Imani Tafari-Ama | Where have all the women gone?

International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8, and for 2022, the theme chosen by the United Nations (UN) was Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow. This focus highlights the intersection between gender equality and climate resilience since both goals coalesce around gender and social justice. This year’s slogan associated with IWD, “Break the Bias”, exhorts gatekeepers of masculinist power to fly the proverbial gate and facilitate gender equality.

This year, the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, Regional Coordinating Office (IGDS-RCO), hosted an online seminar to critically reflect on the gains of the Caribbean Women’s movement and the reasons for the pauses and setbacks that have stymied the progress of the regional efforts to challenge the patriarchal stranglehold on social power.

Panellists included Prof V. Eudine Barriteau, former pro-vice chancellor and principal of The University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Cave Hill campus; Member of UN CEDAW Committee and former Deputy Principal of UWI St Augustine, Professor Emerita Rhoda Reddock; Gender Scholar and Head of Department of English and American Studies, Salzburg University, Professor Ralph Poole; and Former UN Ambassador for St Vincent and the Grenadines and Head of IGDS Nita Barrow Unit, Halimah DeShong.

The discussion was catalysed by the reading of the 2003 essay by Prof Barriteau on ‘Theorising the Shift from “Woman” to “Gender”. She then argued that “as it now stands, the concept of gender is in danger of becoming barren. Soon, it may be unable to reproduce or give birth to new investigations. (P. 34).” Prof. Barriteau observed that “relations of gender are relations of power” and argued, “I wanted Caribbean feminists to confront and problematise why Women’s Studies and Gender Studies are not seen as complementary to one another”.

SUBSET OF WOMEN’S STUDIES

Prof Barriteau also asked why gender studies had not been framed as a subset of women’s studies rather than its replacement. This shift proved problematic for maintenance of focus on the specific barriers that persist and impede women’s development. She alluded to the “politics of knowledge creation” as at the heart of this debate, which ran the risk of resulting in the “disappearance of women’s subjectivity”, which is a principal feminist concern. The shift, she argued, “was threatening the relevance and the viability of feminist scholarship in the region”.

Prof Barriteau concluded that her worst fears for the feminist movement have not been realised because “feminist scholarship is alive and well” although contoured differently from when she was “plugged in” two decades ago. She recommended that more emphasis be placed on “economic autonomy and sexual sovereignty,” and she called for recognition of the need for gender equity to address injustices in the wider society.

In response, Prof Reddock suggested that “the social relations of gender” must be placed in the context of “global neoliberalism”, which has reinstated binaries to push back at the dissolution of gender-identity boundaries by feminists. She noted that sex-gender binary thinking has been trumped by those who have defined sex/gender identities along a continuum rather than the confines offered by the binary of male and female. Prof Reddock suggested that the relations between men and women are constructed by the economic system of society and cultural norms, which are dominated by binary understandings of sex and gender.

Prof Reddock said that five gender communities – male, female, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender – now define the range of feminist advocacy. However, she conceded that there is widespread resistance to such broadening of cultural perspectives as reflected in the maintenance of the binary standard in national gender policies around the region. She concluded that the diverse forms of “intersectional inequities that result in gender-based violence”, and which are tied to binary thinking, must be tackled as a component of a transformational agenda.

INCLUSIVE AND DIVERSE APPROACH

Prof Poole argued for a fluid, inclusive, and diverse approach to gender studies. He admitted to being uncomfortable talking about “women” or “men” when as a queer theory specialist, he is used to addressing a wider expanse of identities than the male/female binary affords him. He said that as a queer person, he has had to contend with shame on several fronts, professionally, socially, and in his personal life. This shaming inspired him to respond by flipping the shaming script.

“I think we should be more shameless,” he declared, “shameless in the ways we believe in our gendered identities and shameless in advocating for our gender identities. These identities are overlooked, relegated to the margins and persecuted for their mere existence, regardless of what sex we attribute to them. These can be women,” he added, “and as such, they matter.”

Rebutting his own argument, he queried, “but aren’t women many, and differently so? It must be part of our feminist agenda to admit all gender variances and grant them visibility, agency, and dignity.” In this sense, he aligned to Barriteau’s advocacy for the adoption of complex gender systems that reflect reality. The prevailing heteronormativity of the Caribbean region as a whole militates against such acceptance, which was why this was foremost on President Barak Obama’s agenda when he visited Jamaica.

Dr DeShong, whose beat was women, peace, and security, focused on how gender equality is mobilised and named. She suggested that the “depoliticisation of feminist insights to make it palatable for a wider audience” is part of the problem of gender inequality. She concurred with Prof Barriteau that gender inequalities reflect inequalities of power. Dr DeShong, therefore, recommended deepening the analysis by including issues like coloniality and the historical evolution of gender relations in the Caribbean in the feminist discussions and advocacy as well as policy concerns. “Gender is becoming disembodied in political terms,” she lamented. Turning to solutions, Dr DeShong suggested that the material effects of unequal power arrangements should be prominent in formulating solutions to gender and development inequities.

“Gender allows us to think through these arrangements and move beyond them,” she said, underlining the importance of combining policy and praxis to address the challenges that stymie women’s participation and gender equality.

The webinar was moderated by Dalea Bean, lecturer and graduate studies coordinator at the IGDS-RCO, with the response segment hosted by Gabrielle Hosein, senior lecturer at The UWI St. Augustine campus. Head of the IGDS Mona Unit, Karen Carpenter, offered the vote of thanks.

Dr Imani Tafari-Ama is a research fellow at The Institute for Gender and Development Studies, Regional Coordinating Office (IGDS-RCO), at The University of the West Indies. Send feedback to imani.tafariama@uwimona.edu.jm.