The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

THE Bahamas is sickeningly unprogressive in its stance on the equality of women and men.

The more I recognise the reasons for this, the more uncomfortable is my existence in the midst of it, because most people would sooner have you shut your mouth and conform to the prevailing norms. But I’ve never been a “shut up and conform” kind of person. I ask “why” a thousand times if I find it necessary, and I very seldom do anything just because it’s the norm … certainly not anything I don’t want to do.

It’s an obvious fact and definitely no secret at this point that the reason women are treated unequally to men, in this country and many others the world over, is because of religious teachings of inequality and the role of women versus the role of men in life, beginning with the creation story and the purpose ascribed to a woman and that ascribed to a man.

It’s the same purpose that dictates that woman was made for man. It’s the same purpose which requires that a man choose a wife and not the other way around. It’s the same purpose that declares “when a man findeth a wife he findeth a good thing” … never mind that she may be Hell’s best representative or that he may be completely unworthy.

Religion undergirds the whole of life and human existence. It’s the only way most people know how to make sense of the world they live in. And, as such, religion, whatever kind it is, establishes societal norms and creates the culture of the people who practice it.

Religion in The Bahamas is no different, and this place could, in fact, be one of the best testing grounds for examples of the effectiveness of religion and the culture it creates, at least in the (perceived) democratic world.

In The Bahamas, we do things the way we do mostly because the way we do them is the way they’ve always been done. We’re not breaking the mould for anything or anyone, because that creates too much excess that can’t be controlled.

And, boy, do we love to be in control.

That same need for control goes hand-in-hand with maintaining the status quo, and it is why the issue of women’s equality to men in The Bahamas can’t seem to gain any real traction.

The biggest players needed in this apparent battle to re-establish norms are the men (and women) in Parliament and the men in the pulpit, and neither kind is willing to cede power in their respective domains, the former because this type of change gives too much power to people who could end political careers, and the latter because it goes against the very grain of their teachings, which could end the spread of religious faith.

The politicians’ need to laud over the people means that any real effort at changing a “norm” however foul it may be, especially a change so fundamental and riveting, threatens their control over the people and, therefore, the politicians’ ability to remain in power.

The priests and pastors, well, they laud over religion and the church … and the people … the same way the politicians do. And the church is the place where the people are taught the differences between women and men which are currently in practice as the norms. The church is responsible for the rite of marriage, a practice which most often teaches and emphasises the dominion of a man over a woman and the lesser, supporting role of a woman/wife to a man/husband.

Is there any wonder, therefore, that the issue of women’s equality to men in The Bahamas can never garner the high level of support it requires?

1 Politicians don’t cede the power of their positions in government;

2 Priests and pastors don’t cede the power of their positions in religion;

3 The masses are already brainwashed about the roles of women and men, as created and dictated by 1) and 2) above.

Neither of the three groups required to unite and give women and men full equal rights in The Bahamas want to deal with the change that comes with equal rights of women and men.

To most of the world, women in power and leadership is atypical, something that occurs usually or only when men are imprisoned, incapacitated or otherwise unavailable. And even though the political and religious leaders are responsible for what looks like an immovable status quo, it is the people who can make the change, or agitate for there to be a different perspective worth serious attention and respect.

But the masses of people in The Bahamas are uninvolved, they have no interest in historical, present, or future perspective, and they are shortsighted beyond belief, perhaps owing to an extreme lack of knowledge about themselves and the world in which they live. They won’t agitate for change because they don’t see the need for it. Why should they disturb their basic comfort levels to have much more than they do, to be greater than they are, when they’re already content with their fate of having and being little?

They’re quite satisfied to wallow in ignorance, waiting for someone else to bear the burden for them, or for a deity to blame for their fate and to resolve their problems for them, as opposed to tapping into the deity for the inherent power it is meant to bestow on them … the same power they can use to change their world for their own welfare.

For an added twist on this topic, I recently discovered firsthand, while leading a project in partnership with a man, that individual predispositions with respect to seeing people as equals are severe and really all deeply programmed in this thing we call culture.

At least four times in one month, I was mistaken, by my abbreviated name, for a man, and treated differently because of it. And the oddest thing to me was that it was women who served this different treatment to me. Upon learning that I was in fact a woman, the opportunities, the allowances, even the discussions changed to the point of retraction.

And, while conducting my business, I recognised that certain women, who initially took and followed my lead/instruction, no longer did when my partner (a man) came to give instructions along with me. I tested it deliberately, on occasion, to be able to talk about it here later.

Women, it appears (as it has appeared to me before for other reasons and on other occasions), are their own greatest enemy in the pursuit of their full equal rights with men. Sadly, they perpetuate the status quo, because they have been saturated with it, with norms that prefer that the man must lead and laud over the woman. The women support it. They support this thinking. They endorse it and they accept it. Wholeheartedly. Next to the belief that “white is right” and “black is whack”, it has to be the biggest fraud of humanity.

Out of my experience, it became immediately clear to me why women become b or are seen or expected to be the same when they’re in leadership. They’re up against centuries of brainwashing, not just at the hands of the opposite sex, but, worse, at the hands of their fellow women. Women don’t want to have women lead them because a man is supposed to.

Even subconsciously, they prefer this. And they don’t have this viewpoint because they mean to be hateful. I doubt that most of the time they even realise what they’re doing. But their attitudes and preconceptions necessitate that a woman in control should amp up her power, throw her weight around and become more aggressive in a man-like way, to show that she can be a successful leader, one worthy of the respect of women who don’t think women should lead women let alone men.

She, the woman leader, almost has to become what the people regard as manly, if she wants anyone, especially other women, to take her seriously, or if she wants or intends to achieve any of the goals she set out for herself or the people in her charge.

I reflect on all the examples of powerful women leaders I have met or known or known of and I see this is a similar characteristic of them all, this ability to masculinise their strength and aggression to be effective in their work. And the most ironic thing about this is that, when this happens, the women who had a problem following the lead of the woman in the first instance get upset with her because of her newly enacted disposition and regard it as an affront to all that is womanly.

What a world we live in. What a mockery we make of ourselves. All of us, women and men.

But we, women, have established our own defeat before we even embark upon the task at hand, and the worst part about it is the women don’t even see it. Or, if/when they do or can, they can’t be bothered to change it in their own favour. And their daughters and their daughters’ daughters become victims to the same shallow, crippled thinking and restricted lives that they – the mothers – have been subjected to for as long as they can remember.

• Send comments via Tribune242.com or to nicole@politiCole.com.