AUTHOR: Mohammed
TEXTBOOK: Contending with Destiny: The Caribbean in the 21st Century
EDITOR: Professor Kenneth Hall and Denis Benn
Paul Andrew Bourne, B.Sc. (Hons); Dip. Edu.
INTRODUCTION
Mohammed (2000) in “Contending with destiny: The Caribbean in the 21st Century” forwarded a viewpoint on the changing roles of women in Caribbean societies that exposed some of the socio-cultural biases in past as well as contemporary societies. The writer’s monograph lacked critical social sciences skills as she purported many a value-laden perspective. Despite the worth of ‘normative’ statements in the social sciences, the position taken by the writer diluted the quality of the work. Mohammed cited a number of illustrations of gender stereotypes in the twenty-first century, and made a comparison with traditional roles of the sexes to concretize the need for new cultural space on the matter. Those areas were subsumed within a few themes. They were developmental capacity of the society within a construct of ‘satisfying human needs’; ‘women liberation’; infrastructural capacity of urban zones versus rural zones; gender roles and urbanization.
URBANIZATION
Urbanization was the primary mechanism use to emphasize gender roles in the Caribbean (Mohammed, 2000). In the text, Mohammed began the discourse with a quotation from Clark (1996) that summarizes her epistemology of a social structure. Clark’s perspective concretized the discourse of capacity, when she compared rural settlements with urban centres, and that the latter has outstripped the former concerning socioeconomic development and in demographic transition. He further added that people are demanding more than towns and cities, so much so that the world is transforming into an urban market place. Despite Mohammed’s introduction of Clark’s ideational, she guided the discourse away from centre typologies, zones and ‘human settlement’ to annals of a particular social condition.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
In the first paragraph, Mohammed’s thesis evolved from the eighteenth century in which she depicts a distinction between particular operate in the twenty-first century. These issues were purported within the context of ‘individual rights’ and ‘freedom’ in order that scientific technology and other devices may be used to accomplish psycho-social needs of people and cater to a more enlightened being. She progressed with a transitory approach in the second paragraph where food production from a particular locality was introduced. This, she emphasize, within the construct of Karl Marx’s paradigm on the ‘history of expropriation’. Mohammed presented an argument that showed how the Caribbean societies were made to ‘expropriate’ by the colonizers. The arguments were overt. She was concerned that developmental issues and the difficulties of the Caribbean territory were not effectively addressing the challenges. Mohammed advanced the viewpoint that with the capacity of the Caribbean defined by her small size, ‘how do we [expect] to achieve the kind of progress which keeps apace with technological and global advances so that we are not left behind, while enduring that we don not reproduce the patterns of income distribution and privilege that characterized our formative years?’ (Mohammed, 2000, p. 197).
SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS
Now that the author established a particular thesis as the epistemology that embeds her current slant, she then launched into a discourse of gender roles. Mohammed presented sentence that reads:
The idea that one sex contributes to the creation of surplus value, while the other has a secondary relationship to production, is primitive baggage to take into the twenty-first century (Mohammed, 2000).
The syntax, phonology and literature seemingly imply that the author had a certain epistemology of the gender roles in the twenty-first century. It was hereafter that the Mohammed began forwarding a fundamental challenge of how Caribbean societies were fashioned to stipulate particular roles, tasks and label for the sexes. This she labeled as ‘The notion of a sexual division of labour’ and later followed this with ‘woman’s liberation’. The author, again, cited a situation of a ‘marginalized group’. She referred to this as ‘conspired to allow women the framework from which they could confront the question of gender inequality’.
The ideal family type, nuclear family, and roles’ specialization were indications of the socialization of the Caribbean peoples. This lends itself to Mohammed’s belief in task assignment and practices by females. All of this was in the context of rural zones, ‘where men and women know their place in the domestic life of the household and the social life the village . . .’
The rural family setting is ideographic to a good social system, to which the author offered much praises, but this structure as pointed out by Mohammed is no longer the situation. She noted that the geographic lines of demarcation and the difference in socialization are minimal coupled with the information revolution through cellular telephones, internet and travel. Many of the epistemological modes of the Caribbean peoples are similar to those of peoples from other locale.
Urbanization was presented within the context of its social ills. Here Mohammed emphasized noise, pollution, congestion, overcrowding, urban sprawl and economic inequalities. The examples here were educational opportunities, leisure and other amenities as proxy for evaluating the consequences of urbanization. After this, she cited that ‘cities have created their own forms of social culture’ in an effort juxtaposed this against rural life. Chief among the issues that distinguishes rural-urban movement is the sex trade and the issues of mortality that Mohammed indicated that society ascribed to women.
