THE EDITOR, Sir
IN 1987 when I was expecting my first son, I was a patient at the University Hospital's ante-natal clinic. Every Tuesday, a man selling box juices and frozen treats would turn up to entice us with refreshments. Pregnant women, always hot and thirsty, eagerly patronised him. One Tuesday the 'juice' man was in a particularly bad mood. Apparently some women "did trust" juice and were not turning up to pay for them. The exasperated juice man declared, "Mi never expect a pregnant mother fi rob me!" Why he expected women - and mothers in particular - to be sinless, angelic beings is beyond me.
WOMEN AS CONS
Haven't we noticed that women are, and always have been, human and capable of great evil? Women are among the most skilful con-artists in the world. Women are and have always been great tyrants in their own spheres and in their own areas of influence. Women are among the greatest abusers of other women, children and men. Daily, women psychologically and emotionally maim, mangle and murder others in their homes, in their workplaces and in their churches.
Well, D. Anthony Williams, writing in the Sunday Gleaner of August 7, like the juice man, endows women - and mothers in particular - with a strange, 'mystical' responsibility for the goodness of the human race. Women are "supposed to be good," and "pregnant women" are supposed to be "even gooder".
Mr. Williams tells us that there was a time when the "goodness" of women kept men in line. When men do evil things it is because some woman, especially his mother who, apparently through immaculate conception brought the man into the world, failed to do something right. When mothers, grannies, wives and girlfriends stop being "good," men became uncontrollably evil. Instead of marching against crime, Mr. Williams suggests we return to our previous state of divinity and become the natural redemption of "malekind".
This element of male culture continues to make women responsible for "belling" the errant male cat. Fathers, grand-fathers, brothers, sons, male-friends and the "boys at the bar," apparently have no role to play in setting other men straight.
Many "feminists" fall into the same trap of "canonising" womankind. Apparently, female wickedness is always the result of "male oppression" and the sins of patriarchy. When women get involved with criminals, some feminists tell us, it is only because the women have some "nobler intent". They have children to feed or they "really love" the man. Apparently, women are not able to do anything out of sheer greed and "dog-heartedness".
After all God made man out of the earth and women out of "sugar and spice and everything nice".
I am, etc.,
NOVA GORDON-BELL
nmgbell@hotmail.com
Kingston 6
Via Go-Jamaica
