Tony Deyal
The thunder god rode through the skies,
Upon his favourite filly;
"I'm THOR!" he cried,
The horse replied,
"You forgot your thaddle, thilly!"
THOR IS a God I can relate to. He was usually portrayed as a large, powerful man with a red beard and eyes of lightning.
Despite his ferocious appearance, he was very popular as the protector of both gods and humans against the forces of evil. He even surpassed his father Odin in popularity because, contrary to Odin, he did not require human sacrifices. While Neptune was busy helping Walt Disney to produce "The Little Mermaid," and Zeus was transforming himself into creatures like swans and bulls to seduce young women, Thor went around bashing anyone and anything that made him Thor.
There are many things that make me Thor. However, I don't have either his raw power or his hammer. This considerably reduces my effectiveness. I write about the things that make me angry, and can write about them for the rest of my life, but they belong to the category that words cannot hurt. They require sticks, stones, hammers and maybe chain-thores. The pen, while mightier than the sword, cannot hold a candle to the hammer.
One of the things that I would like to bash, smash and crash is the glass ceiling that women face in their rise to reach the peak of their professions. The lives of many women have been sacrificed because of this impenetrable obstacle in the world of work. This is why it is a case for Thor instead of Odin. The glass ceiling is the barrier that exists in a world that is seemingly transparent. Wonder Woman can try to lasso it from now until Doomsday but even her super-charged self can do nothing but bounce helplessly against the unrelenting barrier. In most organisations the odds are so fixed against women that it is a case of the impotent against the impregnable. In such a world a "bitch" is the lone female executive who has just left the Board meeting.
In the world of health, for instance, women form the base of the pyramid of professionals. They are like the slaves who laboured to construct the pyramids of the Pharoahs in ancient Egypt. They are the drones and worker ants of the health sector. We see them every day as nurses, community health workers, ward attendants and in all the other jobs that constitute the category of "hewers of wood and drawers of water" in the health field. Some rise to the top and are professionals themselves. In the world of international health, for instance, only one woman has risen to the very top, Gro Harlem Bruntland, who now heads the World Health Organisation. In the world of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), in all its 100-year history, and in the realm of the agencies constituting the Organisation of American States, never has there been a woman at the helm.
This is strange considering that men are perhaps the greatest single factor contributing to ill health, particularly in women. First you have MEN-tal illness. Then you have things like MEN-ingitis. You have MEN-opause and MEN-strual cramps. When you need help for feminine problems you go to a GUY-nacologist. And if that isn't bad enough, the worst is a HIS-terectomy. Labouring under the burdens of discrimination, you seek solace in prayer only to end it with A-men and even if you sing in supplication, it is a HYMN not a her.
For the past eight years Dr. Mirta Roses, was Assistant Director of PAHO. It is the highest post any female has ever occupied in PAHO. Dr. Roses is now determined to become the next Director, and first woman Director, of that organisation. This week, on Wednesday, September 25, PAHO will have its opportunity to make history either by destroying and dismantling its glass ceiling or by adding a layer of asbestos to it. While fatal in the long-term, asbestos will ensure that, for the moment, men will have a choke-hold on women who burn brightly with ideas and ambition. The Ministers of Health of the Americas, including Caribbean Ministers of Health, are the people who are supposedly electing the new PAHO Director. The decision is really being made by Heads of Government, none of whom, at this time in the Caribbean, is female.
I can quote the lady who said that a man's got to do what a man's got to do, and a woman's got to do what he can't. However, that would be unfair to Sir George Alleyne, the first Caribbean Director of PAHO. With the able assistance and total support of Dr. Roses, his eight years as Director would always be remembered as the coming-of-age of the organisation. It now needs someone who understands PAHO and can make the changes introduced by Sir George sustainable as well as successful.
It is a tough task but it is one that Dr. Roses, as a PAHO insider, can do well. As Charlotte Whitton, former Mayor of Ottawa, says, "Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good." Luckily, this is not difficult. I suppose this is why Thor slept with his hammer and made sure that it never got into the hands of either his wife Sif or his mistress Jarnsaxa.
Tony Deyal was last seen in deep thort Thor-ing out on a thor of Washington D.C. singing a song by a "Trini" named Lopez about what he would do if he had a hammer.
