BAHAMIAN KINSHIP AND THE POWER OF WOMEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment

of the Master of Philosophy Degree

in Social Anthropology

August 1993

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicolette Bethel

Corpus Christi College

Department of Social Anthropology

Introduction

            This thesis is an introduction to a topic which warrants further study:  the centrality of Bahamian women not only in their families[1] but also in society at large.

            Seven years ago, as an officer in the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Affairs, Nassau, I was struck by the high public[2] involvement of women in Bahamian society.  The officers I worked with were primarily women (see Appendix 1); the majority of those taking part in our programmes were girls.  In 1987, a study conducted by the Ministry's Women's Affairs Unit and the Commonwealth Secretariat revealed that the proportion of Bahamian women in prominent public positions was higher than in countries where similar studies had taken place (see p.15 below).  In 1989, I began teaching in a small private high school.  There too, girls out-performed boys, improving as they got older, while the boys' achievements declined.  Young women, I realized, were being better trained to take up positions of public prominence than young men.

            It seems possible that the domestic centrality of Bahamian women — the "matrifocality" of the Bahamian home — has influenced women's strength in the public domain.  Roughly half the women I worked with in the ministry were mothers who had never been married, and one-quarter of my students lived with their mothers only.[3]  However, conventional theories of matrifocality shed little light on the situation:  these single mothers are middle class women — white-collar workers in the ministry, or women who can afford their children's private education.  Furthermore, women's prominence is considered no anomaly; my (middle-class) students, male and female alike, took it for granted.

            My fieldwork was conducted among middle-class youngsters of high-school and college age.  In a series of unstructured interviews, they were asked their opinions about family, marriage and the roles of men and women, and their own family backgrounds were taken into account.  I have also relied on my experiences as a Youth Officer (1986-1989) and as a high school teacher (1989-1992).  My observations are limited to Nassau, the capital, where over 70% of the Bahamian population reside, and are backed up by recent studies carried out in Jamaica and the rest of the Commonwealth Caribbean, where similar trends are emerging.[4]

            One point remains to be made.  The availability of statistics in The Bahamas is haphazard at best.  Numerical data is not always easy to obtain, and is often out-of-date.  Many of the figures I include in my text are estimates made by the relevant agencies, and should be read as such.  As far as possible I have relied on samples of my own, which are small.  However, what I have included should suffice to indicate general trends.

Statement of Problem

            The Bahamas today is a society where the prominence of women in almost every field — and the corresponding absence of men — is not only remarkable but also, for politicians and planners, worrying (Miller, 1991:94).  Not only do women constitute half the workforce in The Bahamas, but they are increasingly employed in the professions and in managerial positions traditionally held by men.  Between 1970 and 1980, the number of females in the professions rose by 65%, and by 1991 more women than men were applying for jobs.[5]  Moreover, the prospect of continued female employment in the professions is strong.[6]  Bahamian girls perform better in school than boys, leave high school with better qualifications, and go on to college.  While their sisters are entering law, medicine and finance, young Bahamian men are still becoming construction workers, mechanics, service station attendants and the like[7].

            What is the reason for this?  Churchmen and social workers seek the trouble in the "breakdown" of the traditional family patterns.  Turnquest notes:

 

The traditional extended family no longer plays a significant role in Bahamian society [and] there has also been a breakdown in the nuclear family ... the housewife-mother is an increasingly rare figure [as often] both parents work outside the home.  All too often ... children are left unsupervised after school.  The single-parent family creates a similar position for children ... as the father is not only a source of emotional support, but also helps maintain a balance of standards and values within a family, children from such homes are often poorly motivated [and] can be seen as contributing to an uneven development of the sexes:  boys ... tend to become insecure, while girls are strong-minded and aggressive.   (1987:4-5)

 

