No thanks, Banks!

So Banks Beer, which markets itself as the national beer of Barbados, recently launched an ad with the tag line, “My Brown Ting, My Banks.  Brown never looked so tasty.”
Yup, a racist, sexist colonial throwback which draws on a long history of the sexualisation, commodification and thingification of the brown woman’s body. Very, very original and imaginative, Banks.
Banks joins a long list of other Caribbean advertisers who drawn on worn-out racialised and sexualized images of women to sell anything from alcohol to cellphones.

Vidyaratha Kissoon of Guyana has publicly denounced the objectification of women’s bodies in advertising, especially light of the persistently high levels of violence against women in the region:

The use of women’s bodies in advertising and marketing in Guyana has increased in proportion to the intense levels of violence that many women and girls face. Around the world, many advocates against violence campaign against the objectification of women in the media.

When we wrote about the Banks ad on our facebook page, one reader responded that we were focusing on non-issues to the exclusion of other more important ones, that for that reason no one takes feminists seriously and that alcohol advertising must use sexualized and racialised images of parts of women’s bodies because their target audience is men:

rrrriiiiiggghttt, when you all are done you will turn alcohol ads into what? milk ads? these products are mainly marketed at MEN hence the sexy images, instead of flustering over a beer commercial why not campaign for real issues affecting women, such as the right to choose and abortion rights.
This is why women’s rights movements are now viewed as nuisance groups.

This perception of feminists as “nuisances” is as old as the sexist, racialised images Caribbean marketers trade in. So too is the old trick of accusing us of failing to understand what the real issues are and of being selective in acknowledging our activism.

Another reader had this to say:
this frankly sad but strange logic is more common than not from your average Caribbean woman. A function of how much out popular culture of hypersexualising not just thoughts, but songs, slang, our festivals like Carnival and Chutney fetes in T&T…Its really disturbing to read someone say its aimed at men so must be OK. Where’s the subtlety? Nobody’s saying wear a sack but whatever happened to commercials where companies never felt the need to tell us that brown never looked so tasty.

Her comment highlights the fact that since these racialised, sexist images are EVERYWHERE they have become normalized.
Well, a few flustered nuisances will be doing what we can to highlight to contextualize and historicize these images. Join us! CODE RED has started its own campaign asking our readers and members to send us sexist ads from across the Caribbean. You can email us too at redforgender [at] gmail [dot] com.

Red Round-up

We post almost-daily updates of Caribbean news and commentary on issues related to gender, sexuality, Caribbean development and environment on facebook.  Facebook now requires that you pay to promote individual posts which makes the awareness-building, consciousness-raising work we do online a little more difficult since our annual budget is 0.  We’ve watched our page views fall after this policy was implemented. That just means we’ve gotta do more red-round-ups where we highlight key stories and happenings in the region.  So here goes:

Homophobic Violence at Jamaican University

Viral video of security guard in homophobic attack against Jamaica University of Technology students . J-Flag has responded to offer support to the young men who were victimised and have condemned the violence as “evidence of the malignant level of homophobia, which continues to pervade all levels of Jamaican society and ravage lives.”

1.8M Haitians affected by Hurricane Sandy

The United Nations reports that 1.8 million people have been affected by Hurricane Sandy in Haiti. Food security has been severely affected with up to two million people at risk of malnutrition.

T&T Police Tell Women Not to Get Raped

Women who exercise on Lady Chancellor Hill in Trinidad & Tobago have been advised by police to exercise caution in order to avoid rape.

CODE RED Builds Caribbean feminist online database

CODE RED is building a digital archive of Caribbean feminist online spaces. Contribute by telling us about your favourite Caribbean feminist blogs, forums, groups, pages etc.

T&T Community College Blazes Trail by offering Daycare on Campus

YAY! Here’s to other Caribbean colleges and universities following their lead!

Video: Young feminist activist from Trinidad & Tobago, Stephanie Leitch, talks about feminism in the Caribbean.

How awesome is it to know that feminism is alive and well in the region.

Barbados Launches Child Support Fund

Barbados government to provide $50 per week (USD$25) for children whose fathers have been ordered to pay child support but who have not. Fathers who are primary caregivers will also be able to apply to the fund. The Maintenance Act will also be amended to ensure that fathers could apply for child maintenance at the Magistrates’ Court (at present only mothers can apply for maintenance at the Magistrates Court).

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Caribbean Feminist Digital Activism in a Post-Feminist Age

Trinidad & Tobago’s College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of T&T will be offering daycare facilities to it’s students soon. YAY!  At the time of making this announcement, one of the College’s administrators insisted that they did not want to be seen as “the one championing everything for the woman in the classroom.” They insisted that the daycare facilities would be to the benefit of both women and men.  And of course they should be.  I highlight that comment, however, because it demonstrates how difficult articulating anything that would be to the benefit of women is in the region.  The strategy around the pervasive anti-feminist backlash has been to couch all gender in/equality issues in gender neutral, post-feminist language.

