 Hand in hand let's celebrate our country, the best we have to give, we feel so proud to be St. Lucian in paradise we live, and we all have to work together. Welcome to Voices of Independence, part of the celebrations of St. Lucian's 43rd Independence anniversary. I am Marisa Joseph and we are on set in VA4 alongside two lovely and brilliant St. Lucian voices. And women in their own rights, in their fields, doing incredible work. Ms. Janika Simon and Ms. Jadia, you're here in manual. Welcome to our program. Thank you, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to have you want to engage in a discourse which will explore the role of women in St. Lucia historically, politically, and in our present time and development. The first question I want to segue into and permit me to go into quite a while. A lot of times when we started to discuss politics and history and development in St. Lucia, the common names that come up are Sir John Compton, George F. L. Charles, but there is an absence of women. Why do you believe this exists? If I may go first, seeing that we're talking about politics and a lot of my life has been spent in politics, I would say that it is not that there has been the absence of women, but that when you hear the stories of politics in St. Lucia, it is often dominated by the voices of the men. And because historically the women would have performed what they like to term as supporting roles, it is often lost in the background. But if you speak to a lot of the men in the politics, they will tell you that their successes would never be possible without the strength, the passion and the motivation of the women. If we look around St. Lucia right now in the political parties, I can assure you that women are the most active voices, workers. And I also believe too that they would hold majority of the positions on the executive groups, but at the helm and in the leadership positions and at the forefront, you would usually have men. But as far back as I can recall, I can speak for the St. Lucia Labor Party. And the knowledge that I have too with the United Workers Party and the involvement of women, women have been present. If we think of people like Maroc being such a powerful voice and influencing St. Lucia's politics, oftentimes in terms of telling the story, you would hear the negative or you would not hear about the sacrifices made and, you know, standing her ground when even a husband was used against her, for example. So I think it is now up to us as young women, as women in politics and women in other threads to shape the conversation and to ensure that our contribution will not be lost in the narrative. Thank you. I'm going to come back to you in a little while, but I would love to hear Janika. Please welcome Janika. Thank you. Let me just give you off a little correction. Janika is how you correctly pronounce my name. So I know a lot of people get it incorrect, but now as a woman who is reclaiming her power and making sure that she is correctly identified on the national stage, I have decided to make it a point to offer that kind of gentle correction. I think that J.D.A.'s assessment is quite accurate that a lot of times in politics as in other spheres of society, women are doing the work while the men are getting the garlands and the accolades. If you, you know, just from my experience covering things like political rallies, for example, it's always women that are in charge of getting people where they're supposed to go, making sure that this is in place, checking with this, and, you know, you see them scurrying around the background, making sure that the event is running smoothly, that everything is going where they need to be. But, you know, the political leaders of the parties are often men with, I think, what one stilling exception. We had Marela Joseph for a while. So usually the face and the nature of political parties is that they take on the tone of their leader. So the face of the leader is always in the forefront. These people have been by and large men. And so we talk about prime ministers, we talk about the political leaders, but we don't necessarily talk about the people who are getting the stuff done day to day, the every day, knocking on doors, passing around, collecting data, pushing people, encouraging people, doing the committee work. You know, it's a very female endeavor. And I think that people may not necessarily have the right idea or the right conception of what political work is just because the face is so overwhelmingly male. I want to come to the role of the media slightly. It will come down later on in terms of social factors. Janika, when we look at the storytelling and when we review books on St. Richard's history, it's still absent because the person who writes the stories may be men, and sometimes women, and that too is still absent. So is it simply that the faces or the stories that we like to tell, it's always of a figurehead and we do not consider the wider community? I feel there's a lot of value in that assessment. I feel that media, hair and solution and just solution society and Caribbean society in general, human psychology, we love the flash, we love the glitz, we love the attention-grabbing headlines and the controversy of course, of course. But yeah, it's the stories that we tell do have a lot to do with how the public views us as an issue. But again, we love to know what the leader is doing. So we follow the prime minister all over the place, we follow the leader of the opposition, we follow the ministers around. Do we really get into the guts of a party, you know, internal systems and operations to see these stories, to find them and to tell them, I don't know. In society, I mean, we place women into certain roles. So a teacher, right? A nurse. So when we cover these