Dunn hails Simpson Miller
HEAD of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona Dr Leith Dunn has hailed Jamaica’s immediate past Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller for having broken the proverbial glass ceiling to become the head of Government.
Simpson Miller, who inherited leadership of the People’s National Party and the Government from PJ Patterson in 2006, and went on to secure her own mandate in 2012, headed the list of illustrious women achievers in education, politics, arts, sports, and music whom Dunn referenced at the eighth annual Gender and Development Lecture at Edna Manley College’s School of Arts Management and Humanities two Thursdays ago.
They included Edna Manley, Lucille Mathurin Mair, Louise ‘Miss Lou’ Bennett, Etana, Tessanne Chin, and a host of other female artistes, bloggers such as Wally British; and track and field stars Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Verona Campbell-Brown.
“I must publicly congratulate Prime Minister Andrew Holness who was sworn in earlier this evening. But today, I also say thank you to the Honourable Portia Simpson Miller for having broken the glass ceiling in political leadership and for having served as our first female prime minister of Jamaica. I am grateful for her contribution to national development over the last 40 years,” Dr Dunn said.
She said Simpson Miller, having served at the helm of the Jamaican government, gives her pride as a Jamaican woman since Jamaica is one of the few countries in the world which has had a female in a similar position. Dunn also said that she was happy that the national calls from several women’s groups for the inclusion of more women in representational politics has not been ignored, citing an increase just shy of five per cent – moving from 12.7 to 17.5 per cent.
“The increase in the number of women offering themselves as political candidates is positive news and it shows that Jamaica is moving in the right direction towards gender equality,” she said.
However, the women’s advocate says that though commendable, the current situation is far from comforting.
Politics was just one of the spheres in society in which women were still not being treated equally, Dr Dunn said.
“Despite females having higher education in comparison to males, various spaces including the schools, families, churches, workplaces and mass media are still male-dominated,” she rued.
According to Dunn, this means that education has not translated into gender equality and parity in leadership and decision-making.
She explained that in order for parity to be achieved across the globe then the constraints that have been erected socially, economically and culturally through socialisation must first be destroyed through education, with the aim of creating a playing field unmarred by the ideologies of what individuals, by virtue of their sex, should or should not be allowed to do.
That notwithstanding, Dr Dunn pointed out that men too suffer at the hands of gender equality.
“Men also experience discrimination in certain fields – the male nurse and the man who wants to go into early childhood education and some cultural industries,” Dr Dunn stated.
The annual lecture was hosted prior to International Women’s Day and Jamaica’s International Women’s Week.