Gender & Violence in Barbados

12Sep09

A WOMAN who was hit in the face because she did not take kindly to Dwayne Omar Anthony Brathwaite dancing behind her will carry the scars from his bottle attack.

I was dancing at my school fair (i was 15 at the time) when a man crept up behind me. i immediately stopped dancing and in turn he slapped me across the head, burning me with the cigarette is his hand. i did not think to report the incident to anyone and while i was upset i still enjoyed the rest of the evening.

Sexual harassment has become such a regular part of stepping outside the house that i have learnt to expect it. Only last week, a colleague who was visiting Barbados for the first time remarked that the level of street harassment meted out to women was unlike anything he has seen anywhere else in the world. At the time i told him that he should not gauge gender relations in Barbados by the harassment he saw on the street. But maybe i was wrong…

My attitude of weary resignation in the face of sexual harassment and assault definitely has to change. It took three years for the case referenced above to be concluded and the attacker was only ordered to pay $2000 in compensation. Is this justice?

Filed under: Barbados, angry, caribbean, culture, gender, sex   |  10 Comments
Tags: gender-based violence, sexual harassment

Hair we go again and again

09Sep09

Going natural shouldn’t be a fad — it takes dedication, committment, and courage. Maybe this was a baby step for Tyra. I’m gonna hold out hope that someday she’ll do an episode that truly displays a range of hair textures and explores the deep feelings associated with natural hair.

“Natural” shouldn’t take dedication, commitment, nor courage. “Natural” should be as effortless as having an orgasm in your sleep.

The closest you get to natural in the US MSM is the loose long curls of diversity stockphotos which do not even begin to show the range of textures of black hair nor indeed the texture of most black women’s hair. But everyday i see black women wearing their own hair- the only alteration being hair color (many of which are not “natural” for anybody and just plain fun!), locs, cornrows, twists and other styles that don’t involve chemicals relaxers or flat irons.

i dreaming of a time when natural will be so natural that we won’t call it natural any more. It’ll be just hair. And won’t even be worth talking or blogging about. (Who am i kidding? The marketers are already moving to commercialise natural hair).

Filed under: media, race   |  2 Comments
Tags: black women's hair, natural hair, politics of hair

Idle Mind

09Sep09

* Slightly senile dude with nature’s passport and translucent shirtjack with frayed collar will always look more “corporate” than i ever could.

* D-cup is misleading. D is definitely a bowl, not a cup, not even a mug.

* There is nothing more irritating that a ringing phone at 6 am EVERY MORNING! except people who talk LOUDLY to cats and themselves.

* An overheating laptop relieves menstrual cramps. i’m offering this discovery free to the marketers as selling point for ugly pink laptops.

Filed under: gender, personal, race, sex   |  2 Comments
Tags: breasts, gendered marketing, race/class/colour/gender in the caribbean, random thoughts

New beginnings…

03Sep09

Nation News has a creepy photo of a male teacher checking the length of a schoolgirl’s skirt. New school year, same old madness.

Filed under: Barbados, education, gender, media   |  3 Comments
Tags: Barbados, caribbean, education in Barbados

Diary of a crazy 16yo

17Aug09

Christmas of 1997 my older sister gave me a diary. i thought i’d lost it forever but it recently reappeared. It’s interesting to say the least to have this glimpse of who i was more than 10 years ago. I would scan and post a page from it but it is mostly just banal and sad, sadder even because it’s all so banal. The blogosphere is saturated with enough of that as it is. But here are a few random quotes from entries i wrote when i was 16 (names removed):

He got upset with me because i did not want to … and he asked me if i was playing games. It was wrong of me to lead him on and i promised him that it would never happen again. i am very scared of sex.

My… was just quarreling with me about everything. i felt so hurt and so frustrated that i told her i hate her. Now i definitely have to kill myself. i feel so bad that i hurt her. i know i didn’t mean it.

