by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI
“Humanity is like a bird with its two wings—the one is male, the other female. Unless both wings are strong and impelled by some common force, the bird cannot fly heavenwards.” (Abdu’l-Bahá, 1913)
On Wednesday, March 8, the world will observe International Women’s Day. Women and men are part of the Body of Christ – made in His image and likeness (Gen 1:27), each with innate dignity; made to complement each other and to use their gifts/skills to build His Kingdom here on earth.
Goals such as equality, equity, and complementarity are yet to be achieved in T&T/the world, as far as women and men are concerned. While we take this opportunity today to reflect on the achievements of many of our women both here in T&T and across the world, let us lift up in prayer the many women who are hurting, or who have been killed due to violence by men.
What are we doing to strengthen our citizens; to ensure that our boys and girls are being nurtured and cared for in a manner that will enable them to be strong wings on that bird mentioned above?
What are our educational institutions doing to assist parents in socialising boys and girls in a way that will promote positive expectations, attitudes and behaviours towards each other?
What are we doing in our parishes/communities to foster in our youth self-esteem, self-respect, and respect for others?
One only has to watch the many violent video clips on social media to acknowledge that not only do some of our boys/ men disrespect girls/women through their violent interactions with them, but some girls/women also disrespect each other by fighting and ‘cussing’ each other.
Rosemary Morgan reports on an International Conference (2015) entitled: Masculinities: Engaging Men and Boys for Gender Equality. Gloria Steinem stated in her presentation at the conference that: “The human race is currently spinning in circles, with one wing hanging limp at its side, and we will continue to spin in circles until that wing is mended.”
Michael Kimmel hit the nail on the head when he said at the conference that: “If we are going to empower women and girls, we need to engage men and boys. A key message of this conference was that men and boys must be engaged in recognising, changing, and transforming unequal power relations, gender dynamics, and gender norms, if transformative change is to actually occur.” Sarah Hawkes stated that as a result of negative masculinities, men are more likely to take more risks, get sicker, and die younger.
TTUTA’s recent article about how society can help turn our boys into men is instructive. We desperately need to have a conversation about gender relations and involve both sexes in the conversation.
The Trinidad Guardian Editorial of February 15 highlights the fact that: “Machismo has been so embedded in T&T culture for so long that a large section of the population buys into a type of masculinity based on dominance, violence, coercion and invulnerability. This patriarchal definition of masculinity and manhood is not only dangerous for women; it is also inflicting significant emotional and psychological harm on men and boys.
“It is time to change the direction of the national dialogue on violence against women, time to move on from the current postures of blaming and shaming and allow room for healthier conversations that can lead to solutions. It cannot be only about domestic abuse. Not when so many frightening dimensions of gender-based violence – rape… stalking, sexual harassment – are now such a significant component of the violence sweeping across the country.”
And we must ask: “Where are the role models and mentors for our young men and women?”
In 2014, President Anthony Carmona “called for more male teachers to be hired to address the 72 to 28 female to male teaching ratio imbalance” (Newsday).
We are aware that many of our male youths have no male parent/guardian in their homes, and can go through primary and secondary schools without encountering any male teachers/adults.
While we wait for mechanisms to be devised to attract more men to enter the teaching profession, we all have a duty to behave in a way that will inspire our youths to emulate us.
Henri Nouwen rightly said: “The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.” He said that one of the gifts we bring to the world as Christians is “making our lives available to others”. Are we willing to do so?
During this Lenten season, let us strive to deepen our spirituality and play our part in fostering positive relations between men and women.