It is easy to suggest that family structure is one reason that females are becoming more active in Bahamian society; their traditional prominence in the home is well-documented.[8]  The issue, however, is more complex.  First, Bahamian patterns of matrifocality thirty years ago were fairly conservative by West Indian standards.[9]  Nevertheless the average Bahamian women today is more influential than her Caribbean counterparts.[10]  Second, female dominance of domestic life, and the accompanying marginality of males, are widely considered to be markers of social and economic disadvantage (R.Smith 1956; Liebow 1967; Rodman 1971), and are often tied to the equally marginal status of women in society (Stack 1974; Rubenstein 1978; Morris 1981).  Yet in The Bahamas, while the family has grown increasingly mother-centred since the 1960s,[11] the economy during the same period has experienced considerable growth.[12]  Third, it is difficult to sustain the argument that racism and social disadvantage are the cause.[13]  Although whites account for 15% of the population, and prior to 1967 dominated the economic and political life, they are no longer visible members of the community, and have been politically dormant for twenty-five years.[14] 

            Finally, the mother-centred family is as much a feature of the middle classes as it is of the lower.[15]  A considerable proportion of the population is middle-class, evidence of the economic growth of the 1970s and 1980s; these middle classes, like the politicians who rule the country, are black (see below).  Contemporary black Bahamians are economically powerful and politically dominant.  Nevertheless the matrifocal form of the family thrives.  Conventional theories of matrifocality and their applications to the position of women in Bahamian society do not hold.

Theories of Matrifocality

            Classic matrifocality, as defined by R.T. Smith for British Guiana (1956), was a system where

 

a woman in the status of "mother" is usually the de facto leader of the group, and conversely the husband-father, although de jure head ... (if present) is usually marginal to the complex of internal relationships of the group.  By "marginal" we mean that he associates relatively infrequently with the other members of the group, and is on the fringe of the effective ties which bind the group together.  (1956:223)

 

The male's role was economically central to the maintenance of the family group (1956:226).  However, because the Afro-Guianese men in question occupied a low socio-economic position, their overall contribution to the home was limited at best; dispossession in society rendered them marginal at home (1956:227-8).[16]  A crucial component of Smith's thesis was that female domestic centrality and the corresponding marginality of men varied over time.  Following Fortes' (1970) description of the domestic cycle of Ashanti households, Smith argued that men were most important to the family structure at the beginning of the Guianese domestic cycle, and lost authority as they migrated in search of work, or as they aged and were no longer able to provide for their families (1956:111-112).  Matrifocality, he concluded, was an adaptation of the universal nuclear family structure to adverse socio-economic conditions.[17]  For Smith, matrifocality did not mean either that women were necessarily heads of their households, or that their authority extended beyond the domestic sphere; what it did involve was the exclusion of males from an active place in both public and domestic life.[18]

            Two studies in particular fit Smith's model well — Clarke's comparison of three Jamaican villages, and Gonzalez's investigation of Black Carib communities in British Honduras.  Both note that the West Indian family encompasses a range of structures (Clarke, 1966:113-123; Gonzalez, 1969:4), the most striking of which is the female-centred family. Clarke, like Smith, ties family structure to varying socio-economic conditions.  One village in her sample demonstrates the effect of poverty upon family forms.  There the land is poor and land holdings so small that the inhabitants are barely able to subsist; legal marriage is beyond the means of most couples, who tend rather to cohabit on a permanent basis with one another, and raise children together.  Unlike Smith, however, she does not imply a sweeping likeness among all groups of similar standing.[19]  She suggests that it is economic stability, not merely the possession of wealth, which allows for the development of elementary family forms.  The workers on the sugar estate in Clarke's study make far more money than the inhabitants of either of her other villages, but because their earnings fluctuate between periods of comparative wealth during the sugar crop and hardship out-of-season it is difficult for them to maintain elementary families.  It is here that households consisting of a single mother and her offspring are most common.  Only where inhabitants' access to productive land provides a steady income all year round is the nuclear family based on marriage the norm.

            Gonzalez concentrates on one type of community — that of Black Caribs in British Honduras.  She points out that many groups among whom female-centred families occur are those which are found on the edge of industrialized societies (1969:8).  They are dependent upon those larger societies for their survival, but have not been assimilated into them; often, their members are exploited as manual labourers, but are not given full membership in the wider society (1969:9-10).  Moreover, the communities in question are "neoteric",[20] or newly-formed, and lack traditions which allow them high levels of social integration.[21]  They exhibit a high degree of structural flexibility:  "a capacity for change [is] built into these systems, which must continually adapt themselves or be annihilated." (1969:10)  They are further prevented from full incorporation into the wider industrialized society by the fact that they are often constituted of mixed-bloods (1969:9) — a fact which, while certainly true of the Black Caribs, is less true of the villages studied by Smith and Clarke.  But the absence of males as husband-fathers does not automatically give authority to females.  For this reason Gonzalez terms such households "consanguineal";[22] for while males may hold positions of authority, they are generally related to the other members by blood, and not by affiliation (1969:60-61).

