Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, MP

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion

I be­lieve we should in­vest in peo­ple equal­ly, re­gard­less of gen­der. Men and women are not cre­at­ed bi­o­log­i­cal­ly equal, but we are phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly com­ple­men­tary. There are some tasks that women are bet­ter at, some tasks that men are bet­ter at, and some tasks that they are equal­ly good at. Ac­cel­er­at­ing progress means en­cour­ag­ing so­ci­ety to cre­ate equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for both males and fe­males and judg­ing ap­pli­cants fair­ly based on mer­i­to­ri­ous cri­te­ria, not on iden­ti­ty.

Who­ev­er is more qual­i­fied for any par­tic­u­lar task, re­gard­less of gen­der, should be cho­sen for the job. I don’t be­lieve ei­ther gen­der should re­ceive spe­cial treat­ment. I be­lieve in equal­i­ty of op­por­tu­ni­ty with fair judg­ing cri­te­ria, not equal­i­ty of out­come. Any in­di­vid­ual would like to look back at their life and know that they fair­ly out­com­pet­ed oth­ers and earned their achieve­ments.

The IWD cam­paign theme for this year en­cour­aged to in­spire in­clu­sion, but the re­al­i­ty is that the struc­tur­al con­cepts of the mod­ern women’s move­ment seem root­ed ex­clu­sive­ly in mod­ern Amer­i­can and Eu­ro­pean fem­i­nist val­ues. Many times, the cul­tur­al, re­li­gious, so­cial, and fa­mil­ial val­ues of oth­er parts of the world are not tak­en in­to con­sid­er­a­tion to be in­clud­ed in women’s rights mes­sag­ing.

It is in­sult­ing for an ed­u­cat­ed woman who in­de­pen­dent­ly choos­es to fol­low cul­tur­al, re­li­gious, so­cial, and fa­mil­ial val­ues oth­er than mod­ern Amer­i­can and Eu­ro­pean fem­i­nist val­ues to then be judged as op­pressed.

I choose to wear an orhni and full-length cloth­ing to cov­er my head and body at times dur­ing re­li­gious events. Mod­ern rad­i­cal fem­i­nists would deem these head cov­er­ings op­pres­sive; how­ev­er, it is my choice based on my re­li­gious be­liefs, just as it is their choice how to dress as they see fit.

In­clu­sion means ex­pand­ing the con­cepts of the mod­ern women’s move­ment to in­clude a wider con­sid­er­a­tion of the world’s cus­toms, val­ues, and be­liefs. Of course, some coun­tries have re­pres­sive poli­cies to­wards women, but the Caribbean and T&T, in par­tic­u­lar, are very pro­gres­sive re­gard­ing women’s rights.

Twen­ty-two coun­tries in Africa, In­dia, Pak­istan, Bangladesh, and many coun­tries in the Caribbean have elect­ed women to lead them, but the USA has nev­er elect­ed a woman leader. That should be food for thought.

Each woman should be free to in­de­pen­dent­ly choose her own cul­tur­al, re­li­gious, so­cial, and fa­mil­ial val­ues and not have them im­posed on her by any in­di­vid­ual, group, or move­ment. In the Caribbean re­gion, fe­male pres­i­dents, prime min­is­ters, min­is­ters, and par­lia­men­tar­i­ans have been elect­ed, which could not have hap­pened with­out the votes of men.

In our coun­try, women are in­clud­ed in all fields. On any giv­en day, you see women in pol­i­tics, me­dia, man­age­ment, en­gi­neers, doc­tors, farm­ing, and pro­tec­tive ser­vices. It is just nat­ur­al that some fields will be dom­i­nat­ed by men and oth­ers by women be­cause of our bi­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences, but there is in­clu­sion in all fields in T&T. The fact that there have been so many fe­males in high of­fice in T&T shows that our so­ci­ety has in­vest­ed in girls and women over the decades since in­de­pen­dence.

