The findings of a questionnaire survey distributed to 153 female university students in Barbados and Jamaica in 2008 reveal the attitudes to diverse female sexualities in the Caribbean. The participants in the survey discussed changing beliefs about sexuality in Caribbean society. The findings show that slowly, as a consequence of globalization and the mass media, people are increasingly open-minded about sex. Women are confidently expressing and increasingly asserting themselves as equal partners. There is greater debate in Caribbean society about female same-sex relationships, and deeper awareness of sexual harassment is evident. Nevertheless, for some respondents, the same degrading notions of women as sex objects and promiscuous beings continue to exist.
Looks at Barbados's experience of abortion law reform undertaken in the 1980s. The movement was led by then Cabinet Minister and lawyer Billie Miller. Documents the nuances, important moments, key strategies and major players in the reform movement, and highlights the critical role that Miller played in getting the Medical Termination Act passed in 1983. Background information on the situation of Barbadian women and the nature of parliamentary governance at that time is also addressed in order to give context to the politics surrounding the issue.
Gaspar,David Barry (Author) and Hine,Darlene Clark (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
1996
Published:
Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
341 p, Includes Mary Karasch's "Slave women on the Brazilian frontier in the nineteenth century," Hilary Beckles' "Black female slaves and white households in Barbados," Robert W. Slenes' "Black homes, white homilies: perceptions of the slave family and of slave women in nineteenth-century Brazil," Barbara Bush's "Hard labor : women, childbirth, and resistance in British Caribbean slave societies," David Barry Gaspar's "From 'the sense of their slavery' : slave women and resistance in Antigua, 1632-1763," Bernard Moitt's "Slave women and resistance in the French Caribbean,"David P. Geggus' "Slave and free colored women in Saint Domingue," and Susan M. Socolow's "Economic roles of the free women of color of Cap Francais."
Between 1873 and 1917, the numbers of Barbadian women committed to penal custody on an annual basis surpassed those of men. Available figures for Jamaica and Trinidad over sections of the period hover around an 18–20 percent female proportion rate, while in Barbados the rate usually exceeded 50 percent.