Today i didn’t go to kadooment because i didn’t feel like. i was wondering if something is wrong with me since i’m so nervous about going anywhere.

i love being with him, he is the source of my joy. i read him poems today. He likes ‘Ode to Brother Joe’.

i want 2b a writer.

i felt so bad. i went into my bedroom and sat in front of the door. He tried to push the door open. He even said he would hit me with a bottle in my head.

Filed under: personal   |  1 Comment

The laptop intellectuals

14Aug09

Bajans may tend to be complacent or arrogant about what they have achieved after some 40 years of independence, but they need to retain some modesty. They may want to puff up their chests and claim that the rest of the region needs to bend and praise them. Attitudes need to change: some would say that a sense of excellence needs to be recaptured. It is only a short step from mediocrity to failure. An economy based on a fragile and somewhat fickle demand, as is the case with tourism, is no guarantee of long-term success. Factors outside the country’s control can easily derail progress, whether it is the weakness of the US dollar, or rapidly rising oil prices, or natural disasters.

The snark from Living in Barbados notwithstanding, the topic of education and literacy is indeed a timely one.

The boasting of high literacy rates is the stuff of politicians and other similar blowhards. Everybody else knows that 99% literacy could not be further from the truth. I routinely come across Caribbean people with advanced degrees or who own and run successful export-oriented businesses who cannot even write a coherent email. But as the main function of language is communication, they get the point across, despite it being transmitted in a stream-of-consciousness, punctuation-phobic way.

I have come to the conclusion that such literacy skills are irrelevant as most people do not even recognise well-written text when they see it. Beyond the basics, literacy skills are an anachronism. Grammatical errors on a company website do not make the company look unprofessional but rather more in touch with their non-literate customer base. In fact, if the company could communicate its message entirely in video and images so much the better. At least one local newspaper has been doing a good job of ensuring that the quality of its writing and weekly coverage of what people (largely women) wore to fetes reflect the general literacy of the population.

I do agree that education is what is needed for an economy such as ours- largely dependent on one fickle industry, open and vulnerable to external shock. But we can’t go back to the three R’s. The focus has to be on skills and attitudes relevant to the future: entrepreneurship, chutzpah and technical training in cutting edge areas of the economy. Barbados has done a good job in terms of spending on education, the focus now needs to be on quality and relevance.

Filed under: Barbados, caribbean, education   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: education, education in Barbados, education in the Caribbean

Right & Wrong

13Aug09

Hilary was soooo right!

But this contributor over at doublex was soooo wrong! Clearly she knows nothing about the Caribbean nor about Caribbean women.

Clearly either the questioner or the translator mistakenly thought that Bill was the real brain behind Hillary and that his opinion on policy matters was more important than hers. Unfortunately this kind of attitude is common among African, Latin American, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and South Asian men (and all the others I’ve left out), especially those in positions of power. What’s sadder is that many women in these regions have become so accustomed to such thinking that they believe it to be true as well.

Didn’t generalizations about “the third world woman” or “women in developing countries” go out of style in the nineties???

Filed under: stupse   |  1 Comment

Say what???

08Aug09

Did Justice Maureen Crane-Scott really refer to statutory rape as “stealing a piece”?

Did Sir Shridath Ramphal really accuse Barbados of “intimations of ethnic cleansing”?

Domestics with a vocational qualification (my mother cleaned houses without one but hey maybe Caribbean governments will pay a few people decent salaries to rubber stamp these skills) have been added to the free movement list. Hmmm…how could “free” movement possibly have a list??? How free is it really then?? If a woman moves “freely” as a domestic does that mean she can only seek domestic work? Is this what passes as a policy that is in Caribbean women’s best interest? Will there ever been any recognition of the fact that Caribbean peoples’ reasons for moving are larger than labour?

Maybe i’ll follow up with a longer post…maybe not. So much has been said already (on migration, nobody really cares about the abuse of our girls and i haven’t even heard a twitter on the free movement of domestics) and most of it has been hateful and divisive on both sides…

Filed under: Barbados, angry, caribbean, gender, race, sex, stupse   |  2 Comments

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   |  7 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