In­clu­sion is not about spe­cial treat­ment; it is about al­low­ing peo­ple to el­e­vate them­selves based on the mer­it of their work. The best per­son should get the op­por­tu­ni­ty, ir­re­spec­tive of gen­der. I firm­ly be­lieve that men and women should be paid equal­ly per unit of work. If a woman does twice the amount of work per hour at the same job as a man, she should be paid twice the amount as him. If a man does twice the amount of work per hour at the same job as a woman, he should be paid twice the amount as her. Salaries based on per unit of work are tru­ly fair and eq­ui­table.

Con­cern­ing vi­o­lence in our coun­try, there is vi­o­lence against both men and women. Women are more af­fect­ed by do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and sex­u­al as­saults, while men make up the vast ma­jor­i­ty of blood crimes and mur­der vic­tims. Both men and women are al­so in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. To se­lec­tive­ly high­light do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and ig­nore all oth­er crimes to sup­port the in­equal­i­ty ar­gu­ment is a less-than-hon­est as­sess­ment of re­al­i­ty.

I salute the first-wave, sec­ond-wave, and ear­ly third-wave fem­i­nists who achieved so much progress for women’s rights and equal­i­ty. Late third- or fourth-wave fem­i­nists have car­ried the women’s move­ment in­to a rad­i­cal­ism that is harm­ful to fos­ter­ing healthy re­la­tion­ships be­tween men and women.

Fem­i­nism should not be about any women’s group or in­di­vid­ual dic­tat­ing to women what cri­te­ria their per­son­al choic­es must be aligned to. Fem­i­nism should be the pro­mo­tion of the right for women to freely choose cul­tur­al, re­li­gious, so­cial, and fa­mil­ial val­ues that align with their think­ing.

Go­ing for­ward, I would like to see our women and girls ig­nore the false lifestyles and mis­lead­ing so­cial stan­dards put out on the var­i­ous plat­forms, as these wrong­ly make some women feel in­ad­e­quate in their own lives and neg­a­tive­ly af­fect their self-es­teem.

Our women and girls must live their lives to be hap­py and not be­tray them­selves to look, act, or speak a cer­tain way, to fit in and gain so­cial ac­cep­tance.

I want to see all women and girls take back con­trol of their self-con­fi­dence, cre­ate their stan­dards for be­ing hap­py, and see a resur­gence of self-worth based on their feel­ings and emo­tions, not on what they be­lieve oth­ers want them to be.

I stand by my be­lief that T&T pro­vides equal op­por­tu­ni­ties and rights to both gen­ders and that there is no gen­der dom­i­na­tion. Yes, as in any so­ci­ety, there will al­ways be room for im­prove­ment in all things we do. I sup­port any move­ment to im­prove the lives of all cit­i­zens, and I have sup­port­ed many women’s caus­es and is­sues. How­ev­er, the pro­mo­tion of women’s is­sues can­not and must not be used by mod­ern rad­i­cal fem­i­nists to si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly at­tack and tear down our men in so­ci­ety.

We have our own unique cul­tur­al, re­li­gious, so­cial, and fa­mil­ial val­ues in this coun­try. There­fore, we must treat with the con­cepts of gen­der equal­i­ty, in­clu­sion, and women’s rights based on cri­te­ria unique to our Trin­bag­on­ian way of life.

The ma­jor­i­ty of our men are good, sup­port­ive, and lov­ing. Our women have grand­fa­thers, fa­thers, broth­ers, sons, and grand­sons who love and sup­port us every day in our en­deav­ours to achieve our goals.

I stand my ground and re­peat, men and women are to be equal­ly loved and re­spect­ed. T&T may have many prob­lems, but our coun­try is a lead­ing ex­am­ple of gen­der equal­i­ty.

Women’s His­to­ry Month (March 1 to 31, 2024) is an an­nu­al ob­ser­vance to high­light the con­tri­bu­tions of women to events in his­to­ry and con­tem­po­rary so­ci­ety.