Learning how to lead

The egg says, “I am like authority. If you hold me too hard, I break; if you let me go, I fall and break to pieces on the ground.” (Africa)

Dear Zayda,

Women are still learning how to lead. Since we know what we do not know, we may be better off than men who think they know. With centuries of practice, men are still making a mess for women to clean up. For too long we have accepted the work and expected none of the authority or even the credit. Increasingly, we women are demanding our share of authority not just at home but in the boardroom and in parliament.

Girls usually become leaders much younger than boys. When the new baby comes, parents usually give some of their authority to the big sister. Parents may blame the three-year-old girl for any harm that comes to baby under her watch. If she and a younger child have a fight when they are grown, parents will say, to big sister, “You are the older one, so you must set the example.” Perhaps some of us avoid authority because we link it to blame, sacrifice, loss of childhood, and loss of fun.

While the girls are doing chores and supervising younger children, the boys (certainly in Jamaica!) are usually outdoors playing games. They therefore learn about authority through games. So while women take authority seriously and often too seriously, men tend to see authority as a game. Where women may take a loss to heart, a man may accept a loss as the price for staying in the game. Women may think their power base is formed in discussions at meetings; men know the power base is formed over drinks at the bar.

Women with state authority used to be rare. The first female elected to head a government was Sirivamo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, in a country where men usually lead while women follow several paces behind. From similar cultures came such leaders as Indira Gandhi of India, and Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan. Today we had many more women holding state power in countries such as Liberia, Germany, and Chile. Portia Simpson Miller was Jamaica’s first and only female prime minister, and this year Kamla Persad-Bissessar became Trinidad’s prime minister. You can see a list of women currently in power at: http://www.filibustercartoons.com/charts_rest_female-leaders.php

Women continue to search for positive ways to handle authority. Most women, such as Maggie Thatcher of Britain, have decided to hold the egg hard, often so hard that they defeat themselves. Some, like Eugenia Charles of Dominica, stay the course as a strong leader, not seeming to care if others think they are acting like males. Many more women avoid handling authority. They let go of the egg out of fear of being seem as trying to be a man.

My grandniece, you can begin to practice handling authority as soon as you have any kind of leadership role – at home or at school. Remember the lesson of the egg. Carry an egg around with you for a few days and see what you have to do to protect the egg.

Understand that you can be gentle without allowing the egg to fall. Notice that you can hold the egg firmly without crushing it. Remember that if you put down the egg, someone else may pick it up and act as if the egg belongs to him because that is what he grew up to believe.

And if you find no other sources to guide you, Zayda, remember the wisdom the ancestors have set down for us in these proverbs. Remember women such as Yaa Asantewaa and Harriet Tubman. They had the courage to take up the egg and nurture it. They could be tough and gentle, flexible and uncompromising.

Balance and self-trust are some of the qualities we need to feel at home with the authority that belongs as much to us as to anyone else.

Blessings,

Your shangazi Nothango (Yvonne)

Staying true to what was hatched

What was hatched a hen must not try to be a rooster. (Grenada, Tobago)

Dear Zayda,

Accepting ourselves as we are seems to be one of the hardest jobs, for men as well as women.

Men often need to prove how macho they are. Even little boys can be accused of acting like girls if they show their feelings. Early on, boys find out that they are not supposed to cry if they are hurt, and they are not to give hugs or ask for hugs. Often, when Jamaican men meet, they show how glad they are to see each other by sounding and looking as if they are at war. They thump each other, slap each other, and shout insults at each other. Some of our men are so keen to prove their manhood that they don’t know how to show affection to the women closest to them, in particular their wives and daughters. Sons almost never qualify for affection, and the cycle goes on.

I recently went to a television studio where my make-up artist was a man. I am proud of him for doing what he loves, even if others might say this is “hen’s” work. Some years ago, I had an exciting outfit made for me by “Biggy”, a man who learned dress design from his mother and then specialized in dancehall outfits. Interestingly, men often become celebrities when they have the courage to excel at work traditionally done by women.

The society often decides what is “hen’s” work and what is “rooster’s” work. When I was a child, I loved to whistle. If my elders heard me whistling, they would say, “A whistling women and a crowing hen is an abomination to the lord.” They claimed this was a quote from the Bible, but it seems to come from some old Irish proverb.