            Common to almost all studies of matrifocality are issues of disadvantage.  Matrifocality is often seen as an adaptation of family structures to the exigencies of poverty or other adverse conditions — in Rodman's words, "a matrifocal household is matrifocal by default, not by design" (1971:183).[23]  Such a view, while accurate to a degree, is ultimately simplistic.[24]  If disadvantage were the only factor affecting family structure, or even the most important, then Caribbean and African-American families should adjust to improving conditions by moving away from matrifocality.  As we shall see, this is not always the case.

            A more complex interpretation is presented by Martinez-Alier (1974) in her study of Cuban marriage during slavery and after, which considers the institution of class in the creation and maintenance of matrifocal families in ex-slave societies.  Unlike M.G.Smith, for whom West Indian class stratification based on criteria of colour was evidence of his theory of cultural pluralism,[25] Martinez-Alier points out that the factors which affected the formation of matrifocal families operated throughout the whole society, regardless of wealth or status.  Throughout the region there was traditionally a correlation between skin colour and class,[26] originating in slavery (see footnote 25).  Although in most territories there existed social or legal sanctions against interracial marriage, it was common for men of higher rank (and lighter colour) to form extra-legal unions with women of any class.[27]  The resulting offspring were often accorded higher status than their black siblings, although their social standing was less exalted than that of their paler relatives.  Far from being outside the tradition of matrifocal family forms, then, the middle and upper classes were active participants in it (1974:117).

            What is perhaps most interesting about Martinez-Alier's analysis is that it raises ideas not only of class but also of women's agency.  As she points out, a woman might choose to bear children out of wedlock for a man of higher status than herself, in order to afford them greater social privileges than if she married a man of her own class.  That such a practice was not limited to Cuba alone is shown clearly in R.T.Smith's later studies of Jamaican and Guyanese society, where it is still the custom among some lower- and lower-middle-class women to form unions with men of higher class; that such an action is profitable is evidenced by the fact that the fathers of these children, while not necessarily offering social recognition, are more likely to provide for their "outside" offspring financially or socially, often educating them in private schools or even sending them to live with middle-class relatives.[28]  By considering aspects of class and colour, then, Martinez-Alier encourages the view that matrifocality, while often the product of social disadvantage, might also be formed by women's conscious design.

            That such an idea is not far-fetched may be illustrated by looking at the economic place of women in Caribbean society.  Paradoxically, the same conditions which are believed to prevent the formation of elementary families often allow women a certain measure of economic autonomy.  Not only did slavery render the position of the black man tenuous; but it also created a division of labour based more on class than on sex (R.T.Smith, 1987).  Caribbean women have always worked outside the home (Powell, 1986; Safa 1986).  In fact, one would be hard pressed to decide where the domestic unit ended and the productive unit began (see Mintz, 1964; Morris, 1981).  Where women work, they are less dependent on men for financial support than where they do not; thus they are often able to act as the stable focus of their families.[29]

            Moreover, a woman's choice to bear children may be an economic one.  While marriage is not considered by Caribbean women to be crucial to the attainment of womanhood, childbearing is (Clarke, 1966; Powell, 1986); yet there is little idea that children add to one's economic hardship.  Clarke notes that in Jamaica, children are said to "'cost nothing'" (1966:180).  And various researchers[30] have pointed out that children, like men, are often considered financial resources.  The woman who earns money by petty trading or the fixing and selling of food will often have her children helping her (Mintz, 1964; Morris, 1981; Pine, 1982).  Unlike men, however, children are believed reliable; men may leave, but children are an investment in one's future (Clarke, 1966; Powell, 1986).  Far from being economically central to the home, then, as Smith assumed, men are in fact peripheral — often viewed by women as one resource among many (Safa, 1986:8).  One man's money, after all, is as good as another's.  As Baby Suggs remarks in Toni Morrison's Beloved:  "A man ain't nothing but a man ... but a son?  Well now, that's somebody." (Morrison, 1988).

