Dear Editor,
GuyExpo is supposed to be many things, including promoting Guyana, and it is interesting to read what people’s perceptions are about what is promoted and exported.
We have serious problems with gender-based violence, the root of which is how we perceive ourselves and each other as masculine and feminine.
It was sickening to see in the Guyana Chronicle in ‘Scenes from GuyExpo’ a photograph with a caption ‘Showcasing our very own Guyanese beauty: These lovely, lovely girls were “eye candy” at the Guyexpo 2010 opening on Thursday night.’ Does the Chronicle not think of these women as serving any purpose at GuyExpo other than eye candy, or was that their function?
And if the Chronicle is non-discriminatory about what it considers beauty and beautiful, were they thinking of doing the same thing with ‘lovely, lovely’ Minister Prashad and the ‘lovely, lovely’ Minster Ali and Minister Persaud, etc, etc.
So, is it that GuyExpo has now become a place from which we send a message to the world that women are commodities?
Yours faithfully,
Vidyaratha Kissoon