kinds of stories, something happening in education, we have a lot of female teachers, administrators, people working in the ministry, so on and so forth. So you do see a female face there. If the nurses are having some sort of industrial dispute, the people that we interview more likely than not would be female. But we have had female leaders. We have had females who lead ministries. We have Geller Gilbert, for example, who would have been minister for education. We have Dan Pallet-Lizzie as our governor general for so many years. We have had women in parliament and these women are leaders in their own right. So in terms of highlighting them as leaders and their contribution to the political landscape and to governance, why then would the media still be carried away with that sort of obsession over the prime minister? If I were to put it that way, why not highlight these women doing wonderful things in their specific roles? I mean, I would say not all of them have been wonderful all of the times and there are distractions along the way. But wouldn't you say that the media, it is sort of an excuse to say that we are following the prime minister as the head when there are women who are leading and are decision makers in these specific roles? I definitely do not think that the media as a whole looks at and I want to news media because you're talking about news and that's what I know. So let me stay in my role, stay in my section. I generally would not believe that we consciously look at news or information gathering through a gender lens. I can't say that we do. We all gather in the newsroom for the morning editorial and our discussion is what's the big stories of the day? What's happening? What are we chasing? What are we following? If there was something with the minister for co-operatives who I think is Ms. Virginia Albert at this point in time, we would, sorry, Dr. Virginia Albert-Proyott, we would cover the story but looking at her through that gender lens to cover it as a woman functioning in politics I don't think we're that sophisticated to be very honest. I don't think that we are that... No, when I say sophisticated, I mean I don't think that we are and I'm looking at media practitioners in a whole looking at what we're doing through that high-level analysis and I say high-level analysis because it's something that I think you have to consciously think of, consciously be trained in, consciously be taught so when we bring it up now, I can see, yeah I think there is some scope or there is some merit in doing that but yesterday when I was trying to put together my newscast was I necessarily thinking in that framework? Nah, I can't say that. What I wanted to interject with because you were speaking about leadership the idea of leadership for us in a lot of ways is framed from a masculine lens and whether or not women are leading sometimes we don't even view that as leadership but we just assume that that's just a woman's work and not necessarily leadership or framing it in these kinds of words You're right, writer and I think sometimes when women find themselves in leadership positions society view it as a reward for something not that they have earned it or you have worked so hard to get there or that you deserve it or that you can perform the function but most times they see it as a reward from a man for something that you may have done So for example, oftentimes when women find themselves in positions public positions, you would hear people beginning to question well, who is a man? How many men did she have to sleep with to get there? So our society do not view women as earning these positions and to perhaps it is because we even the leader to make the decision sometimes you hear things like okay let's try to see if we can get at least six women on the slate What does this tell you? It tells you that the women who find themselves in that position sometimes it is not a true assessment of that person's potential what the person can give It is so that they do not look bad for the absence of women so our thinking needs to change as a society our thinking needs to change our leaders the thinking needs to change as well and I know that we are at the point where women are so underrepresented that you must create space and there must be a quota but we should not look at the quota as a maximum it should be minimum and then we work it from there I know a lot of great women who have done wonderful things but at every step of the way the question would be asked really do you think this woman just got there because she's so good at what she does she has to be this person's woman or it's because this person is her friend and so on but when the man gets there and some of them are very incompetent we have seen ministers in government male ministers in government women who would not survive on a supermarket line at Massey but they are in government and nobody questions how they got there or anything because it's a man but if it's a woman the woman may be doing the best of her ability and she may be doing an excellent job but questions are always being asked as to how did she get there they look at how you dress where you come from and all of these things and a lot of these things turn away women and when women serve in rows and they feel underappreciated undervalued they do not push to do more and to move forward and it will discourage other young girls because I have to constantly be body shamed I have to be analysed in ways that I have never exposed myself before and so we have a lot of voodoo as a society can I ask a question that might be maybe a little provocative a lot of if you look around you see again women dominating certain professions you also see in the education sector as you go up you start to see the gender imbalance women are