 

Structural and functional matrifocality

            Most of the above studies have approached the matrifocal family from a purely structural point of view — they attempt to account for the relatively large number households headed by women in the physical absence of men.  This approach, however, has its limitations, for it assumes that in households with a resident male head, matrifocality disappears.  Yet the economic autonomy of sexes in the Caribbean affects the function of the household as well as its structure (Powell, 1986; Safa, 1986).  Not all homes in which the husband/father is absent for long periods at a time are "matrifocal" in the classic sense, where the decision-making is left primarily or wholly up to the wife/mother.  The families of career soldiers, naval officers, fishermen, itinerant workers, travelling salesmen and British Members of Parliament, for example, while "matrifocal" in structure, may nevertheless function as traditional nuclear families, where the male's economic contribution to the home is central and his authority unquestioned.  Similarly, the physical presence of the husband/father does not guarantee the absence of matrifocality.  Paul's study of Bermudian families demonstrates this:

 

... the black Bermudian family, based on legal or religious marriage, is characterized by a functional matrifocal emphasis.  The role of wives-mothers is not one of "subservient chattels" (Lowenthal 1972:111).  Wives-mothers carry out the most part the socialization of the children, [sic] the planning of the families and are also the disciplinary figures ... the husband-father role tends to be reduced to a breadwinner role.  (Paul, 1983:100)[31]

 

            As early as 1957 Clarke noted the ambivalent status of the father even in households which followed traditional "nuclear" family patterns where he was nominally the head (1966:159).[32]  And Powell (1986) observed that throughout the Caribbean, women are the primary makers of decisions within the home whether they are married or not.  Although, as she points out, "female headship is confined largely to households in which a man in the role of husband/partner is absent" (1986:104), the women involved in her study "see themselves rather than their men-folk as autonomous decision-makers" (1986:106); "'Partners' do not feature in any of the areas as prime-decision-makers." (1986:107).[33]  Powell's study questions the idea that women in co-residential unions have considerably less influence in the home than their unattached counterparts; the women she interviewed are the functional heads of their households.

            The matrifocal household, therefore, must be viewed as being more than "matrifocal by default".  There is little to be gained by reducing the matrifocal family to a mere response to disadvantage; for where that disadvantage is removed, the matrifocal family does not necessarily disappear.  The idea that matrifocality is limited only to those homes in which the male is absent is equally fruitless; if this were the case, then the former conservatism of matrifocal family forms in The Bahamas would appear puzzling in the light of modern trends.  If women's agency is ignored, there is nothing in existing theories of matrifocality to account for the present structure of Bahamian society.  If, however, it is recognized that 1)  structural matrifocality may be the result of a woman's choice and 2)  families with nominal male heads may be functionally matrifocal, then a link may be sought in Bahamian family structure for the comparative prominence of women in society at large.

Matrifocality and Bahamian society

            If matrifocality is associated with poverty, lower-class status or political dispossession, The Bahamas should exhibit low numbers of matrifocal families.  First, Bahamians' standard of living is more like that of North Americans than of other "developing" nations; for the boom which began after the Second World War has only recently (like the world economy) shown signs of recession.[34]

            Second, class distinctions differ from those found elsewhere in the Caribbean,[35] owing to the presence of native whites.  Until the late 1950s class was overshadowed by a colour bar which discriminated against black and mulatto Bahamians alike.[36]  Although social distinctions were made on the basis of skin shade, political alliances between blacks and mulattos were formed early, and the darkness of one's skin did not necessarily exclude one from holding prominent positions in black society.

            Between 1945 and 1967 improved educational opportunities saw the development of a male-dominated professional class, representative of both black and "coloured" Bahamians; the most prominent of these men formed the first majority government in 1967.  It was not until after the election of that government that widespread access to secondary and tertiary education, coupled with a booming economy, created a black middle class consisting of public servants, bankers, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, teachers, journalists, artists, musicians and intellectuals.  Figures are not available to measure the proportion of these middle classes in Bahamian society.  However, the results of the 1992 general election indicate that their influence is strong; in that year, a party representing middle-class interests ousted one whose strength lay in working-class support.

