By Helena Edwards
The ULP’s National Reigning Gutter Champion, Frank “The Blight” Da Silva attacked me on the pro-Unity Labour Party (ULP) Shakeup programme on Saturday that is carried on ULP’s Star Radio and 99.9 WE FM. Frank Da Silva, The National Resigning Gutter Champion, highlighted my relationship with Bryan Alexander in an attempt to shame me into silence on the abuses of women in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It appears that Frank became angry about my most recent article on “dignified silence” in which I highlighted how this cultural conditioning results in the sexual exploitation of women.
In Frank’s severely underdeveloped mind, he somehow equated my relationship with Bryan as some form of exploitation and perpetuated the commess (gossip) on radio in hopes that I would turn tail and run. But, Frank, I am sorry to disappoint you, I wouldn’t run and I wouldn’t back down. On the contrary, I will become much more vocal in expressing my disagreements with the culture of sexual exploitation that is rampant in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Let me be crystal clear, if I haven’t been clear before, in saying that I am in no way ashamed of my relationship with Bryan Alexander. On the country, it is the one relationship of which I felt most liberated. Now, Frank, I know you might not understand what that means to I will attempt to elaborate.
Slavery, colonialism, racism and sexism have kept women oppressed for as far back as the history goes. These four mechanisms continue to keep women in a state of eternal oppression. Women, as a result, have been the property of men. The fact that in marriage, the woman takes the surname of the man is undisputed proof of this ownership principle. I know that you are old enough to know that men use to go to the parents of a virgin to request her hand in marriage with an accounting of their assets. In a literal sense, this was like buying a cow from the owner. The history is painful, but we must acknowledge it and work to correct those things that keep individuals in subjugation.
As a woman, this has been my historical legacy. In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and other undeveloped countries women are still enslaved to historical, social, economical, and cultural practices. The men are generally the individuals with the money and power in the country. Since money is vital to one’s survival in obtaining the basic necessities of life, women are subjected to exploitation from unscrupulous men
I have been fortunate that I had a father who was economically able to give me support in developing my own self-reliance. My migration to a developed country has greatly helped me in becoming more and more independent. Thus, on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, my needs are focused at “self actualisation” rather than food, shelter and clothing. Thus, Frank, my relationship with Bryan Alexander was a form of my own self-actualisation. So, I feel a sense of accomplishment in the ability to escape this form of women’s slavery that is so rampant in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Therefore, my dear Frank, neither you, the Reigning National Gutter Champion, nor any other slave master is going to shame me into enslavement or silence. I am a liberated woman with a voice and I will continue to use it as a tool in influencing women to see those men, like you who exploit women for your living. I hope ULP pays you well as the Reigning National Gutter Champion. I wouldn’t wallow in the gutter with you because I live in Maslow’s Penthouse.
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SO PROFOUND – wish others can comprehend the true meaning of this subject.
Keep Plugging!! You are WELL ABLE!
Profound, my backside. Women have been butting their husbands and picking fairs, often being pimped by the same husbands, since Eve exchanged an apple for sex with the serpent (a phallic symbol if there ever as one) and gave Adam his share as related in Genesis 3:
Now the serpent [a metaphor for a man, the sex that has a tone] was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say, You must not eat from any tree in the garden?
The woman said to the serpent, We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.
“You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
***
The meaning of this story is that for morally enlightened people, shame allways follows unGodly acts like fornication, adultery, prostitution, pimping, and other sinful sexual acts.
MR. IGNORAMUS-GOD HELP YOU.
YOU WEREN’T BORN OF A WOMAN, ARE YOU?
YOU REALLY HAVING A SAD MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE. HOPE YOU RECOVER BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.
#WE WOULD NOT LET SILENCE WIN!!
Too bad, Marlene, that you didn’t understand my Bible lesson.
Though I fully support equality for women in all spheres of life including sexual expression, educational opportunites, employment prospects, marital choice, etc., it is important to note that our contemporary Vincentian system of spousal selection based solely on romantic love leaves many if not most partners feeling unfulfilled and unloved after a few short years, leading to mutual infidelity, chronic bickering, if not physical abuse, separation, and divorce.
My own recollections, as an old man, is that the arranged marriages of old (i.e., which took place in decades before 1960) in which, “… men use[d] to go to the parents of a virgin to request her hand in marriage with an accounting of their assets,” and in which it was also typical for the woman to be much lighter skinned and/or with more European facial and hair features than the man, were almost exclusively lifelong and generally mutally satisfactory, even when the man, as was typical, maintained outside sexual relations, even an outside family, a feature the wife was obliged to tolerate in silence.
I am in no way condoning a return to the past, just pointing out that there are many unintended and unhappy consequences of our current free and open system of marital choice based mainly on sexual attraction masquerading as the ephemeral emotion called romantic love.
As for your own experience, while I am far from being a sexual prude, I still find your public airing of your sex life on the Internet in soap-opera fashion highly distasteful. Sometimes “dignified silence” is the best way to respond to false personal attacks.
If you don’t believe me, ask Ralph.
I’m with you on this one Ben…. Simply the facts
Kudos; Kudos: Kudos! Wow! Wow! Wow!
I do hope that this editorial will stimulate a momentum in many of our women, fostering a desire to achieve their full potential. Becoming liberated is like acquiring the apparatus of freedom.
#WHATEVERRRR!