outperforming or female students are outperforming male students when you get to the tertiary level it becomes very apparent junior and middle management positions in the private sector have a lot of female representation I don't know what the current statistics are but you do see a lot of women out in the workforce now this is a significant change from you know even 20 years ago 40, 60 years ago etc what do you think is the barrier that drops in between regular career paths roles job duties for example and public facing leadership positions politics etc do you think that there's something special about those positions that make women think the ROI on that is just not well you actually when before I was going to ask some questions to the social factors that's beautiful because that's the power of discourse and power sharing in conversations and the dialogue that we're supposed to be having in political parties and in different spaces that persons ego sometimes take the mix and shut persons out of important dialogues but that's good that you pose this question because it's tied to some of the questions that I have for you guys in terms of the fact that presence doesn't always mean power and historically to time has to take shape where people not just see women there but appreciate and say okay well you have earned as JDM mentioned earlier on this position and I respect you in that particular role and the fact remains that women still hold traditional roles while also occupying the roles of middle management etc and despite that no one says well women have double or triple burdens in terms of showing up in these multiple multiplex spaces and still having to contend with the idea as well yes yes yes yes and also regionally we see women coming into spaces during times of crisis so they don't want women to take the hands of government when things are doing beautifully to lead although women are managing the crisis in families when the economy is not doing well in the school systems in the healthcare system we manage crisis there but somehow we feel that women cannot lead in governance so I wouldn't say that there is one barrier I think there's people barriers that we have to break it's tied into patriarchy we don't have these discussions a lot when you hear patriarchy people believe that you know you it's women trying to squeeze men out but if people understood the role of feminism in bringing forward justice for everybody we know that we want to help both men and women so that we can live fairly together and based on your question I'll ask another question too as a society what are the norms or the value systems that you think trap us despite the progress of being present in certain spaces from really having more substantive roles in our society presently but you see the thing is and when we assess the contribution of women to our society the development of our society let's just go down to the basic level which is the household when a woman leads a household and she's raising her children the first thought is something is wrong why because the man is missing that woman would raise a decent family and I mean nobody's perfect but that one woman would raise a decent family have children who are productive and making wonderful contributions to society yet we are already in our in our thinking we have already learned that the single family and the perfect family is a nuclear family with a man a woman raising a child so the label in itself the single parent household if the single parent household is headed by a man something is wrong with that woman and everything is wrong with the woman when the woman is left to fend for the children and raise the children on her own we have so many something is still wrong with the woman the woman's problem right we have men in leadership prominent leadership positions in this country who have children that they don't care for right nobody thinks that this would disqualify them to be a leader we don't look at these things we don't judge them by these lens a woman is disqualified for a position because she's sleeping with so-and-so and she's not married so you see there are uneven or I don't I don't want to call it uneven let's just say that women are judged differently to men and having to deal with all of these pressures it will cause you to second guess yourself it will cause you to feel like you do not belong in that space I know of many women who can make wonderful contributions but then they will say whoa everybody's going to talk about how I dress as opposed to the contribution that I make everybody's going to talk about the fact that I have two children by two different men as opposed to looking at the quality of my work whether I am qualified to do what I'm doing it becomes a thing if you are of a certain age and you do not have a child and these are the pressures that women face that men ordinarily would not face in society there are barriers that we place on ourselves because of how we are treated how we are viewed then there are systemic barriers that do not exist just in St. Lucia but it is an issue that we have in the region and I see that we are making changes in some spaces so I'm hoping that sooner rather than later in St. Lucia we will get to the point where we can say okay yes we have a woman who is the head of the senate we have a woman who is prime minister we have a woman who is head of state and not just view these as place holders but as change makers powerful women who have earned their keep and we can recognize them and celebrate them for that because I'm sure being in this positions would mean a lot to society as a whole that you said not just place holders and I think that that is something that we or that women need to think about because you know you elect a slate of candidates you go