            Third, black Bahamians are politically dominant.  Until 1967 The Bahamas was a British colony governed by a minority of native whites, but for the better part of a generation blacks have been in power.  Indeed, Bahamians set themselves apart from many other Caribbean people by electing leaders who are not representatives of either the coloured middle or the white upper classes.[37]

            By many accounts, Bahamian family forms should be in a process of transformation away from matrifocality.  Certain factors indicate this is not the case.  Figures are sketchy, but those available reveal that in 1980, although approximately 22% of the adult Bahamian population was legally married, 55% of the total population was under the age of 15 (Draft National Policy Statement on Women, 1991; The Link, 2(1), 1987).  This suggests that a large proportion of minor children resided with their unmarried parents.  Chances are good that these parents are mothers; in 1987, an estimated 64% of all households in New Providence, the site of the capital, were headed by single parents, most of whom were women.[38]

            Bahamian families are functionally as well as structurally matrifocal.[39]  Even where the husband/fathers are present, mothers perform the majority of the tasks in the home, including that of providing economic support for their families.  In families where both parents are present and working, it is often the case that the mother's income is used to finance the welfare of the children, while the father's is expended on luxuries.[40]  Mothers are often the providers of discipline and stability in the home;[41] it is they who involve themselves in their children's schooling, and who make most of the important decisions in the home.[42]

            In Bahamian society, mothers are considered responsible for the well-being of the family and, by extension, society itself.  This view is borne out by attitudes which are often taken for granted.  For instance, while men may be forgiven for making mistakes, women may not.  During the 1980s, when crack addiction was rife, rehabilitation programmes and half-way houses for men were established.  Virtually none existed for women, despite evidence that the rehabilitation of female crack addicts was more difficult to achieve than that of males.[43]  Furthermore, given the high demand on existing resources, it is more difficult for women to be treated by primary care institutions than it is for men.  One magistrate described how she repeatedly sentenced a female addict to be admitted to a rehabilitation centre, only to discover that each time the woman had been released after a night or two.  Such a step, she argued, would never be taken with a man.  Not only are men believed more dangerous, but they are also considered morally weaker than women, and more in need of help.  Woman, she claimed, is the "pillar" of society.[44]  When she falls she falls hard; and her family falls with her.  Consequently the female drug addict is judged more harshly than her male counterpart.

            Another example of the centrality of the mother to the family is the popular tendency to consider the children of one woman by various men full siblings, and the children of one man by different mothers half siblings.  As one (male) student put it: 

 

... my grandmother, right, she got married.  She got married three times because her first two husbands died.  She had something like sixteen kids ... She had children for different men, right?  But yet it still seem as though they are full sisters and brothers.  Now I mean if it was say a guy having children they would be half brothers and half sisters ...

 

            In the middle class, marriage or motherhood (not fatherhood) demarcates the time for setting up house — which may explain the tendency of Bahamians to refer to their parental home as their mother's house, regardless of whether or not their father is present.  It is unusual for teenagers to move out of their parents' home unless they leave the city or settlement.  Daughters may leave home in their twenties when they marry (earlier for women, as in the rest of the Caribbean, than for men) or have borne children; it is not uncommon for sons to remain at home until they are in their thirties, unless they marry younger.  In some cases a young man of means may buy or rent an apartment in order to afford himself some privacy, but his mother's house is always home.  Such men may set up temporary living arrangements with women other than their mothers, but when these are over, are likely to return to their mothers' houses.[45]

            Women's primacy extends beyond the domestic sphere.  Half the workforce are women, who may well hold positions of authority.  Education, for instance, is almost completely female-dominated — a fact which is as applicable to the upper strata of tertiary institutions as it is to kindergarten and primary school.  In The College of The Bahamas, the top three positions (Principal, Vice-Principal and Dean of Academic Affairs) as well as the chairmanship of almost every academic division have, for the better part of the College's eighteen-year existence, been occupied by women (Appendix 4).  In secondary schools, most of the teachers are female (e.g. Appendix 2), and girls make up the majority of students in secondary and tertiary institutions (Appendix 3).

            In the public service, women are almost equally prominent.  Although their promotions are not as easily won as in education, it is nevertheless not uncommon to find women in positions of great prominence.  Many Bahamian magistrates (a number are West Indian) are female, as are many Crown Prosecutors.  For the better part of a decade, the Financial Secretary, the Director of the Archives, successive Directors of Education, and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism have all been women.

