ADOLESCENT GIRLS AND TEZ CULTURE OF FEMININITY JEANETTE MORRIS UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES ST. AUGUSTINE Paper presented at the Sixteenth Congress of the Caribbean Studies Association, La Habana, Cuba. May 20-26, 1991.
Introduction. In the Caribbean as in many other Western countries girls and boys are socialized differently both in the home and at school so that for many adolescent girls their sense of identity is inextricably linked to a sense of themselves as gendered individuals, and the acquisition of a feminine identity. This paper looks at adolescent girls attending secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago to see whether the ideological messages transmitted to them in the context of home and school lead them to the acceptance of a culture of femininity based on the sexual division of labour where women's primary responsibility is still seen zs the private sphere whether or not she fills the role of wage earner in the public sphere. The paper also seeks to discover whether the massive expansion of secondary education in Trinidad and Tobago during the 1970's which gave access to secondary education to over 80% of those eligible and which gave both boys and girls relatively equal opportunity to be educated has had any effect on girls' acceptance of the traditional cultural patterns and their resistance to or renegotiation of these patterns.. In Trinidad and Tobago society the concept of femininity rests on two main bases, woman as mother and woman as sexual object. Like other Caribbean islands it has Seen cailed a matriarchal society and the figure of the strong matriarch holding the family together is a familiar one in Caribbean literature. The message that motherhood is woman's primary task is one that is reinforced by the educational system where an examination of education reports and plans show policies designed to produce educated girls who would
become good mothers and wives. As recently as 1968 the Draft Education Plan 1968-1983 advocated separate instruction in prevocational areas for the sexes with the boys receiving instruction in industrial arts and the girls in home economics. This situation still obtains in the majority of junior secondary schools today. The woman who is a mother in this society, married or unmarried, receives a certain amount of respect that a childless woman is denied. There is even a derogatory name for a woman who cannot have children, the term "mule". There is a great deal of pressure on young women, particularly working class girls, without the options of their middle class counterparts, to affirm their feminine identity by bearing a child. Yet the society also encourages and reinforces the image of woman as a sexual object. Male promiscuity is the norm, celebrated in the popular refrain "a deputy is essential" where the man glorifies having extra-marital relationships. It seems however that a double standard operates and this same society rejected the inclusion of marital rape as a sexual offence and showed extreme reluctance to criminalize domestic violence. It is in this social context that the present study was carried out. Procedure. Questionnaires were administered to approximately 150 adolescent girls attending three secondary schools in North Trinidad. One was a single sex seven year denominational school, another was a Government seven year coed~icational school, while the third was a Government Senior secondary, also coeducational, which catered for students in years four and five as well as for the sixth form. The
questionnaire covered three broad areas, family factors, students' school experiences and their career aspirations. In addition a smaller number of students were interviewed. The students were representative of the main ethnic groups of the society and of the various social classes, although because of the social stratification existing within the society each school was largely representative of a particular social class. The sample from the denominational school was 64% middle and 24% upper class, while that from the seven year government had 80% middle and only 15% upper class. In contrast the senior secondary was almost all working class. Classroom observations were also carried out by the researcher herself. Family Factors. Background information was collected on parents' occupation, ethnic origin, number of siblings of either sex etc.in order to determine the sexual division of labour in the home students were asked about the household tasks performed by their fathers, mothers and by themselves. They were also asked about their and their parents' use of leisure time, and whether there was differential treatment of boys and girls by parents. The responses from all thre2 schools regardless of social class or ethnic origin, showed that the traditional sexual division of labour was in force. Mothers performed those tasks related to child care, food preparation, cleaning within the house, laundry etc. Fathers when they did any chores at all performed those related to repairs to the home, to appliances and cars, mowing of lawns, taking out of garbage, taking care of animals etc.
Some of the responses to the question related to the father's tasks were as follows:- - "His job doesn't require steady hocrs and he is always out, if not at work then by a friend." - " doing carpentry work around the house" - l1 nothing" - " taking care of financial problems, doing all the male tasks around the house" - " nothing besides go to work, come home and sleep" Some of the responses concerning mothers' household duties were:- - " takes care of the house, cook, wash, cleans and gets everything necessary" 11 - cooking, washing, cleaning. looking after children" - " keeping the house in order, cook in^, washing" " she is a housewife, she cleans the house, tends to her kids and her husband and family and household duties" In general traditional male/ emale roles predominate in most households. Girls followed their mother's pattern and reported that their own involvement in chores lay within the domestic sphere z assisting their mothers. Many girls see this confinement to the "private" sphere as a constraint and envy males their freedom. This came out very clearly when girls were asked whether their experiences would have been better if they belonged to the opposite sex. Some of the girls1 responses were:- 11 - if I were a boy, 1 would be going out a lot more, playing football, wearing different clothes."
