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Women are the heart of the human race. They are responsible for such great things one of which is the creation of life. Women have endured hardship after hardship through all the years of their existence, but as much as there were hardships there was light at the end of the tunnel that every woman sees, that opportunity for betterment of oneself. Women are deemed so precious and fragile, yet they’ve been subjected to the bottom of the social strata, been abused, oppressed, degraded, chastised and compared to men in every way when the reality is that they can’t be compared because they’re two different beings with different capabilities. Women have been held down by this notion known as the “Glass Ceiling” which is a barrier that limits women making them unable to make advances up the social strata in society, until these modern times where women are advancing just as much as if not more than men because of opportunities afforded to Caribbean girls. Women have excelled yet been oppressed in fields such as religion, education, the workplace and sports.

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Abbess Patrica Alexander of St Tobias Spiritual Baptist Church

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Throughout history women were seen in a religious context as being submissive to men, hence they were not afforded the same rights as men. Women were not able to take on major roles in religion, expect for Abbess Patricia Alexander. Patricia was one of many females internationally that saw an opportunity to go beyond male supremacy in religion and decided to represent their beliefs regardless. Patricia is a 52yr old African woman of Rastafarian culture who is known as the “spiritual mother” of St. Tobias Spiritual Baptist Church located in Laventille for over 11years. She studied to become an Abbess which is apparently of a higher rank than that of a reverend, but she denotes that this was not her choice, however this was “faith”. Speaking with her it doesn’t seem as though being the head of her church caused any problems, in fact it was beneficial to both her and the church. Her followers or her “spiritual children” confided in her more than the male reverend. Though her position is very well secured in the church she still submits to the reverend in any decision regarding the church, in spite of her being of a higher rank.

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First school dedicated to girls; Naparima Girls' High School

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Females weren’t afforded education privileges. Females were taught to be domesticated and tend to the children. They were taught things like basket weaving and sewing, while the boys were either working or in school. When schools were implemented, it was a form of transmission to the slave masters, they used education to teach religion (Catholicism) to the boys and girls of the enslaved. Education was not offered to girls in Trinidad until the early 20th century when Rev. Dr. Fulton in 1912 introduced an all girls’ school called Naparima Girls’ High School. It was built to complement education which was offered to boys by Naparima College. Girls from this point on were empowered and gained independence in the world. Females met challenges such as the “Glass Ceiling”, unable to be in higher ranked positions in anything aspect of the world because of the notion or perception that “men are ..” rather than “women can..”. Yet again we see the submission to men and the opportunities to adavance higher than men

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Unemployment rates higher for females than males

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Job opportunities available specifically for women

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Women were not allowed to do any manual labor during slavery, they served however as house slaves taking care of the slave masters, their families and homes. Women were always perceived to be weaker or less capable than men and even in modern times this thought pattern hasn’t changed in society. The “Glass Ceiling” exists beyond an educational barrier, it persists in the workplace as well. As much as there are opportunities for advancement, the unemployment rates are still climbing for women. Women are subjected to various forms of ridicule, harassment, gender biased wage gaps in the workplace and nothing is done in most cases. We’ve had a female prime minister, female mangers, C.E.Os even engineers but the numbers are few because of the stagnation and pressures these women face in these organizations. Women are perceived to be illogical, irrational, and emotional, process oriented and short tempered while men are perceived to be more logical, rational, goal oriented and slow to anger. These perceptions of women stemmed from slavery days and has not yet been retired however it is being used to further oppress females and keep them compliant and domesticated.

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Local Tobagonian sought excellent advancement opportunity

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Women were not able to engage in sports, never had a fighting chance. However in recent modern time’s shows that women are capable of excelling in sports just as much as men. Women were not awarded or offered contracts for sports because of the fact that women were in the minority and their abilities were not as recognized. However women are reaching beyond a point unimaginable by most, striving for greatness, recognition, and acceptance, equal opportunities, to work just as hard men and be acknowledged. As seen by this article, this Tobagonian woman has reached to depths only few women were able to reach. The “Glass Ceiling” is being breached because more women have become aware of their strengths and they strive to do something with it.

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Women have been oppressed in aspects like religion, education, sports and the workplace however they have also excelled. Few women breached the “Glass Ceiling” phenomenon and sought intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, however it has not stopped. Women continue to excel in these fields despite the clear obstacles and barriers ahead of them, they continue to advanced further than anyone could have predicted. Still in the presence of utter violence and discrimination women still thrive.

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Throughout this course I’ve learnt a lot, seen a lot, experienced things on my own while in this course and upon doing this course I was against the thought of anything dealing the slightest with history but little was I aware of what this course entails. This course is much more to me than just history or opinions and facts, it showed me a different view of history  with regards to slavery and how it’s being continued to this day, may not be in the same form but it’s the same principle of exploitation under capitalism. This course showed me how things changed or have gotten better because of history and how things gotten worse. At the beginning of this course I didn’t agree with the lecture style because it was a hassle for me however I admire the University’s attempts to diversify and unify all the Caribbean Civilization classes worldwide. This course brought things to my attention that I would’ve classed as irrelevant, but realistically they played a big part on who I am as a person and where I came from. This course is proof that knowledge is power and that education helps strengthen the Caribbean and our sense of identity.