Gender and Celebration
The discussion of Caribbean celebrations cannot be wholly understood without the study of gender and its various forms of expression throughout the society. It is true gender in itself is as closely interwoven into the Caribbean experience as much as any other aspect, and as such there are a variety of ways it has shaped the society we live in and by extension the festivals we celebrate. Stuart Hall states that there is a significant difference between “what we are” and since the intervention of history and “what we have become” (Hall 1990, 225). Peter Wilson can provide further insight stating Caribbean societies have a dual orientation that stems from its colonial history and which continues in their present day because of it (Harrison and Wilson 1976, 113). This is in fact true, it can be seen through study of pre-colonial Nigerian society that the gender roles and the very concept of gender employed was different with the role of women having much more agency than she was allowed under colonialism (Nnamakae and Chima 2011, 5-13). Similarly gender roles among Indians were also dissimilar, with their own understanding of gender and gender roles having a more androgynous flair (Banerjee 2003, 168). It would be remiss to not note that the indigenous people of the Americas and the Caribbean also had their own versions of gender and gender roles as well (McGeough 2017, 35) . It is therefore plain to see the version of gender and gender roles we as a Caribbean have accepted is in fact alien to our own and as such these play into the way we celebrate. Therefore, this essay will explain how colonial concepts of gender play into Caribbean celebration.
Firstly, we must look at the female experience. Bakhtin explains that festivals are celebrated by the lower class who use it to escape the officiality of everyday life and their existence (Bakhtin 2002, 84). With this we can gather how festival celebrations come to be, however looking through gendered lens we can provide further analysis. As mentioned before, African society deemed gender roles as complimentary, wherein men and women worked in tandem, each serving as a cheque and balance with the other. As opposed to the competitive roles ascribed to them by the colonial society who viewed men as worthy of maintaining the power over women. As such the female body was heavily regulated both through society and governance. In Trinidad, this manifested itself in the jamette (poor black working class women in 19th century Trinidad), wherein the female members of the poor class in acts of rebellion sang as chantuelles, a complimentary role to the male stickfighters, singing vulgar songs about the men, dancing sometimes partially nude.
Herein brings another concept of colonialism which is respectability. Peter Wilson describes respectability as the ability to mimic the white gentleman and lady (Harrison and Wilson 1976, 113). By dancing and gyrating, singing these vulgar songs and fighting they were viewed as outcasts and not respectable women. Indian women also suffered under colonialism, forced to work just as hard for less pay. These women were forced into economic dependency to their male counterparts. Furthermore, the emasculation Indian men endured under the boot of the white gentleman incited violence against women and the colonial government went out of its way to portray Indian women as lecherous whores whom they needed to regulate in order to find themselves as respectable wives , possibly due to anti-indentureship sentiment in India (Wahab 2008, 7) . This struggle of women, with the addition of an extremely patriarchal government that sought to rip them of their agency led to the creation of several masquerades that critiqued their societal and governmental view. After all, folk carnival provides a vast manifold literature of parody (Bakhtin 2002, 83). One of which is the baby doll
Noel, Samantha A., "De Jamette in We: Redefining Performance in Contemporary Trinidad Carnival." Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, (pp65)
as illustrated in this image. There is a woman in baby clothes admonishing a priest, this masquerade sought to comment on the lack of socioeconomic agency women had as well as the middle-class fathers that refused to provide for their children and elite men who governed their body. It was performed by berating any nearby man for not supporting her children. This notion of respectability is a running theme throughout the Caribbean. Jacqui Alexander explains how the middle class after decolonisation attempted to fill the gap left by the gentleman and the lady with their own, explaining that it could be construed as a proof to their former masters that they could rule themselves. This new middle class desired the woman to fulfil the role of a housewife and reproduce to create new citizens (Alexander 1994, 11-14). However only a particular form of femininity would be acceptable, and those dancing in festivals were not. The authorities continued to attempt to control the masses during Carnival with the annual publishing of a “List of Don’ts.” Which included rules such as don’t dress in an immodest or scanty costume, don’t dance in a vulgar way, don’t sing any immoral or suggestive songs. Rules that clearly were extended to women to practice the female colonial constructs of self-restraint and self-containment (Noel 2010, 71). It was this constant regulation of body that led to the consciousness that the body itself is a masquerade and thus the celebration changed again (Noel 2010, 70). Two pieces became more popular and now presently the feathered backpack is the tantamount masquerade in festivals throughout the Caribbean. It is a celebration as to the distance and difficulties women throughout the Caribbean had to experience in terms of rejecting respectability to achieve this level of bodily autonomy.
