She wears the pants in my house

Oct 22, 2008 News

---

by Michael Benjamin

The gang was at the ritualistic street corner lime, gaffing about—you guessed it—women. Tommy was at the microphone. He puffed his chest in the air and pronounced, “She playing she is man for me but las’ night I had she begging pon she knees!” ‘
In between the mirth one of the boys asked, “What was she saying?”
“That I must come from under the bed,” Tommy sheepishly pronounced.
While the above recitation may have come over as a joke, the underlying message is clear. Men have long believed that they run things. They strut about and preen their feathers while bumping their gums with empty rhetoric.
Their first reaction to conflict resolution is to fold their fists and lash out. Most women live in the abuse because they think that they cannot do better and will not risk complaining to the authorities or seek counseling for fear of losing the bread-winner.
Meanwhile, the men somehow manage to impress their friends, and even convince themselves, that they are indispensable in their women’s lives.
Yet, when the fistfight is over and dust settles, it is the women who, despite sporting bumps and bruises, raise their hands in victory even as the very men they were up against strap the championship belt around their waists. Somehow, society has managed to draw a distinction, thus the terminology that women are ‘the weaker sex.’ It appears that men are comfortable with, and have fought vigorously to preserve this paradox while keeping women in their place.
Men fashion major and minor premises, then syllogistically arrive at fallacies that enforce the equality concept. One of the famous arguments used against women’s equality is that if you give equal rights to women you are subtly depriving man of his God-given right to take control. This argument employs the fallacy of denying the antecedent and leads one to think along the lines of male dominance.
There are still men who strongly believe that women ought to be confined to the type of work associated with the weaker sex, like washing the dishes, tidying the house and then waiting around to be serviced by their so-called stallions.
Some men mete out treatment to their womenfolk in measurement of their ideology of dependency.
It seems that men’s naivety has blinded them to constructive reasoning and they are not even aware of the disruptions created in their lives until it is too late.
I have heard women boasting that they can do to a man whatever they please once they satisfy two his appetites —his sexual appetite and his appetite for food.
Based on this sentiment, the women claim that they are in control. As a boxer, I am fully aware that there should be no hitting below the belt. Unfortunately, that is the very spot that women find most feasible in bringing about results. One night of sleeping on the couch softens the men to rethink their positions while two nights trigger panic buttons. The women know this.
Sometimes I am privy to a little girl talk and believe me, I am astounded by the content of some of these discussions. As a young man I would hear my parents and their friends involved in mature  conversation. For all the world of me I could neither derive head nor tail of what was being said.
Their language was always coded beyond my comprehension. These days, women have adapted a liberated stance based on the belief that they are earning on par with their male counterparts.
I have not done any scientific evaluation but I have observed that women are now taking over in every sector. The schools, the churches, the judiciary and a host of other institutions are now saturated with the ‘fairer sex.’ Obviously, the men have either shirked their God-given responsibilities, relinquished the battle, or women have now asserted themselves to the fact that they have every right to be liberated.
The pundits advocate that some men are quite contented to be househusbands while their wives sweat and bring home the bacon. This new arrangement has created social problems because the women are switching their affections to more viable sources. Antiguans call it ‘knuckle,’ Jamaicans call it ‘bun’ and the Bajans and Trinidadians refer to it as ‘horn.’ We Guyanese call it ‘blow.’
Guyanese women in the executive groupings have now coined a new phrase for this phenomenon and are referring to it as ‘structural adjustment.’
Some men are waging a ferocious battle against equality of the sexes. While women have not gained full equality, the formal structural barriers holding them back have largely collapsed and those left are crumbling. New government policies have discouraged sex discrimination by most organizations and in most areas of life outside the family, the political and economic systems have accepted ever more women and have promoted them to positions with more influence and higher status.
Education at all levels has become equally available to women. Women have gained great control over their reproductive processes and their sexual freedom has come to resemble that of men. Whereas in the past divorce was regarded as a social anomaly and subsequently frowned upon, it is now more easy and socially acceptable to end unsatisfactory marriages with divorce.
Popular culture has come close to portraying women as men’s legitimate equal. It seems now that the prevailing theme is women’s assimilation into all the activities and positions once denied them.
“Women have their society,” is a term often uttered that basically underlines the strong bonds shared by women on feminine issues. A man is wont to betray his brother in favour of a woman as against a correspondingly opposite scenario.  Even so, men become distrustful of women who they dub money hunters. To protect themselves from the wiles of women, men have devised unique ways of protecting their material worth. They call it a prenuptial agreement.
I have heard more about this arrangement in the USA and other developed countries other than Guyana, but I am certain that the phenomenon will soon visit our dear land.
Women are referred to as the weaker sex, yet at the end of divorce proceedings, it is they that lift away the household apparel— the car, the furniture, the fridge plus all the children.
The members of the ‘stronger sex’ are burdened with a small weightless, envelope with a legal instruction to insert a sizeable portion of their salary and deposit same in the woman’s mailbox after every pay day. Someone called it alimony and indeed it is just that—‘all he money.’ Women just keep winning all the time.
Moments before he was married, my friend received free counseling from one of his colleagues who incidentally had been married for years. “Never enter into verbal warfare with a woman and expect to win.” My dear friend disregarded this piece of advice much to his detriment.
“That’s okay,” he said, I am married to Miss Right.” One year later he discovered that she was surely “Miss Right.” He just did not know that her first name was “Always.”
During a lecture on the topic ‘Marriage and the family’ at the University of Guyana, I had been asked what I thought about women as good citizens, and I take this opportunity to give an answer, which may refer to all women: We could have no good citizens without good women.
The home is our first school, and the home life and home instruction are first and the most lasting. Every home has a woman in it, and some homes have good women in them. Women are like men—some are good and some are bad.
We can have no good home without good women, and we can have no good citizens without good homes; therefore, good women are essential to good citizenship.
I believe that the best interests of our country and its institutions demand that women have the largest liberty consistent with the demands of the home, to exercise their influence upon the social, moral, educational and political interests of childhood and manhood. There must also be the right of personal liberty of life and the pursuit of happiness.
Finally, and most importantly, once for all, let me say that I am in favour of human rights for every individual of every race, of every condition, regardless of sex, and would support each woman being the queen of the home, but I am willing she shall exercise her regal power in the political world.
I believe that the ballot will be safer in the hands of an intelligent and sober woman than in the hands of a drunken man. I believe that the home is a better place to raise good citizens than the saloon. The mothers, the wives and the sisters of the land would be safer and better teachers of good citizenship than any saloon-keeper or ward politician; and, as one member of the Christian family, I believe in the home, the schoolhouse and the church.
The mother, the schoolmaster and the preacher are legitimate teachers of good citizenship. The safety of all Guyanese lies in the maintenance of good homes and good schools and good churches. I believe that a Christian education is essential to good citizenship; therefore, I am in favour of allowing the women of the land to assist in molding and shaping the character of our boys and girls.
They can do that best when they are permitted to make the choice of the directors of our schools or become directors themselves, and are permitted to elect the men and women who are to train their own children. The slaves have been emancipated; now let us emancipate women!
The unconditional and universal and immediate emancipation of womanhood is imperative.
I am fully aware of the many adverse comments I will hear coming out of a certain section of the male population after they would have read this article.
I am prepared for whatever they plan for me. What I do know is that whatever punishment they concoct, they cannot rescind my gender and pronounce me to be nothing else but a man.
Furthermore, irrespective of the many claims of women that they are the boss, I want you all to know that I wear the pants in my house and I am in total control of things. If you don’t believe me, just ask my wife. After all, she gives me permission to say so.

---

---