The 20th Century has seen a significant challenge to the
historic male gender privileging in many spheres of Caribbean
socio-economic, political and cultural life. As scholars have
sought to analyze as well as promote this process of change
it has become clear that gender relations in the Caribbean
have a complex texture that is distinctive. Historic male
gender privileging has produced perverse consequences for
males as well as females. This reality has been seized upon
by some who are uncomfortable with the loss of male gender
privilege and has led at times to a one-sided concern for
difficulties faced by males with respect to contemporary gender
transformations. This paper seeks to draw on specific Caribbean
experience to suggest how the concept of gender privileging
might be deployed to help unravel some of these complexities.
By adopting an analysis that is genuinely nuanced it becomes
easier to encompass new evidence while taking account of the
fundamental imbalance that persists with respect to the occupation
of gendered spaces in the Caribbean.
Mark Figueroa (Mr)
Department of Economics
University of the West Indies
Mona, Kingston 7, Jamaica
Phone: (876) 977-2396, 977-1188
Fax: (876) 9771483
mfiguero@uwimona.edu.jm
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