By Thandeka Percival, Salima Hinds and Vidyaratha Kissoon
Thandeka Percival is a journalist and former educator. She holds a B.Soc.Sci in International Relations.
Salima Hinds is an Afro-Guyanese feminist, and gender specialist living and working in Guyana
Vidyaratha Kissoon is involved in the work for gender equality in Guyana
We have seen your Memorandum to the Education officials about the “freedoms” to be allowed on International Women’s Day 2022.
We note that these “freedoms” are temporary as if women and girls are not entitled to freely exist every day.
The fact that you have offered this concession highlights that you know the hair policy discriminates against black and biracial women. Having recognised this discrimination you have chosen not to change this policy and afford individuals their human and constitutional right to learn and work in an environment free from discrimination. Instead you lift the yoke of oppression for one day.
For one day ONLY (emphasis yours), women and girls can wear “loose hair, afros, braids, curls and the like”. They must be careful however that these “styles” are neither semi-permanent or permanent. What of those whose hair naturally springs from their scalps in curls and kinks? How do they make their natural self temporary and what then should become permanent once they have been erased? Keep in mind that this erasure does not happen once. This erasure is a daily act, as curls like weeds tend to spring back up. Also like weeds, curls are a natural bounty but you the ever constant gardener deem them unwanted and in need of removal.
Every day learners are told they must fit in a mould. They must replace their authentic self with someone quieter. Someone smoother. Someone neater. Young girls are told they must be a lady and that a lady is nothing like who they really are. Can you imagine the psychological impact this has? Can you imagine what it feels like to erase yourself each and every day. To look in a mirror first thing each morning and, violently sometimes, painfully tame your spirit?
You know, we are sure, that this policy is a colonial artefact, one of many tools used to oppress the colonis-ed. It has no place in an independent Guyana.
In case you don’t understand how you are perpetuating discrimination, we urge you to read Olive Senior’s Poem “Colonial Girl’s School”.
Senior reminds us in this poem that a Colonial education system was contrived to remove from the colonised any sense of self worth and replace it with a borrowed value system.
She writes this system willed our skins pale/muffled our laughter/ lowered our voices/ let out our hems [and]/ dekinked our hair. It makes sure to tell us nothing about ourselves. “Nothing about us at all”
Dear Ministry of Education, your memo tells us that you recognise these offences against your charges but instead of disbanding this legacy of the violent past, you instead remind the nation that the policy still exists. And so you will punish the women and girls on Wednesday 9th March and afterwards for what you have recognised is nothing to be punished for. You choose to hold on to the power of the colonialists to control the bodies of women and girls.
You have promised dialogue. In this case such a promise is callous and disrespectful. In the Newsroom article “Manickchand promises overhaul of outdated school rules as ‘hairstyle memo’ sparks public ire,” it seems the Ministry is glad for negative publicity because – “In this case, there is no bad press”. The Ministry, it seems, is hoping for ‘balance’, though they have not said where this idea comes from that there is to be balance in overcoming centuries of racial and sexist injustice.
Who exactly sits on the other side of the scale? What possible counter argument could be brought against a desire to exist as is? The Ministry is asking for ‘conversation’ – Conversation with whom? The dead white people who silenced our ancestors, whipped them into submission and said that any human without their skin and hair texture was not human?
We recognise this fear embedded in you, that women and girls, black women and girls who come to school with their individual expressions would represent anarchy. We know that you too are a product of this education system. You have been erased and witnessed erasure to such an extent that the colonial masters speak to you and walk in your minds. That was their intent but we cannot excuse you for failing to silence their voices.
We cannot accept your interpretation of the theme of International Women’s Day 2022 “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow“ as part of a campaign to #BreakTheBias to mean remove the contempt for women and girls for one day and then resume the contempt for the remaining days. You cannot possibly mean that breaking biases against women means holding on to gender inequality and other inequalities beyond 8 March 2022.
Break the Bias and Gender Equality today and every day
The Ministry of Education and the Government of Guyana believe that the tokenism of celebrating the ‘days’ is enough to show that they are doing something.
The spirit of your hair memo reflects the commitment to that tokenism, rather than to any meaningful desire to be a part of the transformation needed by all of us.
Breaking the bias can start by recognising women and girls’ inherent human rights and the connection between bodily autonomy and freedom in all aspects of life. Something as seemingly simple as having the right to decide to wear your hair in braids, to cut your hair, to dye your hair, sets the script on how women and girls can control their bodies and lives.
Breaking the bias happens when the society believes that all humans are equal and that the Ministry of Education provides resources to overcome the discrimination faced by different groups of learners in the society – children with disability accommodation needs; children living in poverty; children who are marginalised from the top 100 in the common entrance exam, children who do not have access to quality teaching resources or who cannot attend school regularly.
Breaking the bias happens when the Ministry completely does away with the hair policy. It comes with recognising the history of bias and discrimination which the hair policy represents, and teaching about resistance to that discrimination.
Breaking the bias means recognising that different individuals choose to express their gender in different ways and that it is their right to do so and there is no need for ‘permission’ from you or any other State institution.
Gender equality is achieved by addressing the current gender norms and social norms which causes the education system to lose boys.
Breaking the bias is achieved by teachers, learners and their communities working on comprehensive sexuality education so that they understand their sexual and reproductive health and rights, to talk about bodily autonomy and consent; and eradication of gender based violence.
The Ministry of Education needs to start on the journey of transformation, to give itself the permission to let go of the oppression which binds it still, and the need to hold onto colonial and patriarchal power.
While we might hope as Olive Senior says,
One day we’ll talk about/
How the mirror broke/
Who kissed us awake/
Who let Anansi from his bag/
One day, nay today “in the brighter world before us”.Those northern eyes, these colonial eyes must pale.
All for your information and guidance.
