Challenging men as symbols of the nation

DR GABRIELLE JAMELA HOSEIN

IN HIS March 19 commentary on CAPE 2021 scholarship winners, Dr Terrence Farrell called for efforts to “restore iconic secondary schools, but also to restore male achievement, restore excellence as an aspirational value, and indeed restore TT.”

Instead, we should unpack what are considered “iconic” secondary schools, their implicit association with masculinity, and the assumption that men best symbolise the status of the nation.

The success of Lakshmi Girls’ Hindu College, Naparima Girls’ High School, St Augustine Girls’ High School and St Joseph’s Convent, St Joseph, among others, points to continuing transformations of an historic gendered hierarchy. This democratisation of success is an opportunity for schools that are neither male-dominated nor Port of Spain-dominated also to be iconic.

Dr Farrell, like other commentators, also called for restoration of male achievement.

While there is concern about boys’ falling dominance in education, men are still ascendant in all spheres of power in our society; in business, politics, religion, land ownership, the security forces and the labour market, and on both public- and private-sector boards.

This still occurs despite women graduating in higher numbers from UWI for 30 years. The hullabaloo about the “crisis facing boys” should be as loud in regard to the world beyond education, where there is less meritocracy, for which women pay the costs. This is precisely why girls know they have to work twice as hard to do just as well in the world today.

The results suggest that excellence remains an aspirational value, though perhaps QRC and CIC have adjustments to make, which is what Dr Farrell is really referring to. In that sense, it’s a little dramatic to speak of needing to “restore TT,” as if these boys’ schools are the most legitimate symbols of the nation.

Indeed, and someone needs to say it to an old boys’ club, what is wrong if Indian girls, dougla girls, south girls, Hindu girls, Presbyterian girls or African girls from the East-West Corridor occupy what seems to still be considered a fraternal right? Traditional inequalities in TT are being challenged, rather than reproduced, with good reason.

I understand those worried by the idea that, as one bredren put it, “Jus’ now we're all gonna be pumping these SAGHS girls gas!” We are used to women’s subordination as shop clerks, domestic workers, informal sector workers, sex workers, caterers, cashiers, cleaners and housewives, even when they have a secondary-school education.

We get worried when it seems that men may be moving downward in comparison to women, though women remain at the very bottom. The problem is when boys and men can no longer assume they will be on top.

I also understand that there are real tribulations facing boys. These have been brewed through practices such as political patronage (which fed gangs), decades of judicial and prison system failure, economic contractions and neoliberal policies since the 1980s (which made the male-breadwinner model even harder to achieve), the crisis in social reproduction (as safety, trust and cohesion have fallen apart), intergenerational family violence, poor employment opportunities for university graduates (making education appear less relevant to economic power), and resilient ideals of manhood that have led boys to turn to leisure, crime, sports and entertainment in their flight from the feminine (which has meant that reading and studying are now seen as what girls do).

Scholars such as Barbara Bailey, David Plummer and Mark Figueroa have also pointed to male privilege, or boys’ and men’s unearned advantage as a core catch-22. Figueroa writes, “Early childhood socialisation prepares girls much better than boys for the type of schooling common in the Caribbean. Girls are more confined to the house, more under adult supervision, given more responsibility, expected to be disciplined, taught to please others, and involved in doing uninteresting and repetitive tasks…In contrast, the mismatch between male gender identities and the educational system has grown. The old male chauvinist values are still inculcated in boys.”

Competition is alive and well, and not just between girls’ schools, but between girls’ and boys’ schools, as they have always been. Increasingly, qualities associated with femininity are assets. Boys are caught in a gendered and generally misdiagnosed conundrum about what to do.

We need well-educated men.

I’m also for addressing class inequalities in education, and widespread need for diverse learning approaches and inclusive (non-violent and non-homophobic) schools. We can continually remake rather than just restore ourselves as a republic. How depends on the analysis we choose.

Diary of a mothering worker

entry 456

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