Caribbean Woman’s Perspective of Empowerment

Joy Evelyn Abdul-Mohan1

Introduction

All of creation groans for peace, reconciliation, justice, transformation; and for a community that is non-exploitative, non-oppressive and non-violent. As it reaches out to empower women and men to challenge structures and respond to issues in society, the “Decade to Overcome Violence: Churches Seeking Peace and Reconciliation” plays an important role in the achievement of this vision. This decade is part of a broader vision of transformed relationships that are based upon justice, caring, mutuality, collaboration and sensitivity to the needs of humanity.

In the struggles of Caribbean people against oppression and exploitation, women have played a central role. However, until recently, little was known about women’s role in these struggles, given the male-dominated historical accounts and documentation of the region’s socio-economic and political movements. Although Caribbean women have made some strides in their struggle for liberation, society has perpetuated their exploitation and oppression by allowing them to become objects of sensual advertising and subjects of greedy consumerism. The Caribbean is rapidly becoming a region that puts fashion and fete above all else. Caribbean women, like the rest of the world, continue to face various forms of violence, some of which are historical, political, religious, customary, traditional, and societal. Because of social pressures, Caribbean women have been domesticated and their creative abilities suppressed. Many have suffered conditions of brutality and inhumanity and are in search of new ways of empowerment.

A Caribbean Woman’s Perspective of Empowerment

For Caribbean women the term “empowerment” refers to creating a climate in which they feel creatively responsible for their own lives, skilled to accomplish their tasks, and ideally free of obstacles and barriers that might block this growth. Providing an empowering climate requires that a number of conditions be put into place for women to empower themselves and others. One of those conditions is for women to develop and exercise an empowering rather than a controlling style of leadership to which most women have grown accustomed. Women need to identify their particular gifts, abilities and unique styles of leadership. The church, society and world need to recognize the unique gifts and abilities of women. How can the church or society transform its thinking so that its efforts at empowering others, women in particular, can be intensified and therefore more rewarding and not controlling?

• The church and society need to energize women to create their own style, to be creative and innovative.
• The church and society need to allow women to feel that they are in control of their own lives, rather than being controlled by others.
• The church and society must develop new structures of empowerment that will re-educate both men and women and encourage dialogue and partnership.

Use of Violence as a Means of Power

Power is endemic to life itself. But the dynamics that underlie the use of power are most mysterious. Power has both positive and negative connotations. It is a gift from God and should be used to bring fullness of life to humanity. However, power becomes violent when there is a total disregard and disrespect for the sanctity of human life. It becomes even more violent when church, society and world as a whole remain silent and refuse to voice their discontent.

Violence, in all its forms, overt and covert, has always been used to gain power over others. It is a potent tool used by those with power or seeking power to control, suppress or enforce change to their benefit. It is sin.2 Violence seeks to isolate and separate people from their communities and from their sources of nurture and hope. It treats people as less than human. Violence is sin that attempts to suppress and negate all signs of hope and communities in God.

Violence against Women

In the last two decades, the Caribbean region has witnessed new levels of violence, which have heightened the vulnerability of women and children. It is the cause of terrible suffering in the home and society, often directed against women. Violence against women takes place within all racial, socio-economic, religious and educational backgrounds. Some of the main causes of violence are poverty, male dominance, and media images. Women are abused physically, sexually and mentally. They are disenfranchised and marginalized. Battered women are isolated from nurturing, supportive communities in order to exercise greater control over them.

Over the years the Caribbean home and society seem to be growing accustomed to despicable acts of heinous and murderous violence against women. Caribbean men traditionally have poor social skills, a lesson that was seldom taught at home. Consequently, men generally do not handle rejection very well and often resort to violence when women take issue. This suggests that men were not taught the meaning of “NO” and women do not own or control their own bodies.

Caribbean women have struggled to shape institutions, social relations and ideologies in order to attain equal rights. While considerable advancement has been made to ensure enforcement of laws, to date government after government tries unsuccessfully to beat back criminal assaults meted out to women. Even legal reforms are limited by cultural norms and social attitudes which themselves support gender biases. These biases find expression in inefficient investigation practices on the part of the police and insensitive treatment of the victim in the courtroom. Victims of sexual violence can expect years of traumatic court appearances and delays with no guarantee of justice prevailing. The attention given to the treatment of sexual offenders, whilst a valid human rights concern, speaks to the male bias in the legal system and in the cultural norms which underpin that bias.

