AS THE WORLD marked International Women’s Day on Friday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar issued an uncouth message.
“I state without fear of contradiction: there is no gender domination in TT,” the Opposition Leader said in a three-page statement.
Ms Persad-Bissessar has every reason to fear contradiction – in defence of the facts.
Chiding unnamed activists and NGOs, the UNC leader added that “some women and women’s groups, especially those fond of embracing radical philosophies,” should “stop engaging in self-victimhood dialogues that encourage the unnecessary and dangerous blaming of men due to a misplaced belief that men are our nemesis and responsible for all our problems.”
Ms Persad-Bissessar is correct to state men are not the sole cause of our problems. Her statement is proof of that. So much for sisterhood.
To say women are not treated equally is not to embrace a “radical” idea. Nor is it to perpetuate victimhood.
It is to do the opposite: to reject the extreme but long-held and deep-rooted notion that women have a lesser place; it is to state facts and to demand change.
Even people participating in beauty pageants, hardly bastions of radical feminist theory, are cognisant of the realities of inequality.
“What is the most pressing issue working women face and why?” Miss World TT Aché Abrahams was asked over the weekend at the contest.
“It’s not a lack of talent or skills,” she correctly replied. “It’s a lack of opportunities.”
The truth that ever-optimistic beauty queens can see – but not the UNC leader – is exemplified in the composition of our Parliament, where women make up a paltry 32 per cent. Ms Persad-Bissessar was this country’s first female prime minister, but the scoreboard still favours men in Whitehall.
Women are disproportionately affected by domestic violence. They are less likely to participate in the economy. They are paid less and are subject to cultural double standards. They succumb to specific problems in healthcare.
Yes, they are now, overall, better educated. But this underlines the travesty of inequality. It does not erase it.
Perhaps the UNC leader agrees with Victor Hugo, who said, “Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.” Perhaps she wishes to speak a perfect world into being.
However, these remarks are part of a wider pattern. Ms Persad-Bissessar recently also dismissed race as an issue in politics.
With a general election looming, as well as rumblings within her own party, it could be she is trying to rebrand by giving everything a positive gloss.
The problem is, this risks seeming to come straight out of cloud-cuckoo land, not utopia.
Worse, it plays into a US/UK-style, Thatcherite approach to gender and race in which neither issue really exists.
In a TT setting, such right-wing ideology is far more dangerous than anything any local activist might say.
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