into the polling booth you choose from your preferred party and you hope that this makes the majority to go into parliament this is where things happen laws are made policies are made in the cabinet of ministers so the woman on the slate of candidates of your preferred party what is that woman or what are these women what is their philosophy what are they going to be doing are they going to be lobbying are they going to be fighting on cabinet Mondays for the legislation to amend the affiliation act are they going to be fighting for that are they going to be fighting for more access to early childhood education so that you have sufficient childcare so that you can go out to work are they going to be fighting for a change in the labor policy to eliminate this split shift system which leaves children home with nobody to care for them and that's where you have a lot of societal issues so are these women going to be taking their male colleagues and the thing about it is that when you look at the women the distribution of labor in a household sometimes men don't think about these things because they don't have to think about these things we've taught them that they don't have to think about these things so we've taught them let's just engage with the reality that they don't have to think about a lot of these things so then it be who's if I am a woman in cabinet looking at what's our policy agenda or what's our legislative agenda for the year what is the governor general going to say in the thrown speech then are these women fighting for the inclusion of these policy items in their government's function what do you think Janika I think it's a rhetorical question I think it's something we need to fix I honestly don't think there's something to fix I don't want to curb your enthusiasm I'm asking you to place it on pause for a moment as we prepare to segue into our second segment viewers I am sure this conversation has been engaging and we're just getting started we'll be right back stay tuned welcome back dear many viewers we are engaged in what has been a riveting discussion with our lovely ladies straddling on either side of myself discussing the role of women in politics development in St Lucia as we celebrate our 43rd independence anniversary under the theme Duval Assam celebrating our people before we went to break we were touching on issues of this year's practices and expectations of women and JJ would have pointed out the expectations of women in the household in particular impacting their role in political life and I wanted to speak about the partnership that is necessary from men and also the ally support that is necessary for women to take that space so that they don't have to be fighting five other battles before actually fighting the battle of being in the political realm because the personal is political people tend to believe that when you enter politics the battle you fight is with your constituents and in parliament but before you even step out of parliament there are struggles that you face in your personal life at your home in terms of childcare, caring for your families and what considerations do we actually make for these things and how do men see their role in supporting the rise of women to create a better society for all solutions what do you think ladies I think a lot of men are intimidated a lot of men because again of how we are socialized and because of our history men are taught that they should lead and even in the social circles too their friends may make them feel that it is not okay if your girlfriend or if your wife earns more than you it is not okay if your girlfriend or your wife is more known than you or has a public role and so men are threatened by these things because a lot of them think or they are taught that their role would be tied to some form of control and that once a woman becomes independent in her thoughts independent in her earnings then that threatens their position in that woman's life so a lot of men most of these attitudes we see they are being carried over into how they vote how when they serve on interview panels and so on the decisions that they make in terms of putting women into leadership roles a lot of them are personal conflicts that these men are facing because somehow they believe that when a woman rise it will hurt their ego or it will cause them to lose their power and their control over women in their lives over their own positions and so on and that is why I say that we need to change our thinking and realize that how we think and how we view women in our homes how we view women in our community would ultimately affect how or the place that we feel women should hold in society and in leadership positions on the whole and then too we have women to blame as well because women should be very concerned of making space for other women okay and women should be very concerned with being the biggest champions of the cause of the woman and just before we went to break I asked Janika whether she thinks women in parliament have been great representatives of the cause of the woman and we have seen year after year they come in dress pretty have on the beautiful suits and they look good and we are happy that they are there but where is the change that should come with the responsibility of sitting in parliament and making laws I mean come on you spoke about the affiliation act as the promises year after year after year we will increase the maintenance that women are getting for their children and I say it's there for everyone but I say women because most times it is a woman that is left to fend for the child on her own and we don't hear the women in parliament speaking about these things bringing the bills to the house and making it an agenda item so I think to women in leadership positions