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The December issue will be the last issue I shall edit. Please send submissions by October 31, 2004 to komolara@yahoo.com . Material should not be more than 1,500 words and may range from articles to stories, forwards, jokes and poems. Send write-ups by email in Microsoft Word format along with two photographs (.jpg format). Editorship of the newsletter has always been on a voluntary basis for three years. Two members are already scheduled to pick up the position after my term. Sandra Melizia will be the editor for 2005-2007 and Evelyn Aremu, for 2008-2010. Their contact details will appear in the next edition. |
Initially
this was an overwhelming experience, suddenly there was more attention
than I had ever gotten in my entire life, but with that came the
constant harassment by male students. In this period I lost some
of my femininity because to be taken seriously I had to become
one of the guys. To be dependent on them would have been seen as
a sign of weakness and confirm the belief that women did not belong
in engineering programmes so I worked very hard, independently
and performed better than the majority of male students in my class.
My final success was gratifying, I graduated second in my class
but narrowly missing the top graduating position was a source of
disappointment. My overall performance was the result of hard work, sheer determination and much sacrifice. In the first two years of the engineering programme, I had difficulties with taught approaches to problem solving, technical terms were unfamiliar, laboratory experiments and procedures were difficult to grasp among other issues but through it all I refused to outwardly acknowledge these difficulties to my lecturers and fellow students. This would have contributed to my persecution by male students and provided male lecturers with confirmation to what I saw in their eyes, that women were not cut out for engineering. In the face of these challenges and feminist pressures I was forced to acknowledge proclamations on the basic differences in male and female capabilities at University level. Research told me that the average woman was superior in finger dexterity and verbal ability while the average male was superior in visual spatial ability and mathematical reasoning. These statistics may explain the general difficulties women in technical programmes experience, but I was not about to accept it in my case, to do this would have meant imminent failure since engineering involved 75 to 80% mathematical reasoning. So what did I do; I told myself“ You have never been average and will never be, you can do anything you want to, just believe in you”. There were more hurdles and difficulties to overcome but I believed in myself, became stronger, more confident in my abilities and fully capable of performing any task set before me. In the end I prevailed and gained the respect and lifelong friendship of most of my persecutors. When, you enter the professional world there are similar barriers to overcome but you tend to find you have the respect of most of your fellow male colleagues. They respect the fact that you have acquired the same qualifications they have but are still hard put at respecting your right to earn the same salary. Today, I sit on the Executive Committee for Guyana’s Professional Engineering Association (GAPE), about to start a new job with a local funding body as a Community Development Project Engineer. As a believer in the words of Gloria Vanderbilt, I can nly hope that in writing this article on my success story it can help another woman’s success. If
you don’t stay around people who inspire you, you will
expire – Archbishop Benson Idahosa |
OVERCOMING
THE AGE-OLD BARRIERS TO GENDER ROLES By Kenisha Garnett kenisha62gy@yahoo.com IFUW, I commend you on providing young women with the opportunity to share experiences, aspirations, hopes and desires with other women throughout the world. When you consider how many women in today’s society remain oppressed and are restricted from freely expressing their thoughts, you have indeed provided a gift in allowing us the freedom to push our ideas and words further than they have been in the past. What has impressed me most in woman’s evolution is our success and continued determination to overcome the age-old barriers to gender roles. Ruth Ross fully captures this evolution in a famous quote that has served as a source of inspiration to me on many occasions. She said, “This is a New Age – The age of prospering women. Every day we are breaking more role barriers, allowing ourselves to think independently about who we are and what success means to us…Prosperity means experiencing balance in life, attaining what we want on mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and financial levels. Prosperity is the natural result of opening our minds to our creative imaginations and being willing to act on our ideas”. It is with an independent nature acquired from a very early age, resilience and a strong sense of determination that I add myself to the long list of women who have acquired degrees and are pursuing leading careers in the male dominated engineering field. At the age of 22, I obtained a degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Guyana. After working with a private consultancy on several geotechnical and environmental projects I was employed on a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Climate Change Project in Guyana.
This area is critical to the development of Guyana but unfortunately a paucity of women with advanced training exist in Guyana and the wider Caribbean to function as policy makers or managers in this area. It’s my greatest wish to be among the few women who will serve as a source of inspiration to other enterprising young women and advocate for policies that will positively affect the lives of many disadvantaged women and children that lack access to the supply of clean water and proper sanitation. It is not an easy task for women to enter the male dominated world and assert their inherent right to be there as well as demand equal treatment and opportunities as their male counterparts. But it can be done, one just has to be focused and determined to meet their goal at all cost.