It may be human nature to assimilate violence and move on but the home or society should never allow itself to be desensitized or made immune to the shock of grievous assaults against women. In addition, violence against women takes the form of inequality in salaries and opportunities between men and women or of “glass ceilings” in the corporate sector. The relationship between men and women are based on power and men’s perception of their authority to exercise control over women.3

Religious fanaticism is a sad part of human history. It breeds religious violence that may be directed inward in attempt at purifying and cleansing the church or religious body. Alternatively, violence is directed outward, against people of other religions or denominations. Abuse of power by church authorities has often been the cause of the oppression of women, especially when abusers are in leadership positions.

It is also evident that oppressive theology and misinterpretation of male and female relationships in the Bible are sometimes used to justify not only violence against women in its various forms but also other expressions of sexism such as exclusion from participation and power, economic injustice and racism against women. Women have been subtly and obviously excluded from church leadership and oversight positions and their voices silenced or ignored. Although congregations are predominantly women, few women are present in decision-making structures and new forms of ministry are rarely initiated. Several women’s organizations have been hindered from giving priority to social justice and from developing feminist theologies and new language for women’s spiritual experiences.

It was striking to read the report of visits to the churches during the Ecumenical Decade – Churches in Solidarity with Women. In this report of the “Living Letters”4 , those who visited churches learned that during their time with the churches, they noted with sadness and anger that violence is an experience that binds women together across every region and tradition. The phenomenon is so pervasive that many women expect violence to be part of their lives and are surprised differently. Now that many more women are resisting and rebelling against various forms of violence, not many are prepared for this type of assertiveness and change.

Biblical Models for a New Paradigm of Empowerment

As we search for a new paradigm of empowerment, we need to have a fresh understanding and interpretation of scripture. The church needs to see the Bible through new eyes, to wrestle with scripture and yield a new understanding of the texts, thus, eliminating the patriarchal biases of scripture, and raising significant issues of faith to assist persons, more so women, to become empowered. I suggest we use the following biblical models.

1. Empowerment through Liberation

Most biblical commentators now agree that regardless of the overall interpretations given to the way the book of Exodus was composed, its major theme is clearly liberation. Exodus tells the story, according to Walter Brueggemann, of the “transformation of social situations from oppression to freedom.”5 As Christians, especially women, form new understandings of Exodus for their own age, they rediscover that God’s presence demonstrates changing social structures. God upholds the weak and so all theology becomes liberation theology.

If we consider the Story of the Hebrew midwives in Exodus 1:8-22, we see that terror and violence were painfully apparent but God was active in the lives of Shiphrah and Puah. While the Hebrew people were utterly at the mercy of the dominant power, the book of Exodus begins with an overt act of political defiance by these two women who were themselves serving the enslaved Israelites. Yet these women, seemingly in a subservient position to a subservient people, enter into a high-stakes power play with the king of the ruling nation. This fact, in and of itself, sets the stage for the eventual and ultimate defiance of Pharaoh by the Israelites. It is no coincidence that the midwives are the featured players in this episode. In their everyday lives, Shiphrah and Puah literally aid the birthing process of individual women. In their refusal to obey Pharaoh, they assume a key role in the collective birthing of the people of Israel. Fearing God (reverent obedience to God) rather than the political power of the day, they are rewarded for their insistence on life rather than death. They acted in response to God's call to save lives. We can understand how they could have acted without thinking of their own safety, for most women know instinctively that innocent life must be protected at all cost.

From this account, it is evident that at times it becomes necessary to defy the “dominant powers” to liberate, emancipate and save lives. The message to us is that sometimes in having reverent obedience to God, we must defy mortal authority. If we defy authority, it means we must be disobedient to fight for the right, the weak and the helpless. No human being should have power upon the life of others. To fear God is not to be afraid but to become empowered by an attitude of respect for God as the creator and giver of life. The church is called to enter fully into the image of the "midwife", empowering those who suffer at the hands of the “dominant powers that be”.

2. Empowerment through the Ministry of Reconciliation

2 Corinthians 5:17-18, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation, everything old has passed away, everything has become new. All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us a ministry of reconciliation.”

Forgiveness, peace and genuine repentance are essential components in the process towards reconciliation. Efforts have to be made to heal both the physical and spiritual wounds. The physical can be addressed through restitution or reparations to create a just society.6 It is, however, essential that the emotional aspects of anger, hatred and trauma that are created by gross violations of human rights be likewise considered.

