BVI women not uplifting each other — Penn-Lettsome
Chairwoman of the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), Lisa Penn-Lettsome, has suggested that Caribbean and BVI women in particular, need to do more in their efforts at uplifting each other.
“West Indian women, BVI women are our worst enemies,” Penn-Lettsome said on the Real Talk show recently.
In explaining her position, the CRC Chair added: “I think that if you’re saying the women have the equality in the home and it’s not transposing to the society, what I find is when women are in power, they don’t pull up young women. They don’t reach down to young women and mentor them.”
Political groups don’t want to see women as party leaders
The discussion at the time surrounded the reason why women were not contesting elected office in greater numbers and host Karia Christopher suggested that women were not being encouraged enough to do so.
“I don’t think that women are encouraged enough. I think that the heads of the parties — I say it, I don’t care if it’s something that’s on a headline — don’t want to see a woman as a president of a particular of any party. So that if they’re the president, more than likely they’ll be the Premier or whatever,” Christopher said.
But Penn-Lettsome suggested that women generally tend to be unsupportive when faced with female counterparts who are poised for success.
“Instead of women inspiring a successful colleague who’s also female, they sort of relish in your downfall or your disappointments,” she argued. “It would help if we ourselves would push our sisters, and I don’t feel that we do that.”
In the meantime, former legislator Ronnie Skelton said he felt women tend to get things accomplished faster than men do. “In my experience, if I want something done, I will look for a female to do it for me. I get it done faster,” Skelton said.
Skelton further pointed out that there is a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association as well as a number of lectures and seminars dedicated to encouraging women’s involvement in politics.
Copyright 2024 BVI News, Media Expressions Limited. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.
Mental engineering.. It took them, the Europeans, four to five centuries to accomplish such a feat. Let’s see if we can reverse it in less. It can be done.
First though, we must acknowledge the malady and proceed to eradicate it.
Paying utterance to the words UNITE, LOVE AND CARE are not enough. We must begin living them from within.
I would venture to say that too many black folks in these neck of the woods do not support each other period. Does not matter the sex.
No matter who it is or what the circumstances are, there are always those who will try to tear others down who are trying to achieve something at every opportunity. Crab in the barrel syndrome.
As per women, many fail to maximize their collective power by working together to achieve a larger goal. Rather they become very good at working against each other and that’s a crying shame.
If women want more power and respect in these neck of the woods, they need to organize themselves, know their individual and collective worth, establish common goals and go about working together to achieve them.
A lot of people always say that we should try having a woman as our leader. It’s obvious that the people that say that have never worked closely with women especially in large office environments. It’s never the men fighting or causing drama. The women argue and bicker amongst each other. They have the crab in the barrel mentality, they stab each other in the back and gossip. They bring outside drama into the workplace. They are the biggest micromanagers.
We all know that BVI people hate each other and use any excuse to be a hater. Women, men, neighbors, teammates, classmates, schoolmates, colleagues, lovers, whatever it is. It is what we do.
BS. We need less testosterone in leadership and more empathy and reasoned, thoughtful, bringing-everyone-together leadership. LP-L is a star!