The Search for Gender Equity and Empowerment of Caribbean Women: The Role of Education

• Author: Barbara Bailey
• Pages: 108-145

108 Barbara Bailey

INTRODUCTION

Over the decade, 1985–95, some eight United Nations (UN) international

conferences were held which focused on human rights, women, social issues

and sustainable development. At these conferences a number of actions

were identified to promote, inter alia, greater gender equality and gender

equity.

Prominent among the concerns addressed in these conferences were issues

related to basic human rights of women including:

•The fulfilment of women’s potential through education and skill

development, and therefore the elimination of illiteracy among

women

• The need to improve the quality and relevance of education for girls

and women and to eliminate gender stereotypes in all types of

communication and educational material

• The economic empowerment of women through equal access to the

labour market and non-traditional occupations and elimination of

gender disparities in income and discriminatory practices by

employers

• Ensuring the elimination of poverty and ill health and promotion of

equal access to the social security system

The Search for Gender Equity and Empowerment of

Caribbean Women: The Role of Education

Barbara Bailey

FOUR

The Search for Gender Equity and Empowerment 109

• Ensuring equitable representation of women at all levels of the political

process and public life

• Ensuring equal access to productive resources such as property, land

and credit for women and their right to obtain credit and negotiate

contracts

• Eliminating violence against women and ensuring their right to

reproductive and sexual health

• Encouraging and enabling men to take responsibility for their sexual

and reproductive behaviour and their social and family roles.

In spite of the fact that most Caribbean governments endorsed actions

identified in relation to these issues and have ratified instruments such as

the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination

against Women (CEDAW) and the 1993 Declaration on the Elimination

of Violence Against Women, a gap between ratification and implementation

still remains and women continue to be disadvantaged in regard to many

of these rights.

Many of the conferences, which addressed these concerns, pointed to

the centrality of education as the vehicle for gender equality and equity

and as the means to women’s empowerment and their fuller participation

in the development process. From as far back as the 1985 3rd World

Conference on Women (WCW), convened under the theme ‘Equality,

Development and Peace’, education was promoted as the basis for the full

promotion and improvement of the status of women and as the basic tool

that should be given to women in order to fulfill their role as full members

of society.1 In The Forward Looking Strategies,2 coming out of that conference,

governments were therefore urged to institute and adopt measures to

increase equal access to scientific, technical and vocational education and

to create appropriate incentives to ensure that women had an equal

opportunity to acquire education at all levels.

The 1990 World Conference on Education for All

3 called on governments

to remove cultural barriers to women’s education and to make education

productive and employment oriented; while five years later, in the Platform

of Action4 coming out of the 4th WCW it was suggested that:

Equality of access to and attainment of educational qualifications is necessary if more

women are to become agents of change. Literacy of women is an important key to

110 Barbara Bailey

improving health, nutrition and education in the family and to empowering women

to participate in decision-making in society.(p.47).5

This notion that education can be used as the vehicle for empowering

women to be equal partners with men in the economic, political and

sociocultural spheres of life as well as in decision-making is also highlighted

in other documents. In the biennial report on the Progress of the World’s

Women, published by the United Nations Development Fund for Women

(UNIFEM), the view is expressed that:

Education is essential for improving women’s living standards and enabling women

to exercise greater ‘voice’ in decision-making in the family, the community, the place

of paid work and the public arena of politics. (p.66) 6

This assumption that increased participation and performance in education

will result in women’s empowerment and their improved position in society,

however, needs to be critically assessed in relation to the Caribbean context

and Caribbean realities.

Data presented in this paper will challenge this assumption and will

show that contrary to popular perception, education has not proven to be

the vehicle for shifting the balance of power between the sexes in the

economic, political and personal spheres. In spite of their overall higher

levels of educational participation and attainment, Caribbean women, as a

group, continue to be predominately clustered in the lower paying sectors

of the labour market; experience higher levels of unemployment; have less

access to productive resources; are under-represented in all areas of

governance including representational politics and decision-making

positions and processes; and, experience high levels of gender-based violence

and therefore lack full control over their sexual and reproductive rights.

I therefore posit that, whereas increased participation and performance

in education may have helped to meet the practical needs of some Caribbean

women, their strategic need for empowerment has not been met; and, that

education has therefore not proven to be the means for promoting greater

gender equity in Caribbean societies. The reasons for this will be explored

and suggestions for reversing these trends will be proposed.

CARIBBEAN WOMEN AND EDUCATION: POST-BEIJING

In the Beijing Platform for Action,7 education is identified as a human

right and an essential tool for achieving the goals of equality, development