Furthermore, there is an implicit basis for reconciliation and peace in the Golden Rule – “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you" (Matthew 7:12). This means that true reconciliation and peace should be based on justice and equality for all, regardless of ethnicity, intellect, social status age or gender. It means an acknowledgement and recognition of not only our own worth and dignity, but also that of others.

Theologically speaking, reconciliation can be defined as God’s initiatives in restoring broken relationships between God and humankind and between people. God has given that mission to the church, which is called upon to support and strengthen human initiatives towards reconciliation. This can occur by bringing a religious face into the process through active participation. God in Christ reconciled the world to Godself and in that way created a new being and new society in the image of God. The end result can only be measured by the creation of a just society that is truly reconciled to God and is based on genuine forgiveness, peace and repentance and respect for all God’s creatures.

3. Empowerment as God-Sharing Power

(Acts 1:8): “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; you shall be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth.”

Empowerment refers here primarily to God sharing God’s power (dynamis) with people to make it possible for them to participate in God’s activity in the world. The Holy Spirit empowers the church to resist misusing power as “power over” others and to walk on the pathway of Christ where power is shared with all. The church is thus empowered to speak of God’s unconditional love in a world where hatred abounds, to speak of justification by grace in a world where the powerful few exploit vast masses of the powerless, and to speak of hope in the midst of untold violence, suffering and despair. As a consequence of divine empowerment, the church also experiences the grace of sharing empowerment among all people. In the church every baptized believer is endowed with special gifts and abilities for mutual up building and encouragement. All such gifts, whether male or female, are to be developed, appreciated and availed.

Concluding Remarks

The church is called to name and shame this violence against women and all of creation; to walk with those who seek justice, peace and reconciliation, and to ensure human dignity and fullness of life for all. The church must not and dare not surrender to violence or else it shall contribute to the view that life is cheap and expendable. The church must constantly remind itself and the world that human life is priceless and must continue to uphold this even in the face of the most obscene assaults on our sense of values.

The church is called to be prophetic. It is charged with the responsibility to challenge violence in all its forms. This prophetic voice must be based upon solid theological and ethical considerations and grounded in the liberating truths of the gospel. Only then could the church speak with enlightened authority on the word of God, not only in the church but also to the wider the community. Non-violence should become a way of life. It should be a catalyst in the formation of a system of personal, social and international change based on the force of truth and the power of love to overcome evil and obtain justice, peace and reconciliation.

In a world marked by injustice, violence, lack of trust, inequality and degradation of humanity, there is no doubt that with growing force Caribbean women are shaking up traditional pieties and preconceptions in every sphere of life, whether religious or secular. Caribbean women are bringing this new paradigm of empowerment to the struggle of equality, justice, peace and reconciliation. Daily they are becoming aware of violent structures and systems that prevent them from expressing themselves, their views, abilities and talents. In other words, Caribbean women are aware of those things that prevent their liberation and freedom.

References

1. Out Of the Depths (Collection of papers on Missiology and Liberation Theology in the Caribbean), ed. Idris Hamid, 1977.
2. The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974).
3. CAFRA NEWS – Newsletter of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action.
4. Caribbean Women Searching for A Better Future – Paper by Ophelia Ortega of Cuba.
5. Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, Phyllis Trible (Fortress Press, 1984).
6. Caribbean Women in Struggle (Trinidad: CCW Publications, 1976).

NOTES:

1 Joy Evelyn Abdul-Mohan is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in Trinidad and Tobago and principal of the Theological College.
2 “Mission: Transformation, Reconciliation, Empowerment”: A Lutheran Contribution to the Understanding of Mission” (Working paper – February 2003).
3 “Creating A Vision For Partnership of Women and Men” – Evaluation Report of Regional Workshops on Gender awareness and Leadership Development: WARC Publications, Geneva, 2003, Page, 18.
4 “Living Letters” – A Report of Visits to the Churches During the Ecumenical Decade – Churches in Solidarity With Women: WCC Publications, Geneva, 1997 Page, 26.
5 See Walter Brueggemann, “Exodus,” on The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 1, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999, Pages 681-683.
6 “Reconciliation and Forgiveness in an Unjust Society” - Ambrose Moyo: Dialogue – A Journal Of Theology, Volume 41:4, Blackwell Publishers, UK, Winter 2002, Page, 294.