Many times, a mostly female group will choose the sole male as leader, because they believe heading a group is rooster’s work. When one of our relatives was on her deathbed, she asked me to make sure no females wore pants to her funeral. Indeed, I was part of a struggle in the 1970s to allow women to wear pants to work.

Women still struggle for equal pay and recognition at work. Low-paying and care giving jobs like teaching and nursing are now mostly left to women. However, women can come across blocks to positions that men claim for themselves: engineers, construction workers, airline pilots, and corporate heads.

So, grandniece, it is important to know yourself and be yourself. If you are born a hen, you can only be a fake if you try to be a rooster instead. On the other hand, you don’t have to let anyone limit you with their ideas of what hens and roosters should or should not do. You only need to be your best self.

Blessings,

Your shangazi

For Women: Freedom of Body and Mind

Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men. (Marcus Garvey)

Dear Zayda,

If Garvey is right (and I think he is) we need to free our minds before our bodies can be free. So many of us have a long way to go to consider ourselves free.

Garvey was probably too busy fighting issues of race and class to consider gender. If he were alive today, he might rephrase what he said to include women. But no matter, we will include ourselves.



Let us not forget, however, that there are many in different parts of the world who still do not want women to be liberated in either body or mind. I had a conversation on a radio programme last Sunday with a Muslim sheik last Sunday, and was amazed that he favoured a world where people are not equal. He had a list of all who are better than whom. He thought, for example, that God sees people with university degrees as better than people who can’t read or write, and god-fearing people as better than the godless. The “god-fearing” were the Muslims, and the godless were the non-Muslims. Of course, he believed that God sees Muslims as better than everyone else. The Muslim sheik believed all Jamaica’s crime problems would be solved if we had Sharia law.

Well, grandniece, if ever you hear someone mention Sharia law, you know already what they think about women’s freedom. In Muslim countries with Sharia law, women cannot speak to any man who is not husband or relative, unless a male relative is present. So you can see what that would do to a woman who tries to have a job outside her home. If women give evidence in court, they are considered as half a man. Courts can rule that a woman be given 100 lashes or be stoned to death if she has a relationship with the “wrong” man. Women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men, but nothing stops men from marrying non-Muslim men.

I told the Muslim sheik that, from the way he spoke, I probably needed to get myself a burqa. This is the Muslim outfit that covers women from head to toe, just allowing them room to see. Control of women’s bodies and clothes is a way of controlling their minds.

So, little girls in many Muslim countries have a far way to go. Some are not allowed to go to school, and they certainly cannot go to schools that any boys attend. If they like sports, men can’t coach them, unless by cell phone at a distance. If a girl from a strict Muslim country wants to be a runner, she must still be fully covered – legs, arms, neck, and head. In some Muslim countries, women are not allowed to vote or drive cars.

It is not only in Muslim countries that women have to liberate their minds and bodies. Countries in the West, who say they follow Christian values, may allow women greater room, except at the top. Christians will say that their God created all equal, but they will still insist that the man must be the head of the household. In some churches, women are not allowed to hold leadership positions except in the Mothers’ Union.

What the law does in some Muslim countries, ridicule and isolation can do in countries where women are supposed to be free. For example, women who hold or want to hold top positions can find all kind of roadblocks. They can be accused of acting like men, wanting to wear the pants, or neglecting their families. People will exaggerate the woman’s weaknesses, real or imagined. They can be criticized for their hairstyle of the clothes they choose to wear. The result is that few women aim for positions as powerful as President of the United States of America.

However, Muslim girls manage to find freedom even when they can barely show their faces. Women risk their lives to be themselves, to go to school, to wear designer clothes under dresses that look like shrouds, to marry whom they like, and to work in meaningful jobs. If their minds are free, they know they are free, Sharia law or not.

In our countries, Zayda, we can be free as well. We can take no notice of the pressure to let men tell us what to do, what to wear, what to say, what lower-level jobs to fill and leave the more profitable jobs for the men.

We have a way to go to free our minds, but only we can enslave ourselves.

Blessings,

Your shangazi