            Women's presence in the private sector is marked.  Bahamian women, more educated than their male counterparts, are better qualified to enter the labour market.  For example, the majority of participants in the B.A. programme in Banking and Finance at the College of The Bahamas have been women whose training qualifies them for top managerial positions.[46]  Furthermore, many employers prefer to hire women, who, they claim, make more reliable employees than men.  They are likely to remain with one firm, while men are prone to move from job to job, always seeking better deals.[47]  Because many working women are the main providers for their families.[48] they are more interested in obtaining job security than in seeking the highest salaries available to them.

            It is arguable that women, to some extent, control public opinion, as many journalists are female.  In radio and television, women predominate.  Newscasters, with few exceptions, are women; men are relegated to those particularly "male" jobs like sportscasting and disk jockeying.  Similarly, in the daily newspapers, women are commonly reporters while men are photographers and sports writers.[49]

            Part of the reason for women's success in the professions is that they function well in occupations which are structurally hierarchical:  the civil service, banking and finance,  law, education.  The hours of work they demand are rigid and offer little flexibility; they require regular attendance for most of the year; and they necessitate relatively high levels of literacy — they require, as one respondent put it, the use of "the mind".  And in The Bahamas, these qualities are more firmly associated with women than with men.  Logic, for instance, is considered by young people to be a female trait:

 

Last term I taught a fifth-form class ... which consisted of thirteen girls and two boys.  [When] I asked the class [why girls predominated] the most interesting observation came from a young woman who declared that boys simply are not logical creatures; unlike girls, their actions are based on feeling rather than on sense.  It was interesting not only because it was an obvious reversal of the ... myth that men are logical and women emotional, but also because the whole class, with the exception of... one boy ... agreed with her.  Even more interesting was the fact that their agreement came not out of a long pondering of the idea, but spontaneously, as if she had put her finger on a truth they had always known but never articulated.                  (N.Bethel, 1992:11)

 

This was not an isolated case.  Interviews with young people revealed similar opinions.  One boy drew attention to "how females use their mental stability" to keep families together, and a girl claimed "it's the mind ... of the woman" that makes the difference in male and female achievements.

            The strength of females in Bahamian society cannot be viewed as the result of either liberal legislation or effective political representation on women's behalf.  Paradoxically, the legal position of women in the Bahamas is one of the weakest in the Caribbean region.[50]  Even today, intestacy means the oldest male relative inherits property.[51]  Until 1991, neither marital rape nor incest was considered a criminal offence.[52]  There was, until 1988, no uniform legislation on the duties of employers towards female employees, despite copious amounts of labour law.  And in matters of immigration, while a foreign wife has the right to be considered for citizenship, and is generally allowed to work, a foreign husband must apply for citizenship like any immigrant, taking his chances with obtaining a work permit.  The legitimate offspring of a Bahamian father is Bahamian; however, a Bahamian woman's legitimate child automatically assumes the nationality of its father, and at eighteen becomes eligible for Bahamian citizenship.  Paradoxically, only in cases of illegitimacy do the children of Bahamian mothers and non-Bahamian fathers automatically become Bahamian citizens (M.Bethel, n.d.).

            In terms of active political representation for women, the Bahamian example is equally weak.  In every organization from the churches to the trade unions to the political parties, females are under-represented in the leadership.[53]  In government, the involvement of females is minimal.  Bahamian women were not accorded the right to vote until 1960.  Although one woman — a veteran of the struggle for black majority government — was appointed to the Senate after 1973 and given a ministerial post, the position was largely honourary and she was removed some years later.  A woman was not elected to Parliament until 1982, and female representation in government remains slim. In the 1992 general election, when four women (of the forty-nine Members of Parliament) gained seats, the victory was hailed by feminists as a progressive step.  In its political and legal structure at least, Bahamian society is highly patriarchal.

