Dear Editor

ON March 08, 2019, the world celebrated International Women’s Day, and we were all invited to reflect and to celebrate the journey of women. What has been gained along the way and what is still to be gained?

As a child, my mother would tell me how her decision to marry and have a family brought an end to her career as a teacher. Seventy years ago, the concept of a career woman with a family was virtually unheard of in Guyana. The place of a woman was unquestionably in the home, supporting her husband and nurturing their offspring.  It was a position of influence and a position of vulnerability all at once: influence, because being a stay-home mother meant that you had every opportunity to instill into your offspring the values that you deemed important; vulnerability because you were financially dependent on the father of those children and that too often came with abuse, denigration, and curtailment of basic freedoms. The majority of women bore up under conditions that diminished their self-worth, so that their children could have a better chance than they had, and often that better chance meant, among other things, financial independence from a man.

That generation of women did not believe in divorce for many reasons: 1. They felt it set a bad precedent for their children and future generations; 2. It exposed their children to possible abuse by step-fathers; and 3. It led to the further marginalisation of the woman, since laws requiring the division of property were non-existent. And so all things considered, women stayed in unhappy relationships and comforted themselves with maxims such as, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”

Fast-forwarding to the 21st century, the social landscape has changed drastically. The generation of women nurtured by those stay-home moms are now grandmothers and great grandmothers. They became the first generation of women that began to normalise the constructs of a career woman married and with a family, a career woman unmarried and with a child and a woman who consciously chose to be married to her career. Now, it is no stigma to be unmarried, but to be unmarried and to be a successful career woman is considered an enviable position and better yet to be able to enjoy the benefits of both worlds is considered most desirable. That is to enjoy the freedom of an unmarried woman while enjoying the sexual favours of a man, to choose the man with whom you would like to have a child, while not needing to depend on him to take care of that child. As this paradigm is stretched to its limits, we are beginning to see women projecting an image of completeness without a man anywhere in the picture. They are now pursuing careers and raising families with same-sex partners, having acquired sperm from male donors to whom they have absolutely no emotional attachment.

Reflecting on this journey, I celebrate the liberation of women from purely domestic roles. I truly believe that the world is a better place for having the creativity and sensitivity that women bring to the social and political issues of our day. Yet, it is with some poignancy that I reflect on the void created by her entry into these new arenas, a void inadequately filled by baby- sitters and day care centres. Perhaps, just perhaps, there might yet be another chapter to be written in the story of women’s fight for equality; and in that chapter maybe there will be mutual respect and a wholesome appreciation of what each sex brings to the table. In that environment, a woman should no longer need to compete with a man, but instead she would complete and celebrate him in the world’s greatest portrayal of a successful woman!

Regards

Phyllis J. Jordan
Caretaker Councillor, Constituency 4