However, this is not without its issues. There is something to be said about the commodification of female bodies for tourism, particularly in a society that had not and still does not respect the rejection of respectability throughout the regularity of the year. Bascomb makes an interesting point on the way Barbados tourism used Rihanna to promote Barbados as a sexy fun place with alluring people, playing into the international perception they held of her. She further explains that Rihanna’s brown skin and green eyes play into the allure of the exotic ‘Island Gyal’ however this is not indicative of Barbados or even the wider Caribbean and portraying her and other women that look like her as the standard is a harmful practice (Bascomb 2020, 188-190)
Fenty, Robyn. Rihanna at Cropover. BBC, 8 Aug 2017, bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-40860595
This is symptomatic of pretty mas where those in charge are actively trying to shape Caribbean festivals into the image the world perceives the Caribbean to be. This is done by banning and restricting certain bands and masquerades that can destroy this perception such as Mr Harding, an effigy said to represent the planter or overseer burned at the end of Cropover unless the labourers had cordial relations with the planter/overseer. (Burrows 2013, 45). And replacing them with beautified versions such as bikini wearing moccojumbies.
Alexander explains that colonial masculinity is an injured masculinity and as such, attempted to regain some power by exacting it over women. This is exemplified by the removal of the chantuelles by African descended and middle class coloured men (jacket men) in Trinidad who while actively involved with the jametre class (poor black working-class people of 19th century Trinidad) as sexual partners of the jamettes, perpetuated the colonial ideal of gender roles, forcing women away from the public sphere. The men that formerly practiced stickfighting now found themselves singing something that would evolve into calypso and soca a music genre vastly important to the Carnival experience of the entire Caribbean (Noel 2010, 66). Lewis explains that calypso artists tried to portray their masculinity by degrading women through song, especially for having a sexual appetite. He also surmises that afro-calypso performers often construct sexual scenarios about their own sexuality and prowess. They focus on a hypersexual bravado in which love making is seen as a bout to be won, this boasting is not only to attract women but to rival and triumph other men. In this we can see that masculinity depends on the verification of other men to determine their standing. Indian men on the other hand perform chutney which is a crucial aspect of festivals in Guyana and Trinidad, while still sexual in nature Indian men perform masculinity through prowess in drinking. Being able to drink a lot of hard liquor made one more manly (Lewis 2014, 20). These two diverse forms of masculinity can be seen in Village Ram by The Mighty Sparrow and Barman by Rikki Jai. It would be irresponsible not to acknowledge that female calypsonians such as Calypso Rose and Alison Hinds have reclaimed this genre much in the same way as of the bikini jamettes.
There is also the role men play in masquerade. The usage of masks in masquerade provides not only protection from the people they were mocking (the planter class) but also the ability to fully embody the masquerade as well as provide a certain level of androgyny. It was widely accepted that masquerades were only worn by men but as Burrows points out, the recordings of these practices were Eurocentric in nature and as such was subject to bias, dismissal and omission (Burrows 2013, 40). It must also be noted that it is possible that some men forced women out of masquerade as well. However, it was interesting what certain men masqueraded as, bringing to light alternative perceptions of gender. Two masquerades of interest in Cropover were the Bank Holiday Bear and the Gotch, both played by men dressed as women with exaggerated behinds that danced ‘provocatively’ (Burrows 2013, 43). Even tuk bands incorporated crossdressing into their routine as shown in the image below. Crossdressing was outside the realm of colonial gender norms however. While it is true that this crossdressing is done to poke fun at a particular phenomenon, the idea to crossdress if one would apply some conjecture would imply that doing so is not a practice alien to the community in pre-colonial times. This can be confounded by the fact that Mother Sally, another masquerade played by a man cannot be found played by men today, something one could liken to the success of the middle class ‘social reform’ in the 1970s on heteronormativity (Alexander 1994, 11-15) as wearing a dress even in jest can be construed as gay.
Burrows, Marcia, "Losing Our Masks: Traditional Masquerades and Changing Constructs of Barbadian Identity." International Journal of Intangible Heritage, (pp45)
Nowhere is this heteronormative notion challenged more in festival than in Burlesque of Martinique and Guadeloupe. Burlesque in itself is a challenge of the heteronormative nuclear family that the French tried to impose on their African slaves, particularly in the form of marriage which they conflated with civilisation. Traditional African societies and societies formed under slavery did not maintain the European ‘nuclear family’ as a standard and as such Martinique and Guadeloupe invented this festival to mock marriage and its gender roles (Hammond 2020). Crossdressing is prominent upon the run up to lent wherein individuals would dress up (male-to-female) as well as some (female-to-male) as seen in the image below.
Hammond, Charlotte, "The Mariage Burlesque of the Plastic System Band Carnival Group in Lamentin, Martinique." theconversation.com, Oct 2020, https://theconversation.com/le-mariage-burlesque-carnival-cross-dressing-in-the-french-caribbean-111560
In conclusion, it is plain to see that gender does affect the way we in the Caribbean celebrate, from the masquerades both men and women wear, such as the feathered backpack, baby doll, Gotch and the Bank Holiday Bear. To the music which accompanies these festivals such as calypso and soca as well as to the festivals itself exemplified in Burlesque.
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