            This is not to say that women have no power[54] in The Bahamas.  Mothers are the stable centres and, often, the heads, of their homes.  Women control education; they predominate in the public service and are increasingly involved in law and the media; they occupy many top positions in banking.  Such is the prominence of women in The Bahamas today that middle-class high-school students show no surprise at the idea that a woman can do anything she wants.  For them it is men, not women, who are limited.  As a teacher I was told more than once, by boys, that they refused to study harder because girls would out-perform them whatever they did.  And when, as part of my MPhil fieldwork, I asked eleventh-grade students to draw family trees, a young man explained the traditional anthropological symbol for a man, a triangle, thus:  "a man, he could only do three things".[55]  For him, the female symbol was quite naturally a circle because "a woman is whole, she could do many things".

Education

            In 1986, Miller pointed to the proliferation of Jamaican women in schools, predicting that if it continued, Jamaican men would be at a disadvantage.  By 1991 the trend was established.  By 1988, 58.5% of high school students were female; in the 1986/7 academic year, 55.3% of University of the West Indies students were women.[56]

            Similarly comprehensive statistics are not available for The Bahamas.  However, it is safe to say that a comparable trend exists.  As in Jamaica, the majority of Bahamian teachers are women (see p.15 above), and girls are both numerically and academically stronger in secondary schools than boys.[57]  Boys are more likely than girls to drop out of school after the legal leaving age of fourteen (Stuart, 1989); they are less qualified for admission to schools requiring a minimum academic achievement to enter Grade 10.[58]  Later the gap becomes more marked.  At the College of The Bahamas, 30% of the students are male (Appendix 4); more women are enrolled in every faculty except technology.

            Appendix 5 looks at the performance of high school students in the light of several factors.  Although the sample is small (a class of 29 — Table 1), it is representative of the entire  form — roughly 100 students.  The school is a private church high school, in the middle of the fee-paying range.  Moderately high prestige is conferred on the families of the students who attend, and the student body is made up primarily of children from middle-class backgrounds.  A small majority of the teachers are female (Appendix 2).[59]  The class in question was the top stream of Grade 11, the uppermost form.  The top three students also held the first places in the year; only the boy was not in the upper tenth of the whole form.[60]  The class is unrepresentative of average Grade 11 top streams because the number of boys in it is almost equal to the number of girls (Table 2); but when the students' overall performances are compared in terms of their class positions, it becomes clear that girls do far better (Table 3).[61]

 

Family backgrounds

            Fourteen of the students came from homes where their parents were married (Table 4), while the other fifteen lived in single-parent households.  Of the latter, seven were the result of divorce; seven were households headed by a mother who had never married the student's father.  Only one child resided with her widowed father.  This in itself was unusual.  Often such children are looked after by their mother's relatives, even if they are nominally resident with their fathers, unless their father remarries.[62]

            One might guess that those students whose parents were married were more likely to do well than those whose homes were headed by single parents.  However, this was not the case.  Of the top ten students, six came from "nuclear" families, while the other four had been raised in single-parent homes (Table 5).[63]  In the middle strata, three students had married parents, while the remaining six lived with one parent only; and of the ten students at the bottom of the class, half had parents who were married to each other.  Of these, four are male.  Moreover, of the boys whose parents were married, none were in the top third of the class.

            Both students whose parents were married but whose fathers were absent or shared (one father worked on another island, and the other supported a second family) were in the top third of the class, despite predictions to the contrary.  Once more, both were female.

            A significant number of the single-parent homes were the result of divorce.  This suggests that though middle-class Bahamians favour marriage, such unions are likely to break up while children are minors.  Of the students whose parents were divorced, only one a girl.  She was in the top ten; most of her male counterparts were spread through the middle and bottom of the sample.

            Of those whose parents were never married, two students, both girls, were in the top ten.  Two fell in the middle range (girls again), and three in the bottom.  Of these last, two were male.

            What emerges is that coming from a single-parent home is not necessarily an academic handicap in The Bahamas.[64]  Two other factors seem relevant.  First, children from homes which have never included their father are more likely to succeed in school than children whose parents are divorced.  And second, boys from single-parent homes are less likely to do well than girls from similar backgrounds.  One might conclude, then, that parents who are married and parents who are single produce children who are equally likely to do well, or poorly, in school, though boys appear more likely to be adversely affected by their fathers' absences or their parents' divorces.  Marriage, however, is no guarantee that one's son will do well in school; if one is a boy, one seems less likely to excel academically whatever background one comes from. 

