While the world has the luxury of celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8, I have it every day 🙂 My house is dominated by females–yes, that word is different in meaning from women :)–but, I’m not complaining…well, not all the time. So, before I cannot resist the temptation to say something wholly inappropriate, I’ll hail all the women in my life, present and past. They made me into who I am in every literal way, and are not wholly to blame for the faults that I have as a mere man. They helped and still help to shape my thinking, as I am always having to step out of my masculine box, and even though they may sometimes think and say that I and my peers cannot do more than one thing at a time, I am happy to prove them wrong.
Funnily, my mother taught me to be never dependent on a woman for any basic things like food, clean clothes or ironing, and while some women don’t want their men to be dependent on them, they often bridle when the man goes totally independent. This would be a good cue to talk about equality, but I’m going to resist that tempting morsel, this morning. However, if there’s a word to say on the topic it would be ‘sharing’. Done!
I had planned to mark today with an alphabet of things that Jamaican men do that women find offensive, but I’ve still not done reflecting on that, and I’d also like to check if my take on offence is indeed shared by any women of significance.
In the meantime, I’ll just put a place holder down that marks my thinking about one of the things that I perceive in Jamaica:
I admit to being sensitive to the topic of male harassment of women not least because all of my children are daughters, and I have seen upclose that even strong women of no mean status can get treated by men in Jamaica like chattels.
But, again, no temptation to expand on that just now. I may take the opportunity of being up-close with people in Latin America in coming weeks to check if my perception is based on a cultural bias that I cannot fully detect.
So, to all the women in my life, I raise my mug of tea. You all refresh me in ways too many to describe. 🙂
