Final Project Assignment

One of the most interesting contradictions in Reggae is the role of women. For a liberation movement that wants to set people free, it is interesting that there is oppression inside of it against women. Many elements contribute to this, such as the role of women in the Old Testament, and the role of women that suffered through slavery, and of course the role of women in Jamaican society. However, times are rapidly changing, and women are more and more becoming a central part of Rasta movements. They are becoming more outspoken in reggae music, and they are establishing their own cultural norms for liberation. For my final paper, I will be exploring these roles as an extension to my Mid Term, and will be tying them to the more current roles women have in Reggae. Jamaica has the same kinds of patriarchal norms that came from Europe, and that we also have here in the USA. Historically, the idea that men are the primary decision makers, that they have more skills and abilities in areas like business and government, contrasts with the roles that women are socially and culturally supposed to be nurturing, motherly, do the housekeeping, etc. It has been a difficult struggle in American society to overcome these habits, and in Jamaica it seems to have been even more difficult. Perhaps since Rastas follow the Bible, (especially the Old Testament) they are more likely to refer to the Bible for guidance as to how women should be treated. For example, Colossians 3-18 & 19 says, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband, as it is fit in the lord, husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them.” Notice that the role of wives is to submit, but the role of the husband is to love the wife. That establishes a fairly one-sided relationship. The unfortunate reality of slavery is also an important historical factor. Reggae music has traditionally been used as a way to speak against such serious issues as slavery, colonialism/neo-colonialism, repression, and poverty. Women were looked at as merely just means of production because they produced more slave workers. They were seen as a source of wealth, as well as easy sexual satisfaction without consequences for slave owners and masters. These women did not willingly cooperate, and most resisted passively, yet many resisted actively. They tried not to become pregnant, and not to have children in slavery. Sadly, they faced the probability of seeing their children sold away from them at any given time. Yet women under slavery knew they had some power…the power NOT to produce children for the slavery system. One of the reasons that the slave system had to keep bringing more slaves from Africa is because of this resistance by women. Women learned and remembered this resistance. With the end of slavery things were still very anti-women, as the colonial government kept policies designed to control women. Jamaican historian Joan French said, “Here are the legislative goals for social policies in Jamaica concerning women…. 1. They should marry a man to mind them, that way one wage could stretch to two or more and jobs would not have to be found for women. 2. Stay at home and service more workers for the big men to exploit at no cost to them. 3. Accepted men should get their first choice of paid work and women should be dependent. 4. Work for little or nothing to make profits for the big men. Work for women is a privilege not a right, yet women were forced to work because their man’s wages were generally too small to stretch. Thus, in the competition for wages men began to see women more and more as a threat to their jobs. Many joined the big men in fighting against women’s rights in the workplace.” So the result of colonial policy was to keep women in their place and to pit men against women. This was done in the interests of economics. Once slavery ended the population of former slaves began to increase, thus there was too much labor and women needed to be disempowered. This set the historical stage for women to be thought of as secondary citizens who should submit to men, which in turn, carries over into Rastafarianism There are some commandments that come from a Rasta document called JAHUG, (as crazy as they are) from the Theocratic Order of Rastafari. 1. Thou shalt not take more than one woman or daughter into yourself. Anyone who have two is full of lust. 2. Any woman or daughter who has a man and is found lying in the bed of another brethren are guilty of death. Our father Rastafari has one blessed Queen Omega. 3. Brethren must not downgress or brutalize their woman. Do not cause her embarrassment in the congregation. 4. She must not enter the congregation unless her dress cover her knees. The daughter or woman who show her knees or legs in the congregation must be put out of the audience of brethren because she is selling flesh for popularity and contributes to the society of lust. 5. Thou shalt not lie in bed with a put-away daughter or woman (abandoned by her husband, or a woman who has abandoned her husband). It is wrong for a daughter to leave one brethren and then to live with another in bed as wife and husband. 6. A daughter and her king man who cannot live in peace should bring their differences into the upper room of brethren in the theocratic temple. There the brethren hear the confusion and if there is no compassion granted to the accused they should live apart as widow and widower until Selassie I calleth us home. 7. Brethren should not infiltrate ulterior motives into the minds of daughters. The women and the daughter should not appear romantic in the presence of the almighty but should be like unto Queen Omega. 8. Daughters should not eat their holy chalice in the congregation. Notice the double standards here. Wives must submit. This of course, is not acceptable to most women. If they are fighting against oppression of one sort, they may also oppose other oppressions against them. In the last 30 years a number of progressive Rastafarian women have called for a different approach. One of these women is Farika Birhan who had started the Queen Omega movement. (For those not aware of this movement, it stems from the fact that Haile Selassie and his wife, Empress Menin, are both sovereigns of Ethiopia. He is King Alpha and she is Queen Omega. Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, so he is the beginning and she is the end and there is believed to be a divine continuum in between.) The Queen Omega movement has tried to bring back the dignity of Rastafari woman through a depiction of the role of Queen Omega, and try to project that onto modern Rasta women. Farika Birhan writes: ‘Who is the Rastafari woman? What is she all about? Is there such a person as the Rastafari woman? If she does live where is she? How is it that so little is known about her? Is it because she has no counterpart in Rastafari culture? Is the Rastafari woman therefore nothing but a second hand version of the Rastafari king man? One must realize that on the same day Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia Menin, his queen, was crowned empress of Ethiopia in a separate ceremony after his coronation and received also the homage from the 72 nations of the world. Just as his imperial majesty’s coronation symbolized the black man coming into his kingship, her coronation symbolized the black woman coming into her queenship. The psychological effect upon the black woman on having an African woman ruling in regal splendor and being paid homage has never been stressed by so-called writers on Rastafari culture. It must never be overlooked by those of us searching for the woman’s role in Rastafari culture.” Thus, an effort is being made symbolically to redeem the image of the African woman and the Rastafari woman as not just someone who is subordinate, but as someone who reigns in equality with Rastafari king man. Reggae is a weapon of revolution because of the power of art, but also because of the power of communication technology. Reggae cannot be banned, censored or repressed because duplication is available to everyone. It is clear that reggae is a force for social change. It has been so for a very long time. Bob Marley’s 1979 album Survival connected reggae music to the struggle against racism and imperialism with songs like Wake Up and Live, So Much Trouble, and Babylon System. However, there has been an increasing involvement of women in reggae music. Elena Oumano, writer for Billboard magazine stated: “Reggae music may appear to be a bastion of masculine supremacy, but women are increasingly shaping the genre. "Women really rule on that little island (of Jamaica)," says Olivia "Babsy" Grange, president of Epic-affiliated Specs-Shang Musik, with a laugh. "We just let our men believe they do." From top U.S. label positions to jills of all trades (jobs within the indie grass-roots industry) women are increasingly shaping today's reggae music. And while some cite the presence of a "glass ceiling" limiting their professional opportunities, women are beginning to make inroads in the remaining macho holdouts--the recording studio and the stage.” This does not mean that there is still not a lot of discrimination against women in reggae music. Certainly the kinds of attitudes that exist in Jamaican society and within traditional Rasta carry over into reggae music. One of the things that women have to confront in reggae music is objectification and the characterization of this through a concept called “slackness”. Slackness is where the music tends to focus on an objectification of women’s bodies and the carnal aspects of male-female relationships. It can be very explicit, very specific, and far beyond what we are used to experiencing in modern American pop music. "The female artists who have gotten attention, like Patra and Lady Saw, are the ones who match the men as far as slack lyrics are concerned," says Jamaican-American Pele Lanier, artist manager, promoter, and coordinator of the Jamaican stand at MIDEM. "They've been willing to play the man's game, and that's the way through the door to the dancehall." Some women in the business say that dimension won't mean much, though, if the growing number of female artists aren't allowed to express their own voices--if their only route into the dancehall is mirroring male DJs' portrayal of women as sex objects. It is easy for us (from our context in the USA) to say that slackness music is a problem, to say that objectification of women is wrong, but in the context of Jamaican society, we need to understand it may be different. We can’t judge the things that we see in Jamaican Rasta and Reggae culture based on the standards of our own culture. We need to try and understand what is taking place there before passing judgment. One of the important points is that if you grow up in the ghetto, the portrayal of slackness and the willingness to affiliate with slackness is a little easier to understand. This controversy over slack lyrics is intertwined with reggae's roots and dancehall culture. Reggae has always been the poor man's party, with its creative drive located in the "downtown" Kingston ghetto dancehalls. The lyrics reflect the class struggle between the uptown 'upper class' and the downtown 'lower class. Those lyrics also reflect a mentality shared by some "lower class" women. Many of the women who pack those dancehalls see little hope of achieving real power in their lives. But while they're young, they control the power of their sexuality. So they dance around in skimpy outfits while male DJs chant rhythmic, X-rated praises to their bodies. In that way, at least, even dancehall "ghetto gals," at least as a group, are a force to be reckoned with in the reggae community. In conclusion, the status of women within the reggae industry is growing in more significant ways. Reggae music is an example of rhetoric that calls for change. In examining the role of women in Rastafari and Reggae music, we can see this process at work. It seems clear that in many instances women have had a powerful role in making reggae music more progressive. They are more interested in social change, and are more effective in fighting against oppression. We see the same theme that has developed within Rastafarianism, which if they are to struggle against oppression, men and women need to work together, in equality and in unity, and this theme has been picked up in the reggae music scene. In order to further the struggle there is a need to work together. Works Cited: Reggae Sistas Lecture. Sonia Pottinger Reggae Sisters from Dubwise. Clive Walker pdf. Music and Migration pdf. Rastafari in the Promised Land pdf. Max Weber and the Sociology of Music. Reggae and Dignity Dispora pdf. www.elenaoumao.com Haile Sailasse, book by Farika Birhan. Queen Omega Communications, 1981. The Bible, book. Colossians 3-18 and 19. Rastafari in the New Millennium, A Rastafari Reader by Michael Barnett