Remembering…

… Gloria Steinem
Your Eyewitness believes that Gloria Steinem’s passing at 92 should cause us to pause in Guyana – not just because we’ve lost one of the most influential feminists of the modern era, but because her life’s central question remains stubbornly relevant!! How much have women actually been liberated from the expectations society dumps on them?
There’s something particularly appropriate about remembering Steinem here in Mudland – because, like so many of us, her activist journey was launched, in part, by India. As a young woman in the 1950s, she found her way to India and hooked up with a local group in a society wrestling with poverty, inequality and social transformation. En route – not so incidentally – she had an (illegal) abortion in London – ‘cause she’d already decided she didn’t HAVE to be a mother!! She returned to the US with a deeper appreciation for grassroots activism – and eventually became the tremendously influential voice in the modern women’s movement!!
Her essential argument was simple but revolutionary at the time – women shouldn’t have to accept second-class treatment just because “that’s the way it is”!! That argument could have been written for Guyana, innit?? Coming out of slavery and indentureship, the Guyanese woman’s always been expected to be good at everything – a good mother, wife, employee, and daughter – and preferably managing it all without ever looking tired!!
Meanwhile, the Guyanese man – many of them “visiting child fathers” – earns a round of applause simply for “helping” to wash the dishes in his own house!! Gloria questioned this in the States, and it reverberated everywhere – because the condition was the same everywhere!! She taught women to stop just asking how they could survive an unequal system – and start asking why the system was unequal in the first place!!
Now, 60 years down the road, Guyana’s made enormous progress – our women are doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics, entrepreneurs, pilots, senior public servants, and political leaders. As with the recent NGSA, CSEC and CAPE results, girls excel academically and women have reached the highest levels of Government and public life.
Yet there remains a curious contradiction in the violence our females face daily. A society cannot claim to have achieved “equality” while women continue to face domestic violence, sexual harassment, economic dependence, and the fear that speaking out will bring shame upon themselves rather than condemnation upon the perpetrator!!
Too often we in the Caribbean keep on asking women what they did to provoke a man’s behaviour; what did she say? Where was she? Why did she go there? Why did she stay?
Steinem’s legacy challenges that mentality – the question should be why men believe they have the right to inflict it!!

…Court Orders
At yesterday’s resumption of Sanction Man’s extradition case in front of Magistrate Judy, his lawyers came up with a novel interpretation of the word “proceed”!! The Court of Appeal had instructed the (harassed) Magistrate to proceed but hold the prior constitutional objections in abeyance!! But the lawyers pleaded, “Yes, Your Worship, but could we adjourn first?” – making the matter resemble the nearby Stabroek Market minibuses outside trying to pick up passengers – slow down, pull over, change lane – and hope by the time he gets moving again, the Policeman’s gone home!!
The constitutional objections to the extradition treaty are before the Court of Appeal – but rather than allowing the Magistrate to get on with the proceedings as directed, the defence wants another pause by bringing up matters relating to the constitutional objections!! Your Eyewitness can hear the courtroom calendar groan – again???
Every time there’s a clear road ahead – another dead-end detour proposed. Contempt charges might teach Sanction Man’s lawyers that “proceed” means to “go forward”!!

…the greater Guyana
Pressie reminded the country that Guyana’s more than the 10 per cent coastland – and that the remaining 90 per cent is being opened up with the Linden-Lethem Highway proceeding apace!! Apart from the ultra-modern Silica City, 6000 house lots are in the offing!!