Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

“The best man for the job is a woman,” de­clared Cé­cile La Grenade, gov­er­nor-gen­er­al of Grena­da, as she con­tex­tu­alised the role of Caribbean women in the re­gion’s so­cial and eco­nom­ic life.

“While oth­ers are vis­i­ble and at the fore­front and lay claim to suc­cess, we have been at the back­ground in sit­u­a­tions where we have been the back­bone of suc­cess­ful ac­tiv­i­ties or or­ga­ni­za­tions,” she said in her ad­dress at the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny of the Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies, Val­sayn. She spoke on the con­tri­bu­tion of women to the so­cial, po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of the Caribbean.

La Grenade. Grena­da’s first fe­male Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al is a food sci­en­tist and busi­ness­woman. She is the own­er of De La Grenade In­dus­tries, a lead­ing food pro­cess­ing com­pa­ny, which has pi­o­neered the use of nut­meg in the man­u­fac­ture of high val­ue-added de­li­cious prod­ucts—Morne Délice Nut­meg Jam, Jel­ly and Syrup.

“The con­tri­bu­tion of women to our re­gion has been enor­mous and we have played a vi­tal role in our re­gion’s de­vel­op­ment. In fact, this top­ic could fill sev­er­al vol­umes of stud­ies. The his­to­ry of our re­gion is re­plete with stores of the vi­sion, the de­ter­mi­na­tion, the or­gan­i­sa­tion, and the strug­gles of Caribbean women. Yet in many in­stances the strug­gles of Caribbean women have not been recog­nised and laud­ed,” she said.

La Grenade said from the days of slav­ery, Caribbean women were in­volved in trade and busi­ness

Out­lin­ing their long move­ment up the eco­nom­ic and so­cial lad­der, she said: “They sold their sur­plus­es from ground pro­vi­sion and even­tu­al­ly some of them were able to ac­cu­mu­late enough cash to buy their free­dom. This led to Sat­ur­day and lat­er Sun­day mar­kets with women as the main par­tic­i­pants.

This trade, which evolved in the post-slav­ery pe­ri­od in sev­er­al ter­ri­to­ries, still ex­ists to­day with In­do Caribbean women in T&T and Guyana al­so be­com­ing in­volved. Even­tu­al­ly, the mar­ket trade ex­pand­ed in­to in­ter-re­gion­al trade among the is­lands. The Caribbean in­ter-mar­ket trade was run by women as this form of work was shunned by men.”

She said that women of that era who were not in­volved in the ex­port of veg­eta­bles and fruits were en­gaged in nu­mer­ous oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties to earn mon­ey.

“These in­clud­ed sell­ing food in vil­lages. Items such as black pud­ding, can­dies made from co­conuts and peanuts, tarts gua­va cheese and tamarind balls, as well as oth­er Caribbean del­i­ca­cies. Some women turned their skills and tal­ents to sewing, bak­ing and hand­i­crafts to be­come dress­mak­ers or seam­stress­es, as they were called at that time in or­der to gen­er­ate in­come. This gave rise to some of the home and cot­tage in­dus­tries we have to­day.”

La Grenade said girls who were ed­u­cat­ed went in­to oc­cu­pa­tions seen at that time as on­ly for women, such as ed­u­ca­tion, nurs­ing and sec­re­tar­i­al work.

“To­day we are see­ing an in­creas­ing num­ber of women en­ter­ing the tra­di­tion­al­ly male-dom­i­nat­ed fields such as con­struc­tion, paint­ing, weld­ing, tech­ni­cians, med­i­cine, en­gi­neer­ing and law. In some fields, women are now out­num­ber­ing men,” she said.

Cit­ing Pro­fes­sor Rho­da Red­dock, an au­thor­i­ty on women’s his­to­ry and the women’s move­ment in the Caribbean, she added: “Red­dock cred­its the emer­gence of many self-help so­ci­eties in the re­gion with giv­ing birth to the Caribbean women’s move­ment. In the late 19th and ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, a fem­i­nist par­ty was formed in Cu­ba. In Ja­maica, it was in 1865 that La­dy Mus­grave’s self-help so­ci­ety was formed. Sim­i­lar or­gan­i­sa­tions were formed in Trinidad and To­ba­go, British Guiana and Bar­ba­dos, with the com­mon aim of pro­vid­ing eco­nom­ic sup­port to the women who had fall­en on re­duced cir­cum­stances.”

Ac­cord­ing to La Grenade, Au­drey Jef­fers was ded­i­cat­ed to im­prov­ing the con­di­tions of women across so­cioe­co­nom­ic sec­tors.

“In 1956, in light of the short-lived Fed­er­a­tion of the West In­dies, a Caribbean Women’s Con­gress was held in Trinidad and To­ba­go in­sti­gat­ed by Au­drey Jef­fers with the aim of form­ing a Caribbean Women As­so­ci­a­tion.”

She added that women have done well since then and in Grena­da one-third of the Cab­i­net is made up of women.

“More and more women have be­come doc­tors, lawyers, min­is­ters and prime min­is­ters of gov­ern­ments, pro­fes­sion­als, judges, and even a num­ber of re­gion­al gov­er­nors-gen­er­al and the Pres­i­dent, as you have here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Par­lia­ment of Grena­da now has 40 per cent women in the com­bined Up­per and Low­er House.”

La Grenade said Por­tia Simp­son-Miller, who served as the first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter of Ja­maica, came from hum­ble ori­gins.

“Af­ter high school, she stud­ied at the Ja­maican Com­mer­cial In­sti­tute and worked as a sec­re­tary in the field of so­cial ser­vices while her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer be­gan in 1974. Well in­to her ca­reer, she earned her Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion in the Unit­ed States in 1997.”

She told the grad­u­ates they too can ac­com­plish any­thing de­spite the so­cial and eco­nom­ic con­di­tions they came from.

“Women of the re­gion have done so suc­cess­ful­ly de­spite the many chal­lenges,” she said.