The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHELL-BENNETT

LAST time this column discussed the problems with underachievement. This week, it is going to be taken slightly further.

In the Bahamas, the common discourse seems to hinge on a very outdated 19th century model of women being inferior subjects because of their limited mental capacity.

We continue to discuss how women cannot be equal to men because they are simply unequal. Women are said to be less reasonable than men; they are unable to discuss subjects such as citizenship and mathematics because these are male areas.

The discussion around the referendum was that if women were ‘given’ equal rights then the country would be awash in foreign men come to take advantage of them because they are unable to differentiate between genuine suitors and schemers.

Life really has changed since the 19th century and our exam results prove this.

Historically, young women would reach the end of primary school, if they were lucky, and then be taken out and sent to work. They did not have the capacity for studies and so were used to keep the family fed and living with a roof over their heads. Men were thinkers; they could operate in a mathematical world filled with formulae and equations.

They were women’s protectors, betters. As the passage in the Bible so many church-goers automatically reach for to justify why women must be lower, the man is the head of the woman. This verse says it all. Women must be subservient and obedient to their husbands.

Today, society continues to embrace this outdated idea that women are simply inferior. Yet there are certainly far more women doing well in school and there are far more women graduating from school.

The traditionally held male areas of mathematics and physics, as well as economics and chemistry, have become the domain of women. They have performed better at BGCSE exams. They have gotten more As, more Bs and more Cs. But public opinion holds fast that women are unable to govern their own affairs as men are.

Where are the boys? Why are the girls doing so well, yet underrepresented in the workforce?

Oftentimes men will argue that women are taking over. There are more women in positions of power than men. When the real analysis begins, they are shocked that there may be more women in some positions that are obvious, like education, tourism and health, but given the number of women who excel at high school and graduate with honours, they are actually underrepresented outside of that.

In other areas such as defence, finance and management, women are not leading. This may be changing, but given their success at economics and finance, perhaps this is logical.

The governor of the Central Bank is a woman, but that does not mean that she does anything differently. In the church, women are still relegated to positions that are less important. When they do ascend to higher posts, other women do not necessarily support them. Yet they can reason and rationalise as well as men can.

Why are we so stuck in the thinking that women are inferior to men?

Once again, looking at the academic achievement tables, girls are outperforming boys. They are getting into university and getting good jobs. They are paid less than their male colleagues, and are discriminated against when it is time for promotion. They often leave the professional world to have children and then return after their children are grown, except in certain groups.

Meanwhile, men stay on in the work world, usually missing out on their children’s lives and family time. These differences often result from attitudes.

Society has the attitude that women should continue to be paid less than men and that men are worth more than women. This patriarchal way of thinking continues even when women ‘rule’, as has been pointed out in other countries such as Britain and India during Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi’s terms, for example. The fact that those women ruled, said nothing about the anti-feminist environment of the time. They were exceptions to the rule. However, the movement was growing and women were insisting on being heard. This has changed markedly.

Many young women who do better than their male classmates see feminism as a bad movement. They do not see the need for equality beyond what they enjoy now.

Ironically, in the Bahamas, there are more women killed today by their partners than there were before.

There are more women working and being used by their partners than there were before. There are still more men in the workforce, but those men often have less secure jobs and that earn less. This fact causes great trouble with men. Women are not able to earn more than men; it is simply unacceptable. In such situations, women are often treated badly by their partners.

Their male partners believe that domination will right the equation. Often they use the power imbalance that she needs to take care of them because she is a woman. So the woman labours at home and at work.

Male involvement in the children’s lives is minimal because it is seen as ‘unmasculine’. The message we seem to be receiving is mixed. Women can outperform some males in the boardroom, but they must be taught a lesson by being dominated and mistreated at home. They must work twice as hard for their promotions as men, and the males in their lives will often be irresponsible and leave it up to them. Child-rearing is a female ‘thing’ and men do not need to be involved in children’s lives, notwithstanding the reality that absent fathers lead both girls and boys to behave badly and to become less than they would be if they had both parents or involved parents.

Many mothers and fathers spend countless hours in the office, leaving children to fend for themselves. The attitude builds that men should be in the streets and women in the home, and these thoughts are unchecked by even the single mothers who know firsthand the hardships of being unsupported women in a patriarchal, misogynistic society.

This is even more tragic because it is so class based. Young men from poorer families have less of an equal chance to succeed in life given the new trend in violence and the need to dominate women who ‘ain’t know their place’. Their place is to earn less than men and to submit. Ironically, as strong and aggressive as many Bahamian women are, they are dominated by their male partners.

Yes, the working classes have more single female-headed households, which has always been the case in country, despite what the talking heads say, but the missing boys are overwhelmingly drawn from the lower classes.

The men who come back and takeover the upper levels of the work world, are those who did not miss out on education when they were young. In fact, some of them would have been pushed tremendously to succeed. At the lower end of the economic ladder, those same boys would be pushed to drop out forget about learning because it is soft and they pressured to become thugs. At the same time, the male role models are flawed. Thugs are revered.

Behind the scenes, however, there are other stories.

We simply do not talk about these in public. Our hugely bigoted attitudes manifest in some serious social problems where murders are increasing and rape becomes a common tool of domination. Yet our silence is overwhelming. However, our exam results show that women are really out thinking men in school.

Given this rise in women’s ‘ability’ to understand economics, mathematics and physics, for example, when will we make our society more equal?