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Yoruba women, being so industrious, have always placed their children on their backs so they could have their hands free to perform their daily multiple tasks. This age of strollers and baby-kangaroo-attachment things has decreased the interest of new mothers in one of the most simple, yet great inventions of our time, the baby back. In the Yoruba, or Yooba tongue, it is simply gb’omopon. Strollers have
their cumbersome demerit and the baby attachments put too much
strain on the spinal cord leading to back ache. However baby back,
in addition to distributing baby’s weight symmetrically over
mother’s body, gives the intimate advantage of skin to skin,
allowing baby to feel mother’s heartbeat and be secure. Simply get a wrapper and a sash long enough for you and baby, put baby on your back, arms and legs apart (preferably), wrap the wrapper around you, leaving baby’s head unwrapped, put one edge of the wrapper under your arm and the other under the wrapper fold. Wrap sash over baby and you (over baby’s bottom, on top of wrapper), and tie sash firmly over your waist. And it’s all done. I have seen some modern inventions utilizing the principle of baby back. That works too. It was October 1997 in Edinburgh, Scotland while I attended a Commonwealth meeting. I saw a middle-aged Caucasian man doing baby back. Oh, I was thrilled! I walked up to him and affirmed him. With a bright smile I said “I’d like to see more of that.” He returned my smile and we both went our way. That desire is still strong in me. I’d like to see more women and men, baby back. “Never complain about what you permit” – Mike Murdock
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Two men met recently
and struck up a conversation. One was telling the other about some
problems he was having with one of his kids. After a while the
other guy said, "You think you have family problems? A few years ago
I met a young widow with a grown-up daughter and we got married.
Later, my father married my stepdaughter. That made my stepdaughter
my stepmother and my father became my stepson. This was nothing until my wife and I had a son. Now the sister of my son, my mother-in-law, is also the grandmother. This makes my father the brother-in-law of my child, whose stepsister is my father's wife. I am my stepmother's brother-in-law, my wife is her own child's aunt, my son is my father's nephew and I am my own grandfather. Sheesh! You think you have family problems." You
can’t receive anything with a clenched hand. – Frederick
K. C. Price D.D. Selected
Elizabeth Cady Stanton Quotations
You
ask me why I do not write something.... I think one's feelings
waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled
into actions and into actions which bring results – Florence
Nightingale |
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A mother enters her daughter's bedroom and sees a letter over the bed. With the worst premonition, she reads it, with trembling hands: “It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm telling you that I eloped with my new boyfriend. I found real passion and he is so nice, with all his piercings and tattoos, and his big motorcycle. But it's not only that mom, I'm pregnant and Ahmed said that we will be very happy in his trailer in the woods. He wants to have many more children with me and that's one of my dreams. I've learned that marijuana doesn't hurt anyone and we'll be growing it for us and his friends, who are providing us with all the cocaine and ecstasies we may want. In the meantime, we'll pray for the science to find the AIDS cure, or Ahmed to get better, he deserves it. Don't worry Mom, I'm 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself. Some day I'll visit for you to know your grandchildren. ” Your daughter, Judith PS: Mom, it's
not true. I'm at the neighbour's house. Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. – Helen Keller
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A
National Friendship Week Forward.
One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his books. I thought to myself, "Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd." I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on. As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes. My heart went
out to him. So I jogged over to him and as he crawled around
looking for his glasses, I saw a tear in his eye. As I handed
him his glasses, I said, "Those guys are jerks. They really
should get lives." He looked at me and said, "Hey thanks!" There
was a big smile on his face. I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before. He said he had gone to private school before now. I would have
never hung out with a private school kid Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said, " Boy, you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!" He just laughed and handed me half the books. Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends. When we were seniors, we began to think about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown, and I was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business on a football scholarship. Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for graduation. I was so glad it wasn't me having to get up there and speak. Graduation day, I saw Kyle. He looked great. He was one of those guys that really found himself during high school. He filled out and actually looked good in glasses. He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him. Boy, sometimes I was jealous. Today was one of those days. I could see that he was nervous about his speech. So, I smacked him on the back and said, "Hey, big guy, you'll be great!" He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled. "Thanks," he said. As he started
his speech, he cleared his throat, and
began. "Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make
it through those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your siblings,
maybe a coach... but mostly your friends. I am here to tell all of
you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them.
I am going to tell you a story." He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile. " Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable." I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment. I saw his Mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile. Not until that moment did I realize its depth. Never underestimate the power of your actions. With one small gesture you can change a person's life for better or for worse. God puts us all in each other's lives to impact one another in some way. Look for God in others.
"Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly." |
Bridget “Biddy” Mason 1818-1891, Timeline August 15, 1818: Born a slave in Hancock County, Georgia (which later became part of Mississippi). 1847: Begins the seven-month-long trek to Salt Lake City. She travels thousands of miles on foot behind the wagons of her master, Robert Smith, caring for the party’s livestock and her three young daughters. 1851: Arrives in Southern California with Smith and other Mormons who establish San Bernardino. January 21, 1856: Wins her freedom after suing Smith, her owner, in court. 1856: Mason’s oldest daughter, Sarah, marries Chares Owens, son of Robert Owens. Their descendants are among the most influential members of the African American community in Los Angeles in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. November 28, 1866: Having scrimped and saved for a decade, she accumulates $250 and buys her first piece of property on spring Street in Los Angeles. 1872: Founds the First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in her home. 1875: Sells a parcel of her Spring Street property for $1500 and reaps a substantial profit, which she uses to support community and philanthropic activities. 1884: Sells second parcel of land for $2800. Throughout the 1880s she comes to the aid of Black and White victims of the Los Angeles floods, paying to feed and clothe many of the victims. January15, 1891: Dies in Los Angeles. Her Los Angeles Times obituary salutes her life of good works and concludes, “We are sure she has been welcomed into a better land with the plaudit ‘well done’!”
References:
Anyone that follows after righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness and honour – Proverbs 21:21.
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My
experience has been a harrowing one but I would not change it
for the world. It has made me a stronger person, confident in
my abilities, less self conscious about my sex and no longer
a sufferer of role conflict.
• We hold
these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women
are created equal. 
