Barbara Bailey, Suzanne M. Charles, ContributorsIt is heartening that the debate around issues of gender in our society, which started about a month or so ago, continues with sustained attention from the media. Despite the fact that the dialogue has been opened only consequent to the perceived, but far from real, ascendancy of women, it is an important and welcome debate, as it opens a space for dialogue about the various ways in which both sexes have been denied opportunities in the past. The dialogue also presents an opportunity for discussion around the possibilities for a sustainable way forward.
It must be noted, too, that what can now legitimately be called the 'hysteria' around the issues is not unique to Jamaica. From as far back as 2003, the headlines of the United Kingdom's Sunday Times screamed, 'The future is female'. Hysteria aside, the debate must be used to shape new agendas in which we go beyond factors of social difference, such as gender, class and race, and make genuine attempts towards social transformation and justice.
Necessity of dialogue
In a previous Sunday Gleaner article, 'The gender debate: The goose and the gander: Who gets the golden egg?' we explored some of the local and international issues of gender that continue to shape the lives of both men and women, and the ways in which these are now manifest in enrolment ratios in higher education. Other contributors have, in addition to supporting many of the issues raised in that article, also highlighted the necessity of this dialogue, if we are ultimately to aspire to real democracy.
Regrettably, however, some have missed the potential of the debate to transform social, political and economic life as we know it. The three-part series 'Gender Politics' in The Gleaner stands out as an excellent example. Throughout the series, the author seems to deliberately misunderstand and misrepresent the pertinent issues in what can only be considered an ill-informed position.
Moreover, the series seemed indicative of the author's own masculinist agenda, in which he seems more concerned that "in a few more years the control of the public domain by women will be complete," than with the fact that both males and females are disadvantaged in the education and other gendered social systems. Thankfully, the article 'The Male Backlash' that appeared in The Sunday Gleaner of October 28, 2007, addressed many of the deficiencies of the series.
Consider broader factors
But the debate needs to be taken even further and critical analysis applied in support of anecdotal evidence. In addition to simply asking questions about where the boys have gone, we need to consider broader factors, which have changed the nature of the labour market and now allow education to be valued differently by males and females, resulting in the disparity we now see.
To date, all contributors have acknowledged that current enrolment disparities reflect a global phenomenon and are in no way unique to Jamaica, or the Caribbean. It stands to reason, then, that we need to consider the global factors driving the phenomenon and expand the focus beyond local circumstances of education systems. At this point, we need to move past a focus on the number of schools built, the feminisation of the teaching profession, curriculum bias, teacher behaviour in the classroom or learning styles of boys and girls, and consider the bigger picture.
Impact of globalisation
In this regard, the importance and impact of globalisation cannot be understated.
With its innovations in information and communication technologies, systems of finance and ease of movement, globalisation has revolutionised the organisation of work and the production of goods and services. It has, in effect, changed the face of the labour market, a cornerstone of human relations and social life. This has been particularly true in regard to structures of class and gender.
On the one hand, a liberalised global economy has meant the increase in options for goods and services, including increased provision of post-secondary education. However, these options remain, as they always have been, structured along a system of distinct class and gender lines where, because of limited capacity and economic cost, only some can afford to access these opportunities and are positioned to benefit from global economic restructuring.
In Jamaica, the consequences of the education of girls and boys from different social strata are undeniable, as evidenced by the fact that the dialogue around the participation of boys in higher education has been mainly centred on males, and particularly on working-class males. Decline in participation by middle-class boys is less marked, though increased options in a globalised economy to earn an income without the benefit or financial burden of tertiary education has attracted many boys from the upper classes away from traditional educational pursuits.
On the other hand, in many countries, globalisation has to a large extent displaced jobs in agriculture, manufacturing and other industries, which were traditionally the areas of employment for the working class, and particularly working-class males.
Disillusionment with an education system structured to maintain the status quo and focused on learning styles perceived as better suited to females, coupled with the removal of the jobs that served as incentive to access education, has resulted in a diminishing valuation of schooling and a threat to the perceived primary of the male breadwinner role, for many working-class boys and the consequent decrease in their participation that we now witness.
Machines replacing humans
But there is more to the story. As the process of globalisation continues, technology is now replacing even intellectual jobs once thought impossible except by humans, through the use of increasingly complex software. The loss of these jobs, held overwhelmingly by men (with their focus on IT skills), has meant that even educated men have been displaced. It is now understood that the ICT industry is being driven by a few creators of technology, with the vast majority of us being simple consumers.
At the same time, (working-class) males are using their creativity to manipulate these technologies to generate wealth as disc jockeys (DJs) and 'riddim builders' in the burgeoning music industry.
'Care economy'
With no end in sight to globalisation, some scholars now predict that the global economy will, as it moved out of the industrial age, soon move out of the information economy and into 'a care economy', which will be dominated by 'softer' service skills that cannot be automated. What this will mean is that traditional understandings and expectations of gender identity in our society, and the roles boys/men and girls/women may legitimately assume in society, will now see women poised to take advantage of this new economy as the skills and traits once understood as uniquely female become increasingly valuable. Many Caribbean governments have embraced this thrust and are actively promoting the service sector as the engine of economic growth.
But does this mean that, according to the Gender Politics series, "in a few more years the control of the public domain by women will be complete"? Certainly not! What it does mean is that the challenges of modernity and globalisation have rendered stereotypical constructions of masculinity, steeped in macho and hegemonic understandings, as obsolete and burdensome.
We. therefore. need to recognise and accept that the gender system is manipulated by the political economy. Hence, our gender ideologies and the socially acceptable requirements for bearers of male and female bodies are both heavily influenced by the needs our society identifies as imperative to its growth and survival.
Filling demands
In the same way that the gender system in Britain, during the period of World War II, accommodated women going into the public workplace, in the factories, to ensure that ammunition and other supplies were maintained, it is the same way that our societies allow men and women to move into various areas in the public space, as the needs demand.
The Caribbean has its own history of this accommodation of new roles: the experience of women being allowed into the public workforce when men went off to build the Panama Canal in the early 1900s, and other similar international 'outer-movements' of labour bear testimony to this.
What this means is that schools, families and societies are now challenged to find new positive masculine and feminine identities in private and public life, which focus on transcending gender norms and the building of a new type of society that is based on the free and full participation of men and women as human beings.
As the dialogue continues, it is becoming increasingly clear that while some men were not innocents in the manipulation of patriarchal privilege, most men clearly did not marginalise themselves but, like women, have fallen victims to a societal order that has not allowed them the opportunities to be their true and best selves.
Barbara Bailey and Suzanne M. Charles are attached to the Centre for Gender and Development Studies, Regional Coordinating Unit, at the University of the West Indies, Mona.
