Saxakali Magazine 2:1 Gender Issues: Sexuality and Suppression

Saxakali Magazine V2N1
Gender Issues:

Where We Are....
Sexuality and Suppression

by
Bibi A. Ali

A spring breeze gently rustles the leaves and the warm rays of the sun caress the air. We are shopping - my aunt and I. We talk. She misses Guyana, her son, and oh, so sweet little Stacy. A tender smile tugs at her mouth as she recalls the adorable gimmicks of her neighbour's daughter.

"She called me she mammy you know - one day she insisted on washing de clothes." She continues with a reminiscent smile, "ah luv her dearly..." She pauses pensively then goes on, "but yuh know, ah glad a don't have me own daughta... dey disgrace yuh so... dey so prone to do bad things. An den yuh gat to hang yuh head in shame! Yees, having a daughta is a curse!"

And so it goes. In a myriad of households today, women are witnesses to comparable statements and indeed, many have accepted it as an inevitable element of being a woman. The "bad things women are so prone to do" ranges from a simple look, to the pursuit of a relationship.

I remember an incident from my childhood. I was about thirteen and I loved reading. So when my uncle asked me to explain the plot of the book I had just finished reading, I was happy to obliged and proud to have an audience that included my father. Afterwards, I faced my father's outrage as he expressed his sheer disgust and shame at my audacity in recounting a story related to a male/female relationship.

This act of an innocent thirteen year old inflamed a deep fear of a woman's awakening sexual awareness. The psychological affect of my father's rage was never healed. Today, in an effort to reassert my right to a sexual identity, I consciously fight to revoke the damage inflicted. While trying to mitigate the sabotage executed in our childhood, women are currently being bombarded with a continued assault on their sexuality. Remnants of traditional roles are still enforced.

For example, when I ask my mother why is it different for my brother, she responds, "... `cause he is a man... he can do anything he want." And this statements alone is supposed to answer all my questions. "He won't be lef wid a belly." Yet today, the rationale for such a fear has effectively been eroded with the ready availability of birth control devices and failing that, abortion.

However, we are still left with a society which sets distinctly different sexual boundaries for males and females. A common example exists in what is called the "whore/stud" mentality. In the Guyanese community, young college educated men, many of whom have prided themselves as advocates in the struggle for sexual equality, have nevertheless participated in this stigmatization - stamping the woman as a whore when whe takes a bold step in the direction of sexual equality while at the same time applauding the man for his sexual prowess, "he's a man, a stud." Yes, we are witnesses in a society that sets blatantly different standards for females and males.

As remnants of traditional thoughts unite with the desire to maintain the status quo, the distinction in roles has fueled the effort to inhibit female sexuality while granting contined male sexual freedom. The status quo has been shown to be most beneficial to men as they continue to dominate the political and economic arenas. Laws affecting the sexuality of women rest in the hands of male legislators.

Often, in the household, women serve as unpaid domestic labor, while in the work place the bulk of the economic power remains in the hands of men. In our patriarchal society, a female's sexuality is shaped by males. It would seem then, in our society, there exists a need within the social structure for continued suppression of female sexuality in order to maintain the current state, and continued male power and dominance.

As part of the present economic, social and cultural systems, lower-class males are allowed to dominate "their" women in order to maintain male acceptance and submission to the status quo. In our struggle for equality of the sexes, we must ask ourselves, can we continue to nourish the status quo? Is not the status quo mostly beneficial to those of a certain gender, race, and class? Can we continue to fuel the suppression of female sexuality?

We must cross generational, cultural, and racial boundaries in re-educating ourselves. We must all join hands in an effort to understand the forces that define our lives. We must no longer be held slaves to traditional roles. Our roles, our sexuality, our destiny, must be shaped by us?