Too much decadence
Published:Saturday | June 19, 2010 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
IT IS CLEAR that a number of steps are already in train to clean up the society. In the last few months, civil society has publicly pressured politicians to relinquish their ties with criminals and allow the security forces to do their job. It is early days yet, but already, some dividends are being reaped in this area.
Increasingly, enormous pressure is being put on the media and our dancehall artistes - two very potent agents of socialisation - to clean up the content of their programmes and music. Also, recently, an announcement was made that the security forces would be cracking down on those men who indecently exposed themselves, as if they were getting ready to use the toilet.
Remember women
I think, though, that in our pursuit of a restored Jamaica, we must not forget our women who, for a long time have been sexually exploited by the music industry and some commercial enterprises, who feel that in order to sell any product a woman must indecently expose herself to achieve that sale.
Attention is brought, for example, to two advertisements which were carried in The Gleaner on June 11. In a World Cup football advertise-ment, what looks like four partially clad young girls with very sexually suggestive appearances were depicted with beers close to what should be very private parts of their bodies. In the other advertisement, another young woman, who was also partially clad, with a very sexually suggestive pose, was being used to sell air-conditioning units. We need to ask ourselves what was the intent of these two distasteful advertisements and the message that they are sending to our women, and also our men.
Shame on you, corporate Jamaica! Crime represents only one aspect of the decadence within our society. What about the low sense of self-worth that you incite in our women, who may go on to engage in unlawful acts? What about the images that you conjure up in the mind of a rapist or a paedophile by using in your advertisements these graphic details of our young women?
I am, etc.,
Jeneive Dixon-Gordon