The world has turned full circle

Aug 26, 2010 Editorial

For nearly two centuries women knew that they were equal to men, if not better. However, the societies as they were structured, then, never gave them a chance to prove their mettle.
In England there were groups of women who defied the norms and protested the unequal treatment they received. For example, they were barred from certain jobs and from certain places. To this day, some religions do not allow women to worship alongside men and some do not recognise women as priests and lay preachers.
Women also did not have the right to vote. The argument was that the suffragettes should not get the vote because they were too emotional and could not think as logically as men. These women were frustrated by their social and economic situation and sought an outlet through which to initiate change. Their struggles for change within society were enough to spearhead a movement that would encompass mass groups of women fighting for suffrage. The women who sparked the protest for change in their status were the so-called middle class women in England. The campaign took almost a century but in the end the women achieved their goal.
Yet they were the objects of discrimination in other areas, and this spawned another movement called women’s liberation. Women demanded even more rights and in the end, like the suffragettes, they prevailed.
All that is history. In Guyana we spoke of equality for women and recently, we set up a rights and gender commission. We felt that women were not being given the respect they deserve.
Today, it would seem that the course is being set for men to protest in the same way the women did nearly two centuries. Women have not only attained equality; they have surpassed men in just about every area of national life. The gender analysis conducted by the Education Ministry revealed that among the top performers, 68.1 per cent were women—members of the so-called weaker sex.
And this has been the trend for quite some time now. Analysts say that this is not only so in Guyana but in just about every country where there are no obstacles to women development. Perhaps it is more pronounced in the Caribbean where role models are those who feature on the North American scene as gangsters and as flashy types.
Men are not going to school anymore and if there is to be an assessment of the extent of illiteracy in the society, one may very well find that some seventy per cent of the group would be men, perhaps much more.
We have, from time to time, attempted to explain this phenomenon of men rapidly becoming the under-achievers and the academic inferior of women. We suggested that the absence of the male teachers may be one of the root causes. In the first instance, the male teacher, perhaps because of his physical presence, would serve to motivate the male students more. This very presence would help to instill discipline.
He would be able to discuss male problems with the boys easier than his female counterpart who now dominates in the classrooms. Respect which is slowly disappearing in schools would be maintained.
Games and sports, an integral part of learning, would feature more as was once the case in the schools.
At a Father’s Day function, the guest speaker, Magda Pollard, noted the ascendancy of women in the society. She suggested that given the way things are, one must now wonder whether the leadership of the nation, mostly men, are not there by default rather than by any special skill.
Minister of Education, Shaik Baksh, is not ignoring the trend of male under-achievement. Just this week he said that several strategies would be put in place to keep men in secondary schools. There will also be a concerted effort to attract more male teachers to the classrooms.
However, this is easier said than done. He has not revealed details of the strategies but he, like the rest of the nation, has an uphill task to change this trend.

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