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I think Ms. Matura wants to be a voice for women, not all of us

FeaturesI think Ms. Matura wants to be a voice for women, not all of us

by Colin Hyde

With the UDP reeling, in confusion over their leadership, and the third parties on “other” business, the spirit of the nation was lifted last year when Audrey announced that she had put together a team of activists to bring some order into things. Aha, I was inspired, and had I a malicious bone and a rhyme in me I would have made a song lampooning the third parties when I heard about the new crowd. Ouch, the BPP leader is out fishing, the BPF leader is hatching duck, I mean ostrich eggs, and the VIP they’re in retirement and all they want is peace.

Back in November last year, a near 100-member group called MAT (Moving Ahead Together) made the splash under the lead of Audrey. They didn’t announce themselves as a political party, but when questioned about that, if they were going there, the leader indicated that that could be. Hmm, people did wonder where the group was going when they posed for a picture and 80% of the forty or fifty who showed up were women. Dammit, I have to say, it didn’t look inclusive.

The splashdown was five months ago, and there hasn’t been a peep from MAT since. It might be the group is working on a constitution and all that type of thing. However, while MAT business is on the backburner, the leader hasn’t been quiet. There’s been a lot coming social media’s way from Ms. Matura these past months, apolitically.

It’s possible that on introspection Ms. Audrey decided she has given enough to her country, and now she’s about “her” turn. I told you the other day about her posts, how they were all about a female weightlifting group, and glamor things. Fair enough that we are being left to drift with the tide; everyone has a right to their cause. I say, she wouldn’t have hit my radar in the slightest raise-your-eyebrows way if she didn’t start putting up power posts about all the difficulties women have faced/are facing in our country.

It’s women’s month, but I’ll still throw the caution flag. Bah, you see how the leaders of the homosexual community have published us abroad as a gay-bashing country. I don’t know, I don’t know, but if you listen to tribal talk it was all a soft bed for Kriols, and they took advantage of the non-European tribes. Now, if you listen to some of our women talk, Belize was all for men, and they trampled on the women. There is some truth in those accusations, I’m sure, but I question the extent and think we’ve never talked these things out thoroughly.

I’ll make my exit here with this story about the women in the yard where I grew up in the 1960s. My mom was a homemaker. She had six or seven O’ levels, but she loved sewing. She did most of her sewing for Miss Hazel Anderson, Miss Munoz, the Vernon sisters, and the Hunter sisters. She sewed, and I delivered the dresses she sewed.

Downstairs of us, Mrs. Petty Acosta was a school teacher at Holy Redeemer, and her niece, Marjorie Pipersburg, worked at the bright Brodies. Living upstairs of a two-story house next door to us, in the same yard because there was no fence divider, was my cousin, Gwelda Lopez, who worked at Vogue’s to help pay her tuition at St. Catherine Academy (or was it Pallotti?); my cousin, Ena Leslie, who was a school teacher at Holy Redeemer; and my paternal grandmother, Eunice Locke Hyde, who was a retired seamstress and grocery shop owner. My Aunt, Mrs. Chrystel Straughan, lived downstairs of this house, and she did secretarial work for the extramural department (UWI).

Look, I am aware that there were women in our country who were not given the same opportunities the women in my neighborhood/family got. But I am also aware that many men were deprived.

The world watching the growth of women’s rights

The Indian news channel, WION (World is One News), and if you want to Google them they’re at the website wionews.com, said a survey carried out across 32 countries “by Ipsos UK and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London” showed that 55% of men and 41% of women “believe that the women’s rights have gone overboard.” The survey said: “Nearly 52 per cent of Gen Z and 53 per cent of millennials say that society has gone ‘too far’ in promoting women’s rights, that it is discriminating against men. In contrast, four in 10 baby boomers (40 per cent) and Gen X (46 per cent) said the same.”

According to Beresford Research this Gen Z is people born between 1997 and 2012, now between the ages of 11 and 26; this Gen X is people born between 1965 and 1980, now between the ages of 43 and 58. These millennials are people born between 1981 and 1996, people who are now between the ages of 27 and 42.

I don’t know that a big issue in this women’s rights movement isn’t the very tikilish subject of sexual liberation. I will close with this bit from the Chris Rock show, on his quarrel with Will Smith. In his running off recently, Rock said Smith lashed out at him when his real beef was with his wife, who was doing (sleeping with) a boy who was a friend of one of Mr. Smith’s sons. These Hollywood people and their fans have a thing they call an open relationship, where it is accepted that the parties go out and fool around.

Rock’s description of what was going on is slang that has been introduced with women’s rights, sexual liberation. Really, Mrs. Smith could have been “robbing the cradle”, yes, but doing a boy, no, that’s a physical impossibility. A woman can never do a man. What kind of Humpty Dumpty turnover world is that? The pestle goes into the mortar. The mortar does not ever go into the pestle.

Since Speaker Woods is on a roll

It took some effort, a lot of hard talk and plenty tears, but two and a half years after taking leadership of the big, bad House, Speaker Woods has her charges completely in check, di control dem up like taffi. Forget that a few weeks ago I said that she was ruining the debate with her iron-fist type rule. Ah, I didn’t get the sense then, but I get it now. Those people in the House are the type yu can’t give any leash ataal. Give points to Valerie for living the maxim—you won’t get no yard because I ain’t giving you no inch. From the get go she set the rules, and anybody who step out of line get stomp down.

I bet the PM had a slip of mind; I bet for a moment there he thought that it was Silvaana, not Valerie sitting at the head desk when he let slip that rude word Friday bifoh laas. You know that Silvaana said she saw nothing foul about the r-word. But we all know the reason fu that. Fu we Kriol langwij noh have plenty words, and all of our best adjectives are risky. My, my, imagine the PM using bad langwij in the House. Well, Valerie didn’t hesitate to put the muzzle on him.

Hmm, called the Opposition shit’n, did he. You know that was another word that had gotten a pass. The noun part is all filth, but a juicier more appropriate adjective for incompetence you couldn’t find. And boy, when you double them up, call somebody a big s-word r-word, only blows could counter that.

Valerie has talent, and being our country is short of it, we need to expand her rule. Since she has the House in order, she can now step out ya. The first person I want her to go after is Vaughan Gill. What is wrong with that man to be using word like chi-g-r on his television show? Weh kind a r— dat? No, sa! In any langwij that word is big time taboo.

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