Focusing energies on renewal
published: Monday March 6, 2006
Beverley Anderson-Manley
THE DELEGATES and other members of the Jamaican society support Portia because they love and trust her in a world where these values are fast disappearing. In addition, she has served the People's National Party long and well. The other sentiment expressed throughout the campaign and increasingly across the country is that 'It's Woman Time Now'.
How can we translate 'Woman Time Now' into something practical and concrete that can allow us collectively and individually take another step forward for ourselves and to our country?
'It's Woman Time Now' is a phrase that is being declared with some amount of militancy since February 25. Therefore, it is an appropriate time to define for ourselves and our country what we can do to make the phrase more meaningful in our lives. Perhaps we can begin with the household as this is where discrimination against women is most dominant.
AT HOUSEHOLD LEVEL
In looking more closely at 'It's Woman Time Now' the household as the basic unit of society presents a fascinating picture in Jamaica. Firstly, it is located within the so-called 'private sphere' and as such is the site of many areas of struggle that then extends into the so-called 'public sphere', that is the wider society.
Here, it is interesting to point out that the International Women's Movement has long since recognised that the dichotomy between the 'private' and 'public' spheres is a false one. Whatever happens in the household crosses the boundaries into the wider society.
For example, the definition of domestic violence that is utilised in Jamaica includes what happens within the household and the wider community. As a critical site for gender-based violence, the household is a useful level of analysis to demonstrate 'It's Woman Time Now'.
For a long time, one-third of all our households in Jamaica have been headed by a woman, and this is so, even when a man may be present.
In examining the household more closely, we see that children born within female-headed households do not necessarily live in more poverty than children born into the nuclear family.
This must mean that the average Jamaican female-headed household is prepared to sacrifice at a level that exceeds the sacrifices of her sisters in other parts of the world, where to a large extent, female-headed households are in more poverty than male-headed households.
But this has an impact, for example, on how she socialises her children, often using anger, verbal and physical abuse as a methodology for parenting which she is carrying out on her own.
Perhaps 'It's Woman Time Now' could mean placing more emphasis on these households; developing a better understanding about them as they lead us to better understand the wider society.
One of the results of this could be to encourage our women and men to take responsibility for parenting the children they bring into the world, while accepting, in keeping with a gender analysis, that not all men are poor and/or absent fathers. The household is an appropriate space to begin the change process.
Let 'It's Woman Time Now' mean that we can begin to care for each other; partnering in bringing up our children and simply respecting each other.
BEHAVING DIFFERENTLY
As we espouse 'It's Woman Time Now', a responsibility we can choose to embody is to take a deep look at how we see ourselves; how we choose to see our country and how we wish others to see us. The collective gender consciousness of Jamaica is at a critical stage.
Many of our women and men are embedded in different levels of cynicism and resignation as they relate to each other and life generally. They just 'know' they cannot do anything about anything and their only hope seems to be for the next 'let off'. Economic independence is the key for marginalised women and men.
'Sister P' needs the cooperation and collaboration of the PNP and, indeed, all Jamaicans if she is to succeed, and if Jamaica is to continue on its path to development.
Lest we forget, leadership is about the dialectical relationship between the leader and the led. Congratulations, Portia.
Beverley Manley is a gender consultant and political scientist. Email: BManley@kasnet.com