- " Iwill be able to go out freely ; my parents would not be that overprotective". - " Boys have it easier than girls. I think because they experience more things than girls. Girls are just expected to go to school, get educated and get married". - " Boys can do anything and get away with it. As a girl your parents expect you to behave yourself like a lady. They expect more fron a girl". In the family girls are clearly being socialized into sex role behaviour considered appropriate for their future role as wife and homemaker. Consistent with this is the emphasis on proper, ladylike behaviour and control over their activities and movements, all of which is part of the total feminine package. It is not inevitable that girls coming from a traditional home will necessarily internalize the feminine stereotype presented, and an examination of school factors bears this out. School factors. In the seven year schools the curriculum was mainly academic, while in the senior secondary there were also technical and craft areas. I Girls from the Science classes were surveyed in all three schools while girls from a home economics class and girls from woodwork and metalwork classes were interviewed in the senior secondary school. In the woodwork and metalwork classes it was interesting to see that the girls who had made non-traditional choices of subject area were still bound by the feminine stereotype in their classroom behaviour. They deferred to their male counterparts, letting them use equipment first and allowing them to monopolize the teacher's
attention. Another instance of the use of femininity as a classroom strategy was the way in which the girls in the metalwork class sought advice and help from the male students in using the equipment even when this appeared to be unnecessary. It seemed as though they were acting in accordance with a pattern of femininity seen in the home where mothers left fixing things to fathers who were the ones who used tools. By asking for help they were assuming a starice of dependence and physical weakness which they associated with the female role even though they had stepped out of the role by choosing the subject in the first place. The use of "femininity" by the girls in the workshop may be the way the girls cope with the contradictions they face in what is expected of them as females e.g. a certain dependency, and what they are being asked to achieve in an academic context-- success, autonomy, independence. Anyon (1983) describes the dilemma in terms of "accomodation and resistance" and suggests that females "appropriate (use and shape to their own ends) the ideology of femininity... to achieve ends which differ fundamentally from what men ard the rest of society expect (or desire)" (p.23). Career Aspirations. The cirls in the senior secondary school almost all wanted to have some kind of career. Only a minority wanted to be housewives. However most of them wished to combine a job with having a family. Perhaps bearing this in mind, most chose fairly traditional careers for women- teaching, nursing, law, flight attendant, seamstress, cosmetologist, hairdresser and boutique owner. Very few chose nontraditional careers, one wanted to join the military and another
to be a computer programmer. None of these girls chose engineering or any technologically related occupation. They were concerned with having a happy and fulfilled life and this can be seen from their comments when asked what they thought that they would be doing in ten years' time. - "I will be having a family, be living happily with my husband, havi~s a job and everything will be good. " - I will be married with one kid, working to help support the family". The students in the seven year schools had very different career aspirations from their counterparts in the senior secondary school. Perhaps because they were aware of the options open to them by virtue of their class position, and because they were more confident of their academic ability, they chose a wide range of occupations. These included medicine, engineering, pharmacists, research scientists,pilot, dentist etc. However just like the girls in the senior secondary when asked how they saw themselves in ten years' time, they too needed to see themselves as wives and mothers as though only with that could they feel that they had achieved success as a woman. Many commented as follows:- - " abroad, continuing my studies, looking for candidates as a future husband if not already found". - " having a secure job and one or two childrem (married of course, hopefully)". - " becoming a radiologist with a family, i.e. husband and kids". - " just married, reasonably well off,teaching in a secondary school or university, one child or pregnant".
While there are differences between the girls of the upper and middle class in their career aspirations which may be due to their class position and a realistic appraisal of their chances of qualifying and being employed in their chosen field, the similarities of their life ambitions are more striking. Regardless of social class they shared a culture of femininity which transcended the barriers of school type, ethnic origin and socia! class and caused them to aspire to satisfaction not through intellectual achievement and job satisfaction but through the socially acceptable indicators of a husband and children. Many showed a naivete about the ease with which a demanding career could be combined with being a wife and mother particularly those in the sevec year schools, In this respect the choices made by the predominantly working class girls were more realistic since they chose careers which could combine more easily with childrearing, and which could be interrupted and taken up again without too much difficulty. Conclusion. This preliminary exploration of how the culture of femininity to which girls are oriented first in the home and then i?n school affects their aspirations and ultimately determines their life patterns points to the need for change in schools. Both boys and girls but particularly the latter must be encouraged to break out of the constraints of traditional notions of femininity and masculinity which limit their aspirations and therefore their achievements. Yet what the school can do is only piecemeal unloss there is a fundamental change in the norms and values of the wider
society and the acceptance of the need for gender equity as a valid gozl and the will to achieve it through public education programmes for parents, teachers, employers and all other groups and agencies involved in the education of our young people.