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Reflection on Caribbean Civilization course.
My experience with this course and what I have learnt.

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Women in Education

ATTENTION!
ATTENTION EVERYONE!
This is your tour guide speaking.
Here at the University of the West Indies, I urge you to look around.
Recognize the history being made. Look at our women highly participating in education.
Overcoming the barriers once created, hindering them from accessing this life changing opportunity.
This picture depicts my friends, aspiring women, climbing the ladder of education. This picture serves as a mark, a reminder of how far women in the Caribbean have come with accessing education. Looking at how gender relates to the history of education in the Caribbean, women were only taught home skills such as cooking and sewing. Now our women are afforded equal opportunity in education to pursue any course, despite gender.
Educational opportunities deemed acceptable for women before the 20th century was based on their ascribed roll as caregivers in society hence they were educated on domestic skills whereas men were offered education for high income jobs. However at the turn of the 20th century women were given equal access to the same educational opportunities in the Caribbean as there was a changeover in the structure of our economies. Now in this picture we must accredit our women for taking these educational opportunities pursuing degrees in Biochemistry, Psychology and Political Sciences.
Credits to Kayla Doo Young, Sweelan Renaud, Shivani Debie and Rhiannon Gupte for being apart of this picutre.

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Women in Politics

Paving the way for Caribbean women and making history, I present to you none other than Mary Eugenia Charles, the first woman to overturn the barriers of gender in Caribbean Politics, the first woman to accomplish the great milestone of becoming the first female Prime Minister in Dominica between the years 1980 – 1995. Flash forward to another political milestone in the one and only Trinidad and Tobago. In 2010 Kamla Persad- Bissessar was elected the first female Prime Minister in Trinidad and Tobago setting a new atmosphere in the Political Arena. These political breakthroughs represent women overcoming historical barriers that hider our involvement in many powerful domains. It illustrates women becoming direct decision makers in issues that affect them gradually but surely obtaining leadership positions. It represents a crack in the glass ceiling that still perpetuates in politics within the Caribbean. Despite this achievement, it is speculated that gender still remains a limiting factor in how the former Prime Minister performance has been reviewed. According to Councillor Christine Neptune "Unfortunately, the response to the first female Prime Minister reflects the unpreparedness of the country to respect a woman as Prime minister.” This serves as no deterrence for our aspiring Caribbean women. With simple observation our respected University of the West Indies has increasingly enrolled many women in the degree of Political Sciences, myself included. Understanding the challenges faced by women in this arena, we continue to aspire to change the face of gender in Caribbean Politics.

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Domestic Violence towards our women and Victim Blaming.

“Pick their men wisely”

A troubling reckless statement that places our social reality into perspective. This statement made by our current Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley when speaking out on crimes, particularly domestic violence has received a great deal of negative attention from the public, particularly the women’s activist group, Womantra. Both the Victorian Ideologies relating to the submissive role that still threads through the social beliefs of our Caribbean, and the similar patriarchal household transferred to the Caribbean with the arrival of East Indians, is evidently deeply rooted in our beliefs and forms the basis for the domestic violence perpetuating in Trinidad and Tobago. A common issue with domestic violence within the Caribbean is victim blaming, particularly as it relates to women. This stems from the archaic view that women are responsible for the crimes done to them and the continuous need to give men the advantage over women. The statement made by our current Prime Minister perpetuates this victim blaming towards women and whitewashes the underlying issue of how gender ideologies and patriarchal views are a part of the root cause of this violence towards women. This recent statement brings into question how much has the issue of gender inequality and women victimization changed over the years. It alerts us to how women are still treated as ‘property’ and that our Caribbean is seemingly unprepared to address the true issues steaming from how we see gender within our society.

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Women’s unique resistance in slavery.

This video depicts one of the resistance strategies practiced by enslaved women that is poisoning plantation owners. Women were preferred for domestic slaves thus were closely affiliated with plantation owners. Women were assumed to have the role of domestic workers thus were seen as better equipped to do tasks such as cleaning and cooking thus giving them the greater opportunity to work among their plantation owners. While this opened women to sexual abuse and great scrutiny it didn’t prevent them from using their role in the household to undermine the plantation system. Enslaved women took advantage of this opportunity and used their roles within the household as a form of resistance. This video highlights a form of resistance that is not usually credited in comparison to the revolts largely known. This video highlights a gender specific form of resistance where women used their gender differences to actively participate in resisting slavery and oppression.
Credits to Kayla Doo Young and Sweelan Renaud for participating in my recreation video.