#lifeinleggings Caribbean Women Challenge Patriarchy
For anyone living under a rock, #lifeinleggings is a Barbadian, grassroots social media movement aimed at empowering women who were victims of sexual assault, molestation, and or harassment. Barbadian and Caribbean women have been using the hashtag to share their experiences, and to encourage other women to reclaim their voices and as a result their lives. It has been a powerful therapeutic experience for those who were assaulted, and sobering for the readers.
Internet Image
The #lifeinleggings movement can be seen as a continuation of the long history of activism by Caribbean women, and this in itself is to be recognised and applauded. Patriarchy is pervasive even in its fragility, but it is this fragility that keeps it fighting to silence any dissension or threat to its authority. It is fragile because its strength depends on the weakening of viewpoints that threaten its survival. As a result it creates narratives as control mechanisms. Some of these narratives are that respectable women do not wear certain clothes, they do not go certain places, they do not do certain things because their main purpose is to nurture the next generation, a huge responsibility that requires them to act worthy of the respect of their society and their male counterparts.
Those women that do not match this idea are relegated to a class in society as undesired, deserving only of callous, fringe association with the rest of society, and the wanton and random desires of men. Thus, sexual assaults and denigrations are seen as common only to these groups, the general idea being that if they simply acted according to the standards and guidelines laid down by their patriarchal society, they would be treated better.
#lifeinleggings rips apart this respectability narrative that has effectively silenced women, for fear of being relegated to the corridor of loose women who must have been asking for it. It has provided the evidence that women from all walks of life are threatened by patriarchal ideas, that makes them silent victims.
It has now become clearer that the objectification of women is a common thread in Caribbean society, and that it infiltrates all classes. We can no longer turn a blind eye if we are to continue our independence and development projects. Women are an integral part to these processes and should be able to proceed in confidence.
One of the creators of #lifeinleggings, Allyson Benn making a point at their first panel discussion. (Internet image)
I also believe that women must reclaim their sexuality, and with it their right to be. The prevailing ideas tied to a woman’s sexuality dictates how she is viewed and treated by society, Her sexuality is not hers. It is tied to her image, and used to control, and limit how she moves within her spaces.
Sexuality is used to divide women into groups of acceptable and deserving or unacceptable and thus undeserving of societal acceptance, which has implications for her mobility personally and professionally. This idea leads to persistent material and psychological manifestations aimed to keep women in their places; places designed by a malestream society.
More germain to this issue, is that women's sexuality is often used by malestream societies as a defense for men who are guilty of sexually assaulting or harassing women. Best known as the she was asking for it argument. #lifeinleggings has brought to the fore, what those who refused to conform to the respectability narrative have always known; it does not matter to patriarchy because it has always only been about control. Women, like men, have no place.
The only way to control a demon is to call it by its name. Patriarchy is rape. It defiles society, both men and women, and creates chasms that are not meant to be closed because this is how it thrives. It is about masculine ideas over feminine ones, and it is threatened by any idea that promotes a different and more equitable outcome. This is unfortunate, and those responsible for #lifeinleggings have not only had enough, but they are willing to expose themselves, and their innermost secrets to create the change necessary, to rid this postcolonial space of some of those trappings, that continue to raise questions as to our maturity as nations, and as a people.
Caribbean women have always played constitutive roles in revolutionary movements that have created lasting change, and that have left ineradicable marks on our history. It is my hope that #lifeinleggings will not only continue, but that it will evolve into a movement that will become the proverbial straw that breaks patriarchy’s back. I am proud to belong to a generation of women that are strong enough to fearlessly take up such a task.
Yours in struggle.
