On Sunday last, in this newspaper’s column ‘Women’s Chronicles’ under the headline “Madness in Mahdia”, a young woman related experiences that could only be deemed frightening and completely reprehensible. The unnamed young woman was, according to the report, sent to the Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) town by her place of employment and apparently spent several days.
During her time there, she was sexually harassed verbally on more than two occasions and physically at least twice by men in the town. The men who perpetrated the acts, she said, were mostly visibly intoxicated, although in at least one instance the harassment occurred well before noon. Furthermore, she was not singled out or targeted because she was a stranger. Rather, she reported witnessing many women and girls being subjected to the same disrespectful and lewd conduct.
Associated with the mining of gold and other minerals, Mahdia had long gained the reputation of being rough. However, over the years, it has been dragged toward propriety and having eventually donned a cloak of seeming normality, it was officially declared Guyana’s tenth town in October 2018.
The over-imbibing of alcohol is a national public health issue that desperately needs to be addressed and it is well known that mining areas are hotbeds of excessive alcohol use. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to blame the behaviour being meted out to girls and women in Mahdia on alcohol. The reasons why are very simple. Firstly, alcoholism is a nationwide issue, as is sexual harassment, but the two are not mutually exclusive, nor have reports of harassment elsewhere involved the utterly brazen acts committed in Mahdia. Secondly, not all of the men engaging in lewd behaviour in Mahdia were under the influence of alcohol, as the young woman reported. Thirdly, it is highly unlikely that any of the men doing the harassing would behave the same way in a different setting, in Georgetown, for example. This speaks volumes about law enforcement and law and order in Mahdia.
The young woman relating the experience did not mention making any police report and possibly did not do so. One wishes that were the case as it would have been interesting, to say the least, to see how the police handled such a report.
Sexual harassment, though endemic in Guyana, is a global issue. It has been reported that perhaps 90% of women worldwide have experienced some form of sexual harassment, which as mentioned before is unacceptable and not to be countenanced. Sexual harassment is extremely rampant in the street, where strange men catcall women, address them as ‘hey sexy’ or ‘hello beautiful’ and instruct them to smile or say good morning. But it gets worse. There are those who berate women when they ignore them using the foulest language there is, block their paths to force interaction and touch or grope them. There are instances where the behaviour can turn violent as well.
But sexual harassment is also well established in workplaces, despite there being policies against it in practically every modern company in the world. For example, a recent study done in the US revealed that 1 in 18 women and 1 in 40 men have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace perpetrated by mainly co-workers, clients and customers and to a lesser extent by bosses.
Like rape, which is at the very end of the spectrum, sexual harassment has little to do with any morals and values men may or may not have inculcated as part of their socialisation and much to do with power. Disrespecting women through the use of denigrating comments is more than patriarchal, although that is part of it, it is downright misogynistic. Objectifying women, refusing to hear their voices and seeing them as mere bodies also lend to the disparagement, which some men use as an assertion of power; as in ‘I am better than you and therefore can say or do whatever I feel like to you’.
The #metoo movement which exploded, mostly in North America, two years ago, unlike almost everything else, has not really managed to take off in this part of the world, but it is high time that it did. Necessary actions should be taken so that women and girls are safe and respected not only in Mahdia, but in every town and village in this country.
