Dear Editor,
It is not going to be easy to build a Caribbean society in which men and women could view each other with respect and as equals. Sexism has been part of our culture for a long time, and while efforts are made to deal with gender based violence, we seem to have a long way to go to deal with the cultural issues which perpetuate that violence.
And so we read in SN of 19 March, 2013 about the fete put on for the West Indies team in Barbados by the sponsor of the CPL. Good performances should no doubt be rewarded. But how are our boys rewarded … as Mr Khan’s public relations team writes “Delectable Caribbean cuisine, beautiful women, waist-line-moving music and the friendliest people in the world, were all on display on Saturday.”
And so Mr Khan provided for our boys… food, women, music and friendly people.. isn’t that what the Caribbean is known for – in that order too? Where was the rum in this sequence of Caribbean cultural characteristics?
And even as we sometimes lament on special days or occasions about ‘gender based violence’, we accept that it is okay to think and write about putting women on display.
Yours faithfully,
Vidyaratha Kissoon
