The Tribune

By IAN BETHELL-BENNETT

The Bureau of Women’s Affairs organised a celebration of International Women’s Day on Friday past at St. Joseph’s Parish Hall. It must be said that this day is significant on the calendar, yet it is discussed during March and seems to have little ripple effect after that. The one question that stood out was, why were there so few men and boys in attendance?

Why is it that International Women’s Day is seen as an event that only women should celebrate? That is the impression one is left with given the low male participation. And, as many of the presenters said, women often do not support other women.

So, if women do not support other women and men do not see these milestones in development as significant, then where does that leave society? That question, though, should probably be left for a much longer study. It is hard to talk about equality when there are such glaring historical inequalities.

One of the focal points of the gathering was the need to eliminate violence against women. Presenters showed how violence in the home directly impacted the performance of more violence later in adult life, or during adolescence. There were alarming statistics pulled out, but officials, police and government, are well acquainted with them, for example the shocking number of deaths at the hands of intimate partners in 2012 alone.

These presentations, as expected, engendered huge discussion around how to stop this scourge that so utterly affects all strata of society. Gender based violence into which violence against women and domestic violence fit, costs society millions of dollars annually in lost profits, medical expenses, sick days, death costs, as well as insurance payments, for example. Yet, it is addressed as if it did not matter as much as other forms of violence. Meanwhile, it is one of the biggest and most pervasive forms of violence nationally.

Speaker after speaker addressed the need to work with men to eliminate violence against women, yet the officials still seem resistant to really taking this seriously. Further, educational attainment is an indicator, though not completely, of a person’s response to violence and reactions to being prompted into violence. A higher education level often means persons would less easily respond violently to provocation. Lower educational attainment correlated to a far faster and more automatic violent response.

Let us face it, life is full of provocation and the education levels in the country are plummeting. So what does that tell us about individuals’ responses to provocation? If gang participation and gang violence increase with under-performing youth, not to be confused with a lack of intelligence, what does that tell us about the propensity towards gender-based violence?

Gender-based violence usually stems from a perceived power imbalance. Women and children are overwhelmingly the victims. However, no one seemingly wants to link these areas. Studies have shown that when people are abused at home they often become abusers, unless they take a definitive position not to do so. That position requires education, and when education levels are dropping and persons cannot reason through problems, they are more inclined to respond with force.

Colonial legacy: structural violence

However, this is complicated in the Bahamas because of our history. Yet, once again, society refuses to acknowledge the burden of a colonial history on the colonised, or question whether colonisation ever ended.

Under colonialism and slavery, violence was visited upon men, women and children regularly. Indeed, they lived in a society that was structured around violence. Violence does not have to be physical, as countless studies illustrate; it can be structural, verbal and emotional, to name but three forms. Violence is insidious and is transferred from generation to generation.

For example, incest is a form of violence that was visited on enslaved and colonised peoples. Incest has remained a large part of the social fabric of the post-slavery/post-colonial society. While structural violence includes incest, it is not limited to that. The self-hatred propagated under that system is a form structural violence. Colonial laws, rules and ways of thinking that created structural violence remain.

Colonised people internalised self-hatred. Fanon and others have written about this. Yet, the post-colonial society refuses to discuss the traumas of colonisation and its massively negative impact on peoples.

The absolute violence of calling a child a stupid no good louse is thought to have no impact on his, most often a male, psyche. He is told he will be as no good as his no good pa. What then do we see emerging down the pipeline? The absolute disrespect for one’s own personhood is clear in this.

A boy not taught self-respect himself can respect no one else. When people get up and acknowledge, as some presenters did, that men must be 50 per cent of the audience when talking about ending violence against women and gender-based violence in general, the discussion will be moving in a positive direction.

Patriarchy and colonialism are bound together tightly. The men who are often treated for inflicting violence on their intimate partners are products of a violent system. They do not exist outside that system.

Yet no one challenges the structural violence of the post-colonial state and its impact on the family. Yes, men are taught to react violently, but so are soldiers and they often return from war and inflict horrors on their families (another reality that has been down played).

Treating post-colonial stress disorder

Soldiers are encouraged to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. However, in 2013, doctors do not treat post-colonial stress disorder.

It is great to hear that we need to work with men to create more equitable, healthier relationships with women. However, when will the discussion start to challenge the real violence in society that causes such unravelling?

Furthermore, it is now becoming painfully obvious that young women are performing violence in similar ways that young men are taught to perform. Moreover, when the young women argue that men must perform their roles violently, what is the result? What are young men left to do?

Certainly, men and women must see their ways out of these socially prescribed roles. They must also be educated enough to be able to break the violent trend in society and move beyond a history of structural violence. Hopefully, too, society can move beyond celebrating women only once or twice a year.

• Dr. Ian Bethell-Bennett, Associate Professor in the School of English Studies at the College of the Bahamas, has written extensively on race and migration in the Bahamas, cultural creolisation and gender issues. Direct questions and comments to iabethellbennett@yahoo.co.uk.