The purpose of this post is to highlight the Caribbean online spaces where feminism is not a dirty word:

Online Groups & Pages

WOMANTRA: This group has been created for all womyn who are interested in sharing experiences, links, ideas … ANYTHING. We hope that this space is utilized not only as a networking tool but also to share, spread and gain from the knowledge that sisters have taken time and initiative to put forward. WE hope that posts will create discussion among members around the issues that affect us.

WomenSpeak Project: The WomenSpeak Project encourages women in Trinidad and Tobago and throughout the Caribbean Region to tell their stories of discrimination – in the home, in the workplace and in the public domain.

Speak Up & Out: The facebook page of a Poster/Photography Exhibition on intimate partner violence running from 24th Oct – 10th Dec in Grenada.  The page provides daily updates on domestic violence and gender equality issues in the region.

Walking into Walls is for every Caribbean woman who had to explain her beatings and bruises by claiming that she walked into a wall. This social media campaign has its roots in a 2012 regional meeting organised by the Caribbean Institute for Women in Leadership (CIWiL). It was developed by four passionate, committed Caribbean women who are tired of the walls that are routinely hit in the struggle to end violence against women. There are awesome and super active, updating the page constantly!

Guyanese Sisters is a closed facebook group for women only.

On-the-Ground Feminist Orgs 

Many other Caribbean feminist organisations with long histories of hard work on the ground also have online spaces, usually facebook pages.  I am concerned about the survival of these Caribbean feminist online spaces as facebook’s ever-changing policies seek to monetise every aspect of the facebook experience.  These organisations cannot afford to pay to promote their content.

Here are the facebook pages of notable Caribbean women’s/feminist organisations:

Women’s Media Watch of Jamaica

Haiti’s KOFAVIV which was selected as a top 10 CNN Hero.

Sistren Theatre Collective of Jamaica

Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (Trinidad & Tobago)

Feminist Blogs

There are also feminist blogs from the region like Add Fyah and Stir (Antigua & Barbuda, St. Kitts, T&T), Paula Lindo’s blog and Creative Commess (T&T) and And Still I Rise (St. Vincent & the Grenadines). Diary of a Mothering Worker by T&T feminist-mommy-worker-academic, Gabrielle Hosein, is now also published in the mainstream press.  Carolyn Cooper’s Jamaica Woman Tongue tackles race, language and everyday life in Jamaica and beyond.

Feminism in the Mainstream

Of course, Caribbean feminist voices are also found in mainstream digital spaces such as newspapers and magazines. Outlish magazine has been doing an excellent job of opening up spaces for both young women and men to discuss gender issues.  Stabroek News’ In the Diaspora Column edited by Toronto-based Guyanese scholar-activist, Alissa Trotz, gives a wide, mainstream audience to a range of social, political and development issues including state violence, violence against women, homophobia, masculinity and feminism in the region.

Feminist Twitterati 

You can also follow feminists from the region on twitter: @kennibay is Head of St. Lucia’s only LGBT rights organisation, United and Strong, and was recently profiled as one of St. Lucia’s top 10 women in the public eye.  There’s the wildly popular @mooremayhem who brings her critical eye and comedic wit to a range of issues (she’s on youtube, facebook and blogs on wordpress as well, just google Carla Moore). @fridafund is a young feminist fund coordinated by a twentysomething activist with roots in many places including the Caribbean.

LGBT Rights Activism
Trinidad and Tobago’s Coalition for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO) and Jamaica’s Forum for Lesbian’s All Sexuals and Gays are both very active online and off. Barbados GLAD is a very recent LGBT online space and of course, there are many other private groups.

Theorising Homophobias in the Caribbean is a multimedia collection offering up everything from art, activist reports and academic articles.

And there’s us!
A team of five (women and men) keeps our facebook page updated and diverse in its range of issues covered. Sometimes we wonder if anybody’s listening and if we will survive facebook policies which threaten zero-budget organisations like ours.  Nonetheless, we’re still active and growing on twitter. Earlier this year we held our first regional feminist meet-up and intend to follow up with on-the-ground in country activities. You can sign on to the CatchAFyah Caribbean feminist network here.

Please drop us a line in the comments and tell us about other digital Caribbean feminist and LGBT spaces we should know about!  (We want to know about men’s groups too!) We’ll update this page with all your suggestions!  Let’s grow this digital feminist archive!

Guyana government supports Chris Brown concert with tax breaks, anti-violence activists cry foul

Guyanese social justice advocates reject the government’s support of Chris Brown concert.