 

Case studies

            Interesting contrasts may be drawn by looking at those students whose siblings attend the same school.  Not surprisingly, girls generally do well, particularly if they are the eldest children; their brothers tend to coast through high school, often on the verge of failing.  Arlette (Number 1) had a brother who came so close to failing Grade 7 that he was threatened with being kept back; the brother of Cheryl (Number 3) did fail and had to repeat.  Conversely, David (Number 12 - 28th in the class) and Geoff (Number 5 - 29th) both had sisters whose school records were commendable.

            The poor performance of the boys in this class is not a mere matter of the different abilities of the sexes; often very bright boys choose not to excel.  Geoff's low standing, for instance, was due to the fact that for large portions of the academic year he turned in no work at all.  His reasoning was that he hated being singled out as being bright, as he felt that it placed him above his (male) peers.  Similarly, Terry (Number 16 - 23rd), while willing to participate orally in class, systematically avoided written work.  Peter (Number 19 - 20th) had originally maintained a place firmly in the middle range of the group.  That meant, however, that he was consistently doing better in school than his best friend, Ray, who was 27th.  By the end of his last year, he had slid to his place at the top of the bottom third of the class.  Although he could give no reason for his poor performance other than that he found the work harder, his teachers observed that he was spending much more time with his friends than before, and less on his studies.  For him, guarding the equal standing he shared with Ray was more important than maintaining his school average. 

            This seems indicate that, for boys, self-worth is derived from one's ability to fit in with one's peers, and not necessarily from performing well in school.  Girls, on the other hand, appeared to find self-worth in academic excellence.  This is reflected in their ability to overcome extraordinary obstacles.  The cases of Denise (Number 26) and Ray (Number 27) illustrate the contrasting reactions of boys and girls to similar environments.  Both had parents whose divorces occurred while they were in high school — Ray in Grades 8 and 9, and Denise in Grades 10 and 11.  Both were placed by their parents in the middle of messy separations, and subjected to considerable emotional turmoil at crucial junctures in their schooling; Grades 9 and 11 are important examination grades.  Denise reacted by working as hard as possible, moving in the space of a year from a place in the middle of the class to fourth.  Ray, on the other hand, concentrated only fitfully on academics, spending time with his friends and girlfriend, involving himself in competitive sports, but rarely excelling at any one thing.

            Lynette (Number 14) provides another case in point.  At fourteen, she was the youngest person in the class and the eldest daughter of a single mother.  She and her sister had the same father, but their parents had never married one another; their father, who lived and worked on another island, had several children by different women.  When he was in town he might give his daughters money and allow them to visit him and his current girlfriend.  Lynette's mother wanted to give her daughters a private education but found it difficult to afford; the girls were often absent from school until the fees were paid.  In addition, Lynette disliked the man to whom her mother had recently become engaged, and often moved (or was moved) from home to home, sometimes staying with her grandmother or an "aunt".[65]

            Despite everything, Lynette managed to maintain a high average in school, never placing lower than twelfth in the class — and only then because she had missed more than half a term.  As of Grade 10, she was awarded a scholarship, and her year-round attendance at school was assured.  She entered the top tenth of the year, and there she remained, never moving more than one or two positions at the most. 

            The dual system observed here — peer recognition for boys, individual excellence for girls — recalls Wilson's (1969) theory of a dual value system for the sexes in the Caribbean.[66]  Studies of the region, he argues, draw a distinction between the values that men hold and those espoused by women.  For men, reputation is important, for women, respectability (1969:74).[67]

            If one applies Wilson's theory to modern Bahamian academic trends one finds a model with which to approach the divergence of male and female performances.  He mentions, for instance, men's tendency to form peer groups while women involve themselves in networks of kin (1969:80-81).  Beginning at about Grade 9, boys organize themselves into groups[68] whose chief pastimes are playing basketball, hanging around the cafeteria or lining the walkways "chatting up" girls.[69]  At about the same time, boys who previously involved themselves in extra- curricular activities begin rejecting them for the greater pleasure of associating with the gang.[70]

            Wilson points out that a large part of reputation depends upon one's proficiency "in undermining, disobeying or circumventing the legal system" (1969:81).  If "academic" is substituted for Wilson's "legal", we have a fair picture of the behaviour of teenage Bahamian schoolboys.  Upper-form boys, unlike girls, commonly react negatively to various symbols of authority.  Terry (