Dear Editor,
I read Vidyaratha Kissoon’s impassioned letter regarding the stabbing death of Cindy Ramchandar (SN Letters, August 8, 2022) and could not help but agree with everything stated. I also feel that our popular culture is riddled through with hypocrisy when it comes to the issues of machismo and violence and the way women are perceived.
Just recently I made the following observation to a friend about the upcoming Carnival Cricket. The men will be in the field displaying skills and talents in competitive sport to win honours. Women, as showcased in the advertisements, will be employed to dress in very skimpy costumes to wine and go-down on the side-lines, i.e., they will be there to sexually titillate the men who are there to watch – the game? This decision was made by a roomful of men, no doubt, and in the 21st century what has really changed about the way men perceive women?
There might come a day when pretty young ladies, when approached to perform on the side-lines of a game as sexual objects, will suck their teeth in disgust and walk away from the financial reward offered. However, that day is not here yet. A thrilling game of cricket is, apparently, not enough. There must be dancing girls as well. Tickets are sold out, I hear. Women are still property without any real power so when a woman rejects or objects to a relationship, the man feels his only recourse to regaining his control and power is to rid himself of the objector. Women die.
Are some mothers still bringing up sons to play out macho roles? At Bourda Market some years ago, at the stall of a female vendor and coming up to Christmas, music was playing and her son was standing around drinking beer. I made a comment to her that her son was already “sporting” for Christmas. She smiled and said, “Dem bai wuk hard all year.” I said to her, “Didn’t you work hard, too?” Her face went blank and she just looked at me. The sporting that is allowed, even encouraged by the women in the family and as a male right, can one day turn deadly?
Violence is also accepted as a solution to political issues. This has been ongoing for over fifty years and when has anyone ever been held accountable for the death and destruction? Instead of accountability, there is politicking for short-term political gains and the perpetrators walk about freely. What is the message sent and received but that violence wins and is the victor, and that the victims must bear up in silence? And many of those victims of assault, robbery and rape are women and young girls. They are, as in the home, easy targets.
Then we have the uncouth, ill-mannered behaviour of leaders who should be role models for their followers. Here, too, there is failure. If we are not yet civilised enough to display the simple good manners of shaking the hand of a political opponent, what hope is there that the general population will care one jot how far their own bad manners and bad behaviour go? “All are involved and all are consumed” wrote Martin Carter. How true.
Sincerely,
Ryhaan Shah