Urbanization and technological innovations were responsible for ‘blurring the line’ of division of labour between the sexes (Mohammed, 2000). The writer took a stance, which indicated gender role, when she cited that ‘juvenile delinquency’, ‘male delinquency’, ‘domestic violence’ and ‘increase in liberalization of sexuality’ as being because of females’ neglect. The irony in the writer’s thesis was evident when she pronounces a causal-effect situation between the particular social deviance and females’ neglect. Mohammed remarked could be construed to be myopic.
FEMININISM
It is seems from the Mohammed’s expressions and choice of language that she is a feminist. The title of this text was not based solely on females but the author slanted here discussion noticeably towards females. Even though expressions were forwarded that tended towards an associational relationship between the perspectives, a number of arguments were presented with simple biases. She failed to make a linkage between the roles of men and those of women within the purview of the twenty-first century. Seemingly, Mohammed purported a non-discriminatory gender position that knowingly is traditional but did not illustrate what are the likely new tenets post gender inequalities of roles. Tradition, experiences, pundits and socialization are bases upon which individuals acquire an epistemology. The authors failed to logical deduce a position that would justify the scientific error in the gender definitions. Instead a link was made between right and wrong within the context of social settings without establishing cost-benefit analysis, cause-and-effect models, meaning system of society – be it contemporary or ancient, evaluation of gender roles and consequences on the social development of the participants and/or new set of assumptions that will formulate the new paradigm. Little was done that would coalesce gender roles and the issues surrounding city limits, and the consequences rural migration, absentee fathers, neglect of children, incapacity of the females, and governance that supports social change.
CONCLUSION
Mohammed verbosely presented a series of potent theses in an effort to substantiate her claim on feminism instead of a scientific approach in forwarding a certain concept. The arguments were value laden and driven, and on a number of occasions were penned with overt and covert information. Seemingly, the latter vantage point of the author was not to foster academic discourse but ventilating a deep-seated perspective on a certain personal issue. In the end, the intent was biased and so not effective in adding value to the social science discourse. City Limits, the theme of the presentation, was sidelined in an effort to forward the gender perspective. Despite the setting that gender roles need to be transform and modernized in keeping with the new era, this academic did not encourage discourse surround the way forward but highlight the interpretive stance of the writer that floured any possibility of critical discourse. Mohammed’s (2000) thesis is a clear example of reductionism. The writes reduces the complex social reality of the sexes to one simple component.
From the stance taken and expressed by the author, in an effort to establish an association between gender roles and urbanization, the paper fail in addressing its primary focus. The entire text focused on ‘females’, and when ‘males’ were mentioned it were in a pejorative sense. Men were seen as the oppressors, the structures, the decision-makers and this reduce the quality of the presentation as the justifications were lacking within the context of city limits.
The author did not allude to a thesis statement and throughout the material; there was many dialect themes and perspectives. Furthermore, there was no linkage between the introductory quotation and the first paragraph; therefore, the ploy behind the sentence usage was overt. Despite the excellent quality of the language usage, the grammar, the phonology, the linguistic system and the artistry of writer, Mohammed failed to present logical and objective arguments that would justify her perspective within her biasness dominating the article. Because the writer is personal bias was such throughout the material, she did not cease to ensure that the text was rational and subjective or objective within measurability. Justice was not done to the piece of writing, Mohammed needs to understand that it is expected of her, a social scientist, to use the tenets of the discipline and not write with the same level of emotion like a mother who has lost her child.
Mohammed’s arguments clearly emphasize the need for effective urban planning coupled with the vision of modernity of gender roles but the material lacks academic depth, as only one side within the dialectic-discourse was forwarded which is value laden stance of the author as against a monograph that applies the paradigm of that the she supports.
Modernity and socio-political development in particular gender setting show clear differences in societies. Academic advancement of women in the twentieth-century and beyond is not sufficient a justification to change many of the social structures and this Mohammed alluded to but failed to make a scientific foundation of her perspective. Mohammed unsuccessfully did not delved into the socio-geographic issue of ‘City Limits’ from a logical premise but she was rule by the emotions of gender inequality that was evident within her monograph. Mohammed played the tune of a ‘normativist’ with much idealism and his biased the discourse from being one of substantive issue presentation to one of fallacious reasoning and emotive. This article was a historical-comparative social science monograph that failed to adequately presented arguments on the theme to one of tradition on the verandah. Instead of adding substantive issue of the social space in regard to ‘City Limits’, Mohammed appease herself of a personal perspective and failed in the process to provide a platform for social science discourse.
Mohammed engrossed herself in gender inequalities and this withdrew from the pivotal issue of ‘City Limits’. Overall, the essay makes for an ‘insightful reading on gender inequalities and not “City Limits”.