Mark Wignall

A little more than a week ago Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said that she was being heavily criticised because she was a woman. Immediately on hearing her declaration it occurred to me that in Jamaica where we have one man to every woman, there are certain codes which are triggered whenever our men are involved in direct or indirect intercourse with our women.

First, let me say that I buy into the prime minister's statement only to the extent that I believe it is good political strategy for the prime minister to remind the female vote that she still has a presence in Jamaica House. The fact is, although women have been outstripping our men at community level and female students have been exposing the soft underbelly of what ails our male population from primary to tertiary-level education, once it reaches the stage of copping the really big jobs and entering the boardroom, the old school ties in the male population are the ones holding and controlling the gate.

At community level, whether it is rural or urban inner city or in the various strata of middle-class residential areas, the unemployment rate among women is higher. The very obvious reason is the still indisputable fact that it is our women who have babies while our men remain unfettered, free to tend the nest or create others in the adjoining communities.

What this does is create a false sense of power among the males who are economically viable (ability to afford tending another nest). As long as the man has a reasonable, predictable income and he allows his libido to take hold of him, the unemployed, sexually viable females (young, attractive, needy, available) will be his playground.

The male of the human species is an aggressive sexual being. Most of what he brings to the table in a stable union is an agreement between himself and his penis that he will keep all sexual activity outside of the union to an absolute minimum. Whether it is a marriage or common-law union, the man who remains sexually faithful to one woman expects mostly one thing from her apart from being a good homemaker - that she continues to be desirable to him. In other words, the man who loves his woman also wants her to be a sexual object, his own.

Educated, middle-class women are the first off in chomping at the bits, ready to criticise the man who would dare to suggest that women are sexual objects. I am putting forward the idea that many of these women's complaints centre on the perennial misunderstanding between the sexes on sex.

Emily Crooks is one of Jamaica's brightest, most capable journalists. Just listening to her along with her two other co-hosts on This Morning on Hot 102 gives me the chills. "Chills" in that I am fascinated with her mind. But Emily just happens to be a stunningly physically desirable woman.

On February 25 at the JC grounds while the PNP's internal race was on its final leg, a male member of the PNP's hierarchy and I were in conversation with Ms Crooks. This normally conservative man was going ga-ga over the attractive journalist and her form-fitting jeans. But so was I. Why is this so?

Were we seeing Emily Crooks in only one light? Certainly not. But is it possible for a man to have any kind of conversation with an attractive woman and not see her as sexual potential? I say no. The difference is, if a woman has "no head" and she is attractive, the sexual attraction is all the man is left with and, with his libido on rapid, the next few words will naturally be, "Give mi yu number, baby."

The prime minister made mention of one young reporter asking her if she will be "taking her own sweet time" in calling elections. What is wrong with that? That's what all prime ministers in Jamaica do.

Some men, including me, regularly use words like "sweetheart" and "honey" while talking to attractive women whom we have no intention of hitting on. In telephone conversations I used to have with Portia I would call her "my dear".

There is, of course, the dark side to the whole picture. Almost all of Jamaican cuss words are derivatives of derogatory comment on the sexual organs of women. Why is this so? The statement by men - "she is only a woman" - has been made throughout the ages simply because it is men who are the controlling masters of the human race.
At one large organisation, a young woman with a master's degree asked her immediate supervisor for a salary increase. After enumerating to him her onerous expenses and her increasing work responsibilities, he asked, "Don't you have a man?" When she related it to me I asked, "Did you have a problem with punching him in the face?"
Most men will always have a problem with women and their emotions. Women cry at the drop of a hat and will violently erupt over what we males see as trivial matters. So we will get together with our friends and conclude over drinks that, "A just so dem stay. Woman nuh have no sense."
In some measure, I agree with Portia but only partly.
I have found that once a highly attractive woman breaks out of her poor education stranglehold and poverty and makes something of herself, once it becomes known to men in the community that she has this new "power", they back off from the catcalls and give her the respect which she deserves.
At that juncture the "Yow baby, mi woulda. yu now!" gives way to "Hail baby love, nuff respeck."
If the prime minister is truthful in that she has observed that criticisms of her are being made because she is a woman, let me put it to her that maybe, just maybe, those criticisms are being made because of the perception that she has not grown, has not broken out of any previous dispensation.

observemark@gmail.com

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