Has feminism served its purpose?

International Women’s Day (IWD) 2019 is being celebrated this Friday, March 8, under the theme #BalanceforBetter. While we recognise the day, the focus is on building a gender-balanced world, and realising that everyone has a part to play in this — from grassroots activism to worldwide action. This week, as All Woman recognises the theme, we highlight the absence of balance, and celebrate its presence.

IN March, which is globally recognised as Women’s History Month, we reflect on how far women’s rights and liberation have come. The message is being received that women are more than just childbearers and household workers, and in many countries, including Jamaica, more women are entering the labour force, holding leadership roles, and running in elections.

But with the widespread inclusion of women in the business place, laws being updated to include women’s rights, and new issues such as male marginalisation emerging, some are of the view that we have achieved gender equality and feminism has therefore served its purpose.

Zanda Desir, St Lucian-born Women Deliver young leader and #NotAskingForIt campaign activist, told All Woman that representational politics is one area in which women are increasing their presence in the region.

“In the last few years Caribbean women have taken up major leadership roles in government. Barbados has their first female prime minister — Mia Mottley. Trinidad also recorded a milestone with their first female president, Paula Mae Weekes. Women in national parliaments are increasing with Grenada, Guyana and Trinidad topping the list at 46.7 per cent, 31.9 per cent and 31 per cent respectively. There is much room for more women in parliament; however, we have really come a long way,” she highlighted.

She added: “Latin America and the Caribbean is also home to many ‘Girl Bosses’, as we have the second highest rate of female entrepreneurship in the world, with 40 per cent of businesses having female participation in ownership. Jamaica and St Lucia are two of three countries in the world where a woman is more likely than a man to be a manager.”

Gender rights activist Nadeen Spence concurred that women have indeed come a far way in education and leadership.

“Globally, women outnumber men as higher education students,” she said.

“Jamaican women have done extremely well in management positions according to the International Labour Organization. Jamaican women have also done well in higher education and schooling.”

She was quick to point out, however, that equal numbers don’t necessarily mean that we have reached where we need to be.

“Getting to equality in numbers, we have discovered, doesn’t speak to equity, or what we call substantive equality,” she said. “We have made substantial advances, but we still have far to go. Gender equality is still a faraway dream; in fact gender parity will not be achieved in my lifetime. We are sliding back on some significant gains as male backlash has now become male resistance and men in Jamaica are refusing to give up their privilege for the most part.”

Desir noted that while women have been advancing, we are yet to overcome many social issues.

“It is disheartening to see the way our women continue to be shamed and ostracised based on what they wear, or [when they] practise any other form of bodily autonomy. Rape culture is in our faces and at our fingertips now more than ever. As a society, we are too quick to place blame on women for attacks or abuse when in fact it’s really the fault of perpetrators,” she lamented.

While many women, including those who have toiled for the advancement of women, don’t claim to be feminists, Spence said feminism has provided the philosophical construct for the advance of women’s rights around the world.

“Feminists have provided the language, the movement, and the organisational direction that has helped women around the world to organise and to ask to be treated as full human beings, such that women’s rights are now accepted as human rights. We now agree that gender-based violence is wrong. Hopefully we will get around to sexual harassment legislation.”

Despite the work of women’s rights movements, both women agreed that there is still a great resistance to them, and this is a challenge that women still need to overcome.

“There is hostility to women’s rights activists and calling yourself a feminist is as bad as saying you are a terrorist or you are a member of the Third Reich,” Spence said.

Desir clarified, “Despite what it is made to seem, feminism is the fight for equality and equity with our male counterparts. It is not about hating men or making men the lesser sex.”