Portia's rise a great step towards gender equality

Glenda Simms, Contributor

The December 29, 2011 victory for the People's National Party (PNP), led by Portia Simpson Miller, provides us with an opportune moment to revisit the role that women must play in the political arena if the majority of our people are to escape the side effects of decades of patriarchal hegemony and abuse.

Even though it can be argued that Jamaican women, like many other women of the free world, have benefited from and made tremendous strides through the dynamic actions of the global and local women's movement, it is still very much a man's world.

This is, therefore, a fitting descriptor of these times in which the patriarch and his cheerleading sycophants opportunistically put forward a number of women in order to pay lip service to gender equality and women's human rights.

In this election, the leopard had not changed his spots. He took pride in the fact that he let in a few of his 'boonoonoonus' and so-called pretty girls. He is convinced that these girls would wave his wand and shake their pom poms to his fife and drum brigade. But the majority of the women who faced the electorate lost their bid to carry out the patriarch's hidden agenda. This is a warning to Jamaican women who enter politics that they must be sure that they are not used as convenience for men who are in search of power.

In the 2007 election, eight women entered the Jamaican Parliament. A few others were appointed to the Senate by both the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the PNP. In this 2011 election, 17 women were put up as candidates in a variety of constituencies. The majority of them lost their bid.

No tears

As a feminist, I did not shed any tears for many of these women who could not gain the confidence of the Jamaican people, because I firmly believe that women must stop parading as men in drag. They must aspire to be women, strong, courageous, honest and independent. They must also be held accountable to every woman of every class and caste.

These expectations are not unreasonable, especially when we try to come to grips with the levels of gender-based violence against women and girls, the rise in carnal abuse and rape, the feminisation of poverty, the phenomenon of female-headed households and the low representation of women at the highest levels of decision-making.

In the international section of the December 12, 2011 edition of The Gleaner, the never-to-be-forgotten photograph of the expressive faces of three female warriors of the global village stood out bold and strong. This was the photograph of three women - women's rights campaigner Leymah Gbowee of Liberia; female icon of the protest movement of Yemen, Tawakkul Karman; and Liberia's first democratically elected president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

These three women were among the 2011 Nobel Prize winners because they stood up against the many forms of injustices that women experienced on a day-to-day basis in their societies. In her acceptance speech, President Johnson Sirleaf called for the women of the world to rise up against male supremacy, clearly stating: "My sisters, my daughters, my friends, find your voice."

I would like to argue that the result of the Jamaican election, which has given Mrs Simpson Miller the prime ministership, is in line with Johnson Sirleaf's vision. Indeed, Mrs Simpson Miller is a woman of strength, courage and sound character who has given voice to every little Jamaican girl who aspires to move from her rural or urban roots to follow her dreams and visions of success.

While it is a fact that neither the PNP nor the JLP has lived up to all the commitments that were made when the Government of Jamaica ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the election of Simpson Miller will guarantee that the issues that must be addressed in order to give women and girls full dignity in this society will be in good hands.

Now that a few women and some very gender-sensitive young men will be in the new Government, it will not be difficult to find new ways of convincing the Jamaican citizenry that the Millennium Development Goal of gender equality and the empowerment of women will be achievable in the foreseeable future.

Nose for issues

This position of hope for the future is articulated by distinguished columnist Jeffrey Simpson in an article titled 'Give thanks to political women', which was published in the Saturday, December 24, 2011 edition of the Globe and Mail. He remarked on the encouraging development which the political women are having on contemporary Canadian society.

The presence of three women as premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta, and British Columbia is a refreshing change in the leadership at the provincial political level. According to Simpson, all three of these women tend to be conservative in their political ideology. Also, the majority conservative government of Stephen Harper has "elected some very impressive new female members of parliament". Of course, these women are all in the second tier of decision-making. On the other hand, the more leftist opposition, the New Democratic Party, chose a woman as its interim leader after the death of revered leader Jack Layton at the age of 61.

Simpson, in his analysis, reminds his readers that women leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir and Hillary Clinton, who ran a nomination campaign against Barack Obama, were examples of women who have been described as rough, tough and sometimes tougher than many male politicians.

On the other hand, most women who enter the political arena in many societies often have a nose for the issues that men ignore, or they see the same things through a different prism. Within this framework, it is logical to assume that political life will be more focused and beneficial to the wider society when more women are elected to Parliaments.

Jamaica, under Portia Simpson Miller and her team, will certainly provide the political climate in which women must demand that their human rights and dignity are maintained at every level.

Glenda Simms is a gender expert and consultant. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and glendasimms@gmail.com.