have also failed women I want to ask a question because I'm listening what part of me is also saying perhaps this is a problem too that we think that it should only be a woman's concern to bring the issues across men should do it too because for example Leonard Montu who was just the minister with that responsibility promised for the entire five years that he would do it and he did not do it and this is something that I spoke about so the men have that responsibility as women you should make it your business to be the biggest champion of the cause of women you know what because who feels it knows it you live through it we have seen our parents struggle through it and we know it so why then do you come into the position and all of a sudden all of these things would just be placed on the back burner no you make space for women you fight for women and you represent women if you don't do that in my mind you have failed women you are great in managing ministry of education you may be great in doing this and great in doing that but if when I look back at your tenure I do not see that you have made a dent I don't see that you have been a champion of women and representing the things that affect women in society I don't know that I can applaud you and say okay wow great this is a woman who has done wonderful and great things for women part of your role in my mind as a woman leader do you make space for other women to welcome other women make it easier for other women to sit at the table and to address the concerns of women in society yeah I think that unfortunately an accurate assessment we have not seen that kind of passion I think inside the house of assembly or inside the cabinet of ministers and I feel like our elected representatives who are female now need to look at themselves and and ask themselves whether they have the courage and because it takes courage it takes a willingness to butt heads with your colleagues it takes a willingness to be dogged about it it takes a willingness for people to get tired of you talking about the same thing and I think I want to mention her name because when you talking about women leaders and women in development space there's one person that just stands head, shoulders, knees and toes above everybody else we're in February so I'm thinking you're thinking about love is it the woman of the name or more that everyone it's on their lips I'm not actually thinking about a woman in politics I'm thinking about a woman in Celusia in the development space that hates because she will not stop speaking about the cause of women and female development that person is Catherine Celis so this is the kind of just dogged determination you cannot have a conversation with this person without her talking your air of about some issue or another issue or a project or some initiative and she pushes these things forward do you remember Flavia Cherry? I do do you remember she went through the very same thing because this was her agenda I think it's a problem that this society has that when women speak and try to represent other women and the issues women have we see it as nagging but if we are tired of these issues being raised we should also be tired of the circumstance that would lead to this issue what stereotypes do we need to break because you have brought up very powerful women who have made impacts in our society noting their impacts but when they display passion it's aggression when they are committed it's something they want they are looking for something else I think the onus is on us as women to start learning how to ignore and how to discount these kinds of things I'm not saying that it is right to stereotype and to attack women for their passion but if you want to accomplish something you cannot be daunted by the words that are thrown at you by onlookers and passersby you yourself in your own knowledge of yourself and it's a personal development thing as well you have to know who you are where you're going, what you want to do and how you're going to get it done so I'm speaking from personal experience I have been out there I have received comments some of them I have heard I'm sure some of them I haven't heard a lot positive some negative some very uncharitable I'll put it as that that's very diplomatic and if I were taking that and internalizing that and thinking about it I wouldn't be able to get out of bed every day if I had to think about the time somebody shouted at me on the side of the road because I was trying to interview them and I didn't want to be interviewed I would never be able to go out with my mic ever again so I think like Catherine I'm going to call her name she's probably going to be upset with me but I will like Catherine like Flavia Cherry like the people that we see out there like Miss Amor I don't think for example she knows who she is but the reason why I wanted to tap into that because we model for children because this is not just about the present scope of women who are there and who are taking space we model for children every day what are acceptable spaces for them what they can dream and what they can envision and we too need to say that it's not okay that Emma Hippolyte or Dr. Gil Rigorbutt are critiqued first and foremost on how they look the outfits that they wear their sexuality whether they can produce children or not but rather as intelligent women who have leadership qualities who have contributed to the development of same nature and therefore you can as well and I take this from an experience of having shared an article with a group of students about Haroldine Rook 14-13 years old who knew nothing about her she's an exceptional job and I said Miss I'm really happy that we have a woman who's also a farmer I never knew this but what are the examples that they see on social