Abstract
The chapter discusses the main questions which the book answers: Does having more women in the Houses of Parliament go beyond its symbolic value? Do our men in the Houses of Parliament actively advocate for women’s rights and empowerment? Is there evidence of gender and/or feminist consciousness, advocacy and activism in the Jamaican legislature? The three conscious-raising strategies used over the years to achieve women’s empowerment are the ‘women in development’—focussed on the social transformation of women through their integration into economic development, to ‘women and development’—presented women as a group with shared experiences and social perspectives that were different from men, to ‘gender and development’—developed a broader view beyond women’s issues to gender relations between men and women and sough to empower all subgroups of women. The State’s key mechanisms to address women’s interests and concerns highlighted are the Bureau of Gender Affairs, the National Policy for Gender Equality (2011) and the National Strategic Action Plan to Eliminate Gender-based Violence (2017–2027). Additionally, Jamaica has signed several international ‘women’ instruments, chief among them the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
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Notes
- 1.
b. 1905 in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, d. 1965. Much credit must also be extended to other staunch Jamaican feminist advocates like Nellie Latrielle and Judith DeCordova from the Women’s Social Welfare Club; Edith Dalton James, Mary Morris Knibb and Amy Bailey, founders of the Women’s Liberal Club; Catherine McKenzie and Amy Ashwood Garvey, who paved the way for the inclusion of Jamaican women in the political affairs of the nation.
- 2.
At the time of writing, the members of the 51% Coalition formed in 2011 are the Association of Women’s Organisation in Jamaica (AWOJA), the Women’s Resource and Outreach Centre (WROC), Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Institute, the Institute of Gender and Development Studies, The RCU and UWI, Mona Unit, Jamaica Women’s Political Caucus, Sistren Theatre Collective and the Young Women’s Leadership Initiative.
- 3.
Political scientists and other scholars have theorised that for women to make a difference in the legislature they must be present in sufficient numbers, with 15–30% being established as the benchmark.
- 4.
Those people, whether men or women, in women’s organisations, women’s national machineries, political parties and others who act collectively or individually to bring about policies which seek to promote and protect women’s rights and equality.
- 5.
Renamed the Bureau of Gender Affairs in 2016. Evolving from a Woman’s Desk in 1975, the unit falls under the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sports.
- 6.
As per the last population and housing census in 2011, women accounted for 1,363,450 (50.53%) of the 2,697,983 people living in Jamaica.
- 7.
- 8.
Then named the Women Centre Programme for Adolescent Mothers, the WCJF was established in 1978 and task with the responsibility to run programmes for teenage mothers focussing on continuing their education during pregnancy and providing support services (counselling, family planning advice, parenting and childrearing practices).
- 9.
The statistics on the numerical composition of the members of the Houses of Parliament are compiled from the Reports of the Director of Elections, Jamaica. By mandate of The Representation of the People Act (1944), the Chief Electoral Officer is required to issue a report immediately after each general election on the number of votes polled by each candidate. The reports are available online via the Electoral Commission of Jamaica’s (ECJ) website. Additionally, the physical reports are maintained at the Electoral Office of Jamaica’s library.
- 10.
Named after one of Jamaica’s national heroes, the Rt. Excellent George William Gordon, who himself was an elected member of the House of Assembly in the 1850s.
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Coore-Hall, J.A. (2020). Introduction. In: Feminist Advocacy and Activism in State Institutions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34679-9_1
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