By Trudy Simpson, Staff Reporter 
Diana Jackson, chairman of the Human and Spiritual Committee of the Kiwanis Club of Constant Spring (right), states her opinion about the strength of Jamaican women during last Thursday's 'Keeping Abreast' luncheon at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston. Beside her is Lodi Hind, director of the same committee. Ms. Jackson was responding to questions on what Jamaican women think about negative perceptions of them in some Caribbean countries. - Ricardo Makyn/ Freelance Photographer
THE CONSEQUENCES of Jamaica's tarnished reputation overseas is reaching into a new arena - that of romance.
Romance, never an easy road for many Jamaican women, appears to be getting a new handicap - that of the perception of the Jamaican woman in some other countries.
On a recent visit to Trinidad to attend a workshop on using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in reporting, some reporters from other Caribbean territories related how people in their countries view Jamaican women.
"There are quite a few Jamaican women in Dominica married to some prominent men and they seem to be very 'rough'. They control the home. They control the finance. When they are ready to go back to Jamaica, they pack up, whether the man wants to come or not," declared Paul Charles, a freelance journalist from Dominica.
He said in his country, Jamaican women are often viewed as having full control of their Dominican men and feel they have to be in charge. He would not marry a Jamaican, he said.
"I don't know if it's the upbringing but the general feeling with the Jamaican women is that they take charge of the household. It's not a good thing because in Dominica, the culture is that man is in charge of the home. The men dominate the home but you see some of our men being held as a... half-man or being pushed around by the women. It's not the thing that the general public like to see," he said.
Chelston Lee, a Montserratian journalist working in Antigua, had nothing good to say about most of the Jamaican women he met there.
"The type we get are the raw, yardie, love man, party type. We get the ones who probably don't have any jobs in Jamaica. They don't have any work to do. We don't get a lot of the ones who contribute to society. We don't get the ones who want to come and become doctors, lawyers and teachers. I don't know why but we don't," he said.
There is no difference between how Barbadians perceive Jamaican men and women, said Julius Gittens, from the Caribbean Environmental Reporters Network (CERN), a non-profit organisation , which provides training, reporting and programme production opportunities for journalists in the Caribbean in an effort to improve environmental journalism in the region.
"They are often perceived as aggressive, very outspoken and not necessarily graced with tact sometimes," he said.
EXOTIC WOMEN
But perception aside, at least one sociologist is arguing that people should be careful about how they make these assumptions. June Costello, a lecturer at the Centre for Gender and Development Studies at UWI's Mona campus in St. Andrew warned, "I don't understand the basis on which these claims are being made. No one society has homogeneity. What we may consider aggressive may not be considered aggressive in another ccontext. We all have stereotypes about groups of people. It's not unusual for people to buy into stereotypes but once you know you are buying into it, you know you are working with a half accurate picture," Ms. Costello added. She said that there could be many reasons, including seeing foreign women as exotic, which could account, for example, why so many men in Barbados have married Jamaicans while noting that rituals are different
depending on country.
"You have to ascribe meanings to behaviours. You can't transpose them from one context to another," Ms. Costello said.
ASSERTIVE, NOT AGGRESSIVE
And what do Jamaican women think?
Most of the women interviewed disagree with the above perception, pointing out that the reputation of the Jamaican woman is being ruined by a few 'bad apples' who visit these countries.
"We are not aggressive but assertive. Women are more educated now, have more say in their lives and are more likely not to take the 'BS' that men put out. They are more independent. They are not going to put up with foolishness," said Nicola, a 29-year-old media practitioner.
KNOW WHAT THEY WANT
Women like Diana Jackson, of the Kiwanis Club of Constant Spring, Grace Ann Graham and Marjorie Daniels of furniture giant Courts Jamaica, stressed that local women are not controlling but are forced to be proactive because many of them head single mother households.
"If you are proactive, decisive and you know what you want, when you have confidence, people miscontrue that. I see the characteristics in other Caribbean women so it's based on the situation that each woman is presented with and she will have to act accordingly. She is assertive. That does not spell controlling," Ms. Graham said.
For those who may begin to worry on reading this - don't, because all is not lost for any Jamaican woman who takes her quest for love beyond Jamaica's shores.
According to Mr. Gittens, Jamaican women "know what they want and they go after it whether it is Barbadian men or anything else. It is no wonder that the vast majority of senior Barbadian politicians are married to Jamaican women."
Karen Walton, based at the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Barbados, agreed, adding that there was a Jamaican who came to Barbados, met a man and married him within six months, while they are Barbadian women in relationships for years without such success.
Jamaican women, she added, are among those who have forced Barbadian women to become tougher.
"Because of the aggressiveness being shown by other Caribbean women, Barbadian women are becoming more aggressive. She will push her self into a relationship. A Jamaican comes, do the same thing, a St. Lucian come and do the same thing so they say if they can do it, we can do it too."
In addition, representatives from Trinidad, St. Lucia, Guyana and Grenada described Jamaican women as intelligent, courteous and educated.
"I love them," said Leslie Pierre, publisher and managing editor of the Grenadian Voice.
Mr. Gittens added that Jamaican women in Barbados have for the most part "become very influential and promiment in the society and they have contributed a sense of independence and fearlessness and honesty which is very, very rare in Barbados."