media every day and these are the examples unfortunately so we have to be conscious about the instructions, the unspoken laws of our society that tell women you can go so far but this is how far you go and when you go so far these are the expectations that we have of you and you must fulfill them so I'm very conscious of that and while we understand that you must have fortitude in the political arena we also need to retrain ourselves we're not creating one or two but an entire generation now Janika you said a little while ago that just in passing that if you need to be sure of who you are and where you go in and for example you doubt any great leader woman leader would spend time in the bathroom crying about what people see about them this is something that I think we need to teach both our men and women that it is okay to be concerned with how people view you it is okay to feel disappointed to be angered and to not accept how people think about you it's okay to cry about it it's okay to curse about it if this is how you express your emotion but it is not okay to remain in that space you gather yourself, you gather your strength you pick yourself up and you go and I'm saying this because I have been many times in my public life and in my private space I have been at lows, lows where I felt that the only way I would be able to pick myself up is if I allow myself to feel what I was feeling my tears are my greatest healer I prefer to sit and cry about something than for me to call someone up and speak to them about it and still get the sense that they're not feeling me they're not understanding me, I get greater comfort in my troubles when I sit I cry about it but I'm the type of person who would not remain in that space, I get up I pull myself up and I remind myself that I am Jadia Jappier and nothing is impossible and I will achieve I just I say okay Jadia this is just a bump in the road and we're going to keep going and I have struggled a lot with my daughter to teach her that allow yourself to feel it allow yourself to cry allow yourself because it is okay to face the disappointments but I want you to pick yourself up and keep going and the reason I wanted to come back to this is because a lot of people judge women and think women cannot be leaders because they're emotional so you see and even our current women leaders people think they are good leaders because there is something masculine about them they're tough but can you emotionally brand it as much it's human let me just clarify I think that you gave an important caveat to what I said and I wanted to just clarify I don't think we are more motley now who she is today is concerned or is crying about something that somebody says about her you know that nonchalance or that acceptance of herself comes from a very long road of working on herself so yes 100% JDF there needs to be that space to hold for being human but what I was trying to say is that exactly as you said if you don't pick yourself up if you stay in that you're not going to get to be where Miss Motley is today and that's the point that I was trying to make to segue on what you were saying and how you speak to your daughter I think we need to acknowledge that women are the primary shapers of upcoming generations whether it is through parenting whether you encounter the children in the classroom women have a lot of influence on young lives so not only do we need to speak to our daughters and teach our daughters we need to teach our sons how to live in a world where women are powerful and they have agency and that is quite alright and part of that comes from teaching our sons that it is okay to want to be a nurse to want to be a teacher to play with dolls to nurture to care to do soft things because it is almost I will never forget and this really struck me my son he is 3, he was a year younger we were in the supermarket he was having a really rough day that day and we were having a disagreement and you know already there is tantrum crying and somebody just passed stranger, we didn't know the person and said ah, don't cry you are such a big boy I think I remember you posted about that and I was like you know I appreciate the sentiments you are trying to calm an upset child but no please don't tell it needs to know that crying is okay it is okay for a boy to cry when men do not know how to manage emotion we have all of these anger issues so we say that women are emotional and so we cannot lead but all of the wars have been started by angry men and a lot of the genocides and a lot of the things are being done by emotional men but anger is not viewed through the lens of emotion because it's masculine and so you can have a raging man still believing that he is in charge of all his faculties of reason and logic I'm appreciating the vulnerability presented on both sides and it reminded me of a conversation that I had this week in a barber shop where I was pleasantly surprised by a barber talking about my personal life and why I wasn't a mother yet etc wanting someone good to love and support and he told me men in Saint Lucia in a crisis I'm telling you from my own experience we are in a crisis and we need to change so these are the kinds of conversations that we need to have with one another not from a place of this person is just judging me and trying to beat me down but these improvements for both men and women impact our children healthy and happy adults a lot of times our discussion on youth developments in the spirit of Saint Lucia is employment and employment is important but before you are an employee you are a person so what are the values we are putting into our young people what are the things that are being modelled for them in the homes on the streets about being able to feel to express in healthy ways not with the culture