Monday, November 3, 2014

The Way Guyanese Men view Women

In spite of the fact that like the rest of the Caribbean and the developed world, the numbers of women continuing in tertiary education are outnumbering men; Guyanese men seem to be stuck in some sort of Time Warp where women are there to provide cooking cleaning and sex.

Sadly, 'big men', those in positions of power wield their economic power and frequently cross the line of decency, telling themselves the women deserve to be treated like that.  I was appalled that a 21yr old accepted a lift from a much older man to drop her child off to day-care. She reported that she was surprised that he waited back for her and offered her another lift... this time it was ominous, he locked the doors automatically, drove her to a remote location and raped her, made her perform acts seen on pornography, had her say she enjoyed it so she could get a lift back, then tossed her out of the car with a $5000 bill (US $25). She stopped a mobile police patrol who arrested then released the man without investigation and apparently advised her to seek medical advice without telling her to not wash herself until evidence was taken

This sort of behaviour starts all the way from the top-- pathetic men who tell themselves young, poor women are whores and should be flattered by their attention... the main attraction being the cash and other emoluments. Particularly stomach-churning are the instances of Government Ministers indulging in this behaviour... not limited to one particular Party as the previous regime did that also. So I was suitable disgusted to read the transcript of the Anil-gate taped conversation between the relatively 'green' Attorney-General and a reporter of one of the more trashy dailies. The conversation opens with the AG badgering the reporter for the name of the woman reporter because his uncle would like to f**K her/bang her ... Sadly this attitude appears to represent the majority of Guyanese males, judging from the book In The Sly Company of People Who Care.http://gtobserver.blogspot.com/2011/12/sly-company-of-people-who-care-rahul.html

Being from fairly conservative family, it is an attitude totally alien to me and when I engaged in voluntary work in 1995, I was thinking that the men must be 'backwards' to refuse to let their intelligent young daughters go out to work; now that I have been around for a while-- I understand that that is about the most a poor man can do to protect a beloved daughter, as there are so many wolves in sheep's clothing about.