The Woman Who Fathered Me: A Caribbean Womans Role in the Family Essay

The Woman Who Fa thered Me A Caribbean Womans Role in the Family Female children natural into low income families in Jamaica and other islands of the Caribbean are burdened with a separate that their male counterparts will never know. When faced with the gender oppression their monastic order has constantly been feeding, and the fact that so many w symbol must act as the single financial heads of their families, many women of the Caribbean must settle for low pay occupations associated with female or domestic labor. For women born into families at the bottom of the economic ladder, there is little hope of social mobility or escape from the fist of poverty. In most cases, the cycle continues to feed itself from mother to daughter. In my paper I will demonstrate this cycle by examining the Caribbean womens role in the family as head of the household and the education, employment and survival strategies characteristic to many of these women. I will conclude my paper by discussing so me of the new organizations and movements that buzz off surfaced in the Caribbean within the past thirty years that are struggle for womens empowerment. In his highly acclaimed novel In the Castle of My Skin, which he dedicates to his mother, in chapter three George Lamming eloquently describes what is actually a common scene among islands of the Caribbean women self-possessed together in a common yard for the purpose of gossip. slice it may seem to be an insignificant event, in a function where the responsibilities involved in raising a family fall mainly on womens shoulders, their bond with each other is essential. Miss Foster. My mother. Bobs mother. It seemed they were three pieces in a pattern which remained constant. Miss Foster had six children, th... .... 1998. 3. Ellis, Pat. Women of the Caribbean. New Jersey Zeb Books Ltd., 1986. 4. Haniff, Nesha Z. ignite a Fire. Toronto Sister Vision, 1988. 5. Lamming, George. In the Castle of My Skin. USA University of Michigan P ress, 1991. 6. Massiah, Joycelin. omen as Heads of Households in the Caribbean family structures and feminine status. Colchester Unesco, 1983. 7. Senior, Olive. Working Miricles Womens Lives in the English-speaking Caribbean. capital of the United Kingdom James Currey Ltd, 1991. 8. Shepherd, Verene. Engendering History Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective. New York St. Martins Press, 1995. 9. Walker, Susan.Rastafarian Women babble OutThe Toronto Star 12 Aug. 1994 Pg. D12. 10. Yawney, Carole D. Moving with the dawtas of Rastafari from myth to reality. pgs. 15--23 33--55 and 65--73. (excerpts from Teresa Turners New Society.)