of alcohol let me just explicitly draw that line between personal developments among young people and our heinous crime situation that we are facing in the country today and people are seemingly at a loss to understand where this thing is coming from but then you are speaking about the barber who tells you that men are in a crisis men don't understand how to deal with their emotions women who nurture these men are also in a crisis because we teach them to bottle things up and we teach them that they are not supposed to be washing dishes or sweeping the floor or doing the laundry so then they grew up to be adults and the whole system is being perpetuated there is a school of thought that a lot of what is wrong with our society right now is because women of how these women are raising their children we need to do unlearning in our own way because people are saying if you look back to what society was before it was tied to the family unit and what was acceptable as a family unit remember earlier I spoke about the fact that when you have a single parent household it's viewed in a particular way it does not matter if the head of that household is stable in terms of income and son it does not matter we just feel that it's a problem if it's only the woman but now you bring up the point of how do these women socialize these children both men and women and then to not just women but there is this change in view where I think we define love in new ways because somehow I see from a lot of parents that their definition of love is giving the child everything that the child wants but to what end are we loving them or are we slowly destroying them and setting them up to be failures and to destroy somebody else so there is really a lot a lot to discuss on materialism and replacement in your absence and everything these conversations matter because they all interconnected because women trying to compensate for their absence and giving materially reflects what Janika mentioned about our economic structures and how in all of ways they disempower women families because you have women who are away from the household the children don't see them when they get up in the morning and by the time they come back from work especially in our tourism sector the children are sleeping so who cares for your children who raises your children or the absence maybe of that time affection and care you substitute with material a tablet because I mean you are torn how do you not love your children maybe by giving them the material things if you don't have the time to spend with them and do you think if we were being compensated fairly we would be in a space where we are able to manage our family time and our career at the same time women have to work twice as hard to learn how to manage I'm feeling this conversation I wish we could go on we will go on but after this short break because you are watching voices of independence hearing the voices of independence and hopefully when we come after this break we're going to talk about challenges and also opportunities for us to move the conversation forward and do better as a society in the next 43 years we'll be right back welcome back viewers we are entering our final segment unfortunately with these lovely ladies who have engaged us in a series of discussion on women and political development in Sinusha in this final segment we want to ask our panelists I won't even call them panelists because this has been a conversation among colleagues women of substance, women of power what their views are on opportunities as well as challenges that we have moving forward for women and political development in the Sinusha landscape can I let me start with opportunities I think Sinusha's political climate now is ripe with opportunity we have had is it 20 years of one-term administration if I think back about two decades of one-term administration that points to a deep dissatisfaction I think with the status quo among the populace people want something new people want something different they want something other than what currently obtains and we keep swapping back and forth in the hopes what that means to me is that there's a lot of opportunity there so if a young woman is having policy ideas and wanting to really make an impact I think that there's some avenues there for her to amass and consolidate power and maybe become a force for whichever political party wins the words or maybe create a new political party with a new philosophical mindset so I think that the time is ripe for women to seize that power not just in the political sphere in a whole set of avenues I right now am looking for ways to move forward to advance my own personal career goals and agenda there's a lot of opportunity in media people are still hungry for quality information and so I am doing my best to grab those opportunities as they come and climb the ladder I'm very proud to say that I have opened the door for several young women to get their careers established I hope to continue being in positions putting myself in positions where I can do that because as JD has said I think it's really important to do that and so I think now is a great time for women who find themselves mid-career or established to really look around and see what am I doing am I making a positive impact and where can I put my personal energy to you know just push the agenda forward a little bit in terms of challenges I think that the societal stifling of women's aspirations and dreams still exists if you get too old without a partner or an offspring you're kind of like what's going on with this one and it can put a damper on yourself and it can stifle you so I think those are challenges that we as a society need to address JD that immediate reflexive question in your mind when you see a powerful