According to Stabroek News

The government on Thursday announced that it will be giving tax breaks for the concert, which is organised by Hits & Jams Entertainment, and acting Minister of Tourism Irfaan Ali praised the expected appearance of Brown and said his presence at the concert will be a pull factor for persons to Guyana.

Some activists have argued that Chris Brown should be allowed to perform but the proceeds from the concert should go towards support mechanisms for survivors of intimate partner violence. Others recognise his “right” to perform in Guyana but question the use of tax payer dollars to support his performance.

Some activists have taken issue with the irony that the Chris Brown concert will coincide with 16 days of Activism Against Gender-based violence:

when Chris Brown arrogantly struts on to the stage in December, the nation – being led by the government – will just be wrapping up their annual 16-Day Campaign Against Violence, which begins on November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and ends on December 10, Human Rights Day,”

What do you think? Is the Guyana government misguided in supporting the Chris Brown concert?

Is the “decision to bring Chris Brown to entertain Guyana is a slap in the face to every single victim of
domestic violence in country”, as journalist & feminist activist Stella Ramsaroop described it?

Should the organisers of the concert use it as an activity to increase awareness about intimate partner violence and use the proceeds to lend tangible support to the fight against violence against women?

Reports of domestic violence in Guyana, as in many other parts of the region, are frequent and gruesome, with women making up the majority of intimate partner homicides (femicides). 

For an extended commentary on why Guyanese activists reject governments financial support of the Chris Brown concert please read Vidyaratha Kissoon’s letter to the editor.

Edited to add:  it has been reported that Chris Brown’s criminal record prevents him from working in the UK.

Improving Education for All Boys & Girls

Three recent articles in the Trinidad & Tobago press have high focused on what is now a global debate about boys and education. The recent shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan for her activism around girls’ education reminds us that in most of the Global South girls literacy and enrollment rates lag behind boys, often because of overt gender discrimination against girls or other practices such as child marriage which impinge on girls right to an education.

In the Caribbean the debate around boys and education has centered on seeking explanations for why generally girls do better than boys in secondary school entrance examinations, CXC examinations and why they subsequently outnumber boys at university (though not in all fields). Explanations have ranged from: arguments that co-education and women teachers are disadvantageous to boys, that wider societal marginalisation of men is reflected in educational attainment, that the curriculum, educational system and teaching styles favour girls.

A former Minister in Trinidad & Tobago recently argued that:

We are destroying our boys in this country. Our education system is not built for training men. Little boys cannot sit down, little boys can’t stay quiet, little boys have to stand. They are different! And we continue to treat our boys like girls. You are destroying them.

One of the critical things we have to deal with and understand is that we have to redesign the whole system to understand that if we want men, we have to build an education system that trains men.

Professor Rhoda Reddock made a very important point that is often missing in this debate: that the education system is failing girls too:

I think our education system is uneven and class-based. The poorest groups in the society who need the most support, the most facilities, they are not the ones getting this. So the education system basically reproduces the class and socio-economic structure.”

Reddock believes our system is overly competitive, with too early specialisation and based primarily on examinations from very early ages. It does not ensure that all children, no matter what their socio-economic background, are allowed to perform at their best. For children, education should be enjoyable, engaging and stimulating.

It’s important to remember that Caribbean education systems were not designed with the needs of girls in mind. They come out of a history of racial and classed-based exclusion and gender discrimination. The sit-down-and-shut-up approach to teaching benefits neither boys nor girls. Often, concern about boys in schools is wrapped up within other concerns about maintaining relations of gendered power which favour men and furthering normative notions of masculinity associated with dominance and heterosexuality.

Sociologist Dylan Kerrigan had this to say:

At this year’s Matriculation ceremony at UWI, St Augustine Campus, there was an interesting visual contrast. In the front row, sat ahead of the new first year undergrads, were the top performers at this year’s Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA). Understandably they looked nervous as they waited to be honoured. On the main stage were senior UWI officials, there to welcome the incoming undergraduate class of 2015, as well as offer congrats to the SEA’s stars.

The contrast wasn’t between those looking nervous and the more composed regulars at such ceremonies. Rather it was about gender. Of the SEA students sat in the front row 12 were girls and one boy. Of the 13 senior members of the UWI Administrative and Academic staff on stage ten were men and three women.

The visual contrast is anecdotal. Yet when thinking about equality of opportunity based on gender it does prompt the thought—why if girls are massively outperforming boys at age 11 are there not more women represented on stage amongst the top tier of UWI officials?

As boys performance relative to girls is often extrapolated to predict the end of Caribbean men, Kerrigan demonstrates that that is definitely not the case.

The question still remains, how to improve Caribbean education systems so that they benefit all children? Absent from these debates are socio-economic and racial exclusions as well as exclusions and discrimination based on dis/ability, mobility, mental health and sexuality. If we are concerned about boys’ experiences in schools then we have to be concerned with all of these issues because they are all issues which affect boys.