choose to live and love as full human beings often pay with their lives. When will we end the silence on this?

In related news, the Mongoose Chronicles‘ look at daggering was picked up by Jezebel, over at the writer over at the Trinidad.Adventist.Gay?! blog has shared his story. Let’s continue the dialogue…

Filed under: Barbados, angry, caribbean, gender   |  2 Comments

On Misogyny and the Maintenance Act: A Reply to MESA, BFP & Bajan Dream Project

16Apr09

i’m a bad blogger. and that’s good news because it means i have been living my life offline. finally growing up and thinking about my career and studies have paid off. i’ve had some good opportunities at work and very little free time. i never would have thought that i would love being so busy. i’m keeping my fingers crossed that it all works out.

i got home early today and sought to entertain myself online, reading my fav blogs, posting nonsense on facebook, catching up on all that i really haven’t had time to look at since the year started.

i started out at the barbados free press and stumbled across this little gem of a post which lead me to this other gem (posted on a blog which i really love for the quality of its writing, the only reason why i bothered to leave a comment).

Before I respond to the “Bajan women are mercenary gold-diggers, pinning children on hapless men aided and abetted by a legal system which favours women” let me declare my biases up front. I am a feminist. Of course 99% of the general population does not understand what that word means and it’s not my job to educate them. Let me just say that feminism has taught me to see everyone as worthy and deserving of the best life possible. It has made me insist on having a role to play in working towards that ideal. That means doing the little that I can to work towards social justice.

The other standpoint from which I write is that of going to court after my father walked out on one family to go create another one, so that my little sister could receive financial support to finish her studies. My experience and that of countless children belies the story being spun of money-grabbing women putting children on men and the courts supporting them in their fraud.

Magistrates have said in public fora that most men who ask for a paternity test in the case of a petition for maintenance are usually revealed to be the biological fathers and in fact use the paternity test as a delaying tactic.

When I accompanied my sister and mother to court my father had grossly inflated his expenses leaving him with a deficit and no disposable income from which to pay maintenance. He made up stories about my little sister cursing him in an effort to justify why he should no longer have to support her. His lawyer, who was related to his wife, accused me of threatening her even though I had never seen or spoken to her before and was meeting her for the first time in court that day. To make a long and painful story short my father appeared so utterly pathetic in my eyes that I felt we should just walk away and find some other way to make it without his money.

How does one’s responsibility to a child one has helped create come down to just $50 a week or $300 a month? How can anybody feel comfortable with such a diminished vision of parenthood? Certainly these questions are as important as who can give permission for a child to have its DNA-tested.

A single mother cannot register the name of the father on the birth certificate. The man must do so himself at the registry. It’s just not a simple matter of screaming, “Owen is my child-fada”, then dragging him to court and milking him for all he’s worth.

The women who stand in line to collect that $50, already humiliated by the experience of the Magistrate’s Court, would perhaps agree with that the Chairman of MESA that the Maintenance Act does in fact need to be revamped but for very different reasons.

I have no doubt that some men may feel as though they have been treated unfairly by the courts or their former partners. Their concerns should be addressed. But addressing men’s concerns should not require casting them as victims and women as mercenaries. Neither stereotype is accurate. Surely we can debate the concerns of women, men and children with regard to parental responsibility, paternity and the Maintenance Act without resorting to misogyny.

Sadly, in this battle to preserve the patriarchal privileges of men (and let us be clear what is really at issue here) the assault is not on men as has been suggested by MESA et al but ultimately on children.

Filed under: Barbados, angry, caribbean, gender   |  6 Comments

Life’s a beach…a private one

22Mar09

Things that pissed me off recently

1/ the hotel guest who screamed at me three times, each time increasingly louder and slower “More coffee. MORE COFFEE! COULD I HAVE MORE COFFEE!!!” while pointing at cup.

That’s the way it happened… despite the fact that i was sitting at the table waiting for coffee myself as a guest of the hotel just like she was.

When I told her, “I don’t work here,” she said…nothing, no apology nothing. And her husband kept looking back at me as though he was afraid I was going to draw a razor blade from under my tongue.

Maybe the confluence of being, young, black, female (not to mention pretty:) and gifted) means that i’m automatically disqualified from being a tourist. which is a good thing cause tourists suck!

After she was leaving her table she then came up to me to explain herself, “I’m sorry, I thought you worked here!” Could she not see that that comment only made things worse???

Apparently not, cause then she attempted to pat my shoulder. I shifted and told her it was OK. (yes, i can be a coward which brings me to item #2)

2/ the fact that i did not call her on her stereotyping & prejudice

On the bright side this is my first time travelling for work and I’m having a great time!!! Wish me luck with my presentation on Monday!

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  5 Comments

Prophesy

20Feb09

Today i got an email addressed to Dr. eemanee, inviting me to be part of a panel discussion. Well, im no Dr, i’m not even in a Ph.D programme as yet but it just seemed like such a great omen. Especially since my confidence took a battering earlier this week. i’ll take all the good vibes i can get!

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  4 Comments

Connected/Disconnected

02Feb09

i spend way too much time online, some of it because of work, most of it because of the sheer loneliness/boredom/patheticness of my life. i spend so much time online that a friend of mine actually called to find out if i was ill after she hadn’t seen me online for a few days. i spend so much time online that irony of ironies people with minute-by-minute status updates have begun to annoy me.

X is about to go to bed.
X is on her way to bed.
X has sat on bed.
X is in bed.
X is happy that Y has decided to join her in bed

Yes, all that & the annoying comments that accompany updates from a non-life. does anybody care?
Then there is the 25 random things about me meme that is making the rounds of facebook. i would have jumped on the bandwagon if i could come up with 25 things that people didn’t already know. between facebook, this blog, not to mention delicious, librarything, messageboards and the general malicious google search there isn’t much about me that isn’t already out there or that my friends don’t already know. most of the people on my facebook like on everyone else’s aren’t really friends at all. just people who want to malicious about when you finally get married/have a baby/graduate, who’s sleeping with whom, who put on weight etc.

which brings me to the question of privacy. as a scorpio i am a very private person. or rather used to be. the combination of new technologies & small island now means that privacy is dead. i find that liberating. maybe it will make us all more honest.

now i’m off to get a life. or at least leave a comment on someone else’s.

Filed under: Barbados, blogging, caribbean, culture, media, personal   |  2 Comments

Why the nice guys do finish last

10Jan09

Ever dated a Revenge Dater? Aka Mr. Nice Guy?

Well, a revenge dater recently contacted me on Facebook. An old acquaintance I was actually happy to hear from until he revealed that:
1) he used to be both attracted to me and intimidated by me (no biggie right? Brownie points for honesty)
2) he thought i was a cold, heartless, emasculating bitch (things kinda start going down hill from here)
3) he’s now doing well for himself (good for you!)
4) and can get ANY woman he wants (*roll eyes*)
5) including, you guessed it, bitches like me whom he used to put on a pedestal but now recognises aren’t even good enough for him (okaaaaaaaaaaaay…)
6) now they hit on him and he duly brushes them away like flies (after screwing them of course)

Lucky for me i’d dated a revenge dater before. You know the type, had no game in school, always got passed over by the girls and now has a brick on his shoulder. His philosophical outlook can be summed up by the phrase bitches ain’t shit.

Honestly, i had no idea that being a nerd or chubby or whatever else makes you a social outcast exacted such a psychological toll on men. We all have issues. i certainly have mine. But i never go out of my way to interact with someone knowing full well my intentions are far from honourable. And i certainly don’t hold a grudge for that long. WTF?

Of course the revenge dater likes to pass himself off as The Nice Guy, the one who would have treated you right if you had given him a chance…back when you were 14 years old. Give him a chance now and he will eviscerate you.

So, after meeting asshole #999 i have realised that there is a very good reason why i’m single and why i should spend less time on Facebook.

To the insecure men with fantasies of avenging a wounded pubescent manhood, a lil advice:
1) cockiness is not confidence
2) leave me alone. thank you!

Filed under: personal   |  11 Comments

Err…

03Jan09

right now i’m feeling guilty about not doing the work that i was supposed to have done two weeks ago. not so guilty that i can’t take five minutes to update a blog that i should have abandoned ages ago.

so what exactly do i have to say? err…

blink and 2009 will be over and i will be reheating last year’s resolutions, somewhere in the cycle of the eternal return of the same nothing. it is such a bad sign that i feel so immobilised at the beginning of the year, maybe i am just lazy. and on that note i shall get back to procrastinating.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  4 Comments

Single & Blogging it

18Dec08

So i was over at the Living in Barbados blog and i learnt that:

Most bloggers are male and age under 35… . Most blogs are personal (I fit). Most bloggers are fully employed (not just blogging) and highly educated (well, of course). Most bloggers, by a large margin, are NOT single .

Perhaps this explains why i’ve had such a hard time as a consistent blogger. For as long as i’ve been blogging (and even before that) i’ve been in the relationship wasteland. What is it about relationships that gives people (men mostly, according to the stats) so much to blog about?

i’ve been tossing around the idea of writing about just how much of a dating desert Barbados is but instead im gonna go spend sometime offline so that hopefully i’ll get some inspiration to be more prolific online .

Filed under: blogging, personal   |  7 Comments

Christmas…whatever

13Dec08

Have not made any progress in securing my own island.  Still stuck between unreasonably loud & out of tune church goers and neighbour with adolescent preocupation with pop songs and concomitant delusions of stardom.  i’m in such a bad mood i’ve been wishing that God would smite the tone deaf choir members for making such an unjoyful noise week after week.  Not exactly sure what smiting entails but i’m assuming that it would result in some kind of peace & quiet for all parties concerned.

Christmas has found me uncharacteristically unimaginative, i’ve gotta get my boss a gift and i have no clue what to get.  don’t even want to think about the long list of people i’m obligated to get things for.  the thought of going any where that would bring me into contact with people other than the ones in my head makes me feel like crawling under the bed with a searchlight and a good book.  seems i shall have to outsource the gift buying once again.

i used to enjoy cooking on Christmas day for my family but have since realise that we are really just four people who live in the same house and happen to be related.  the word “family” being so gross an overstatement as to be dishonest.

2009, stop coming and come!  i really do plan to enjoy next year, i really do…really.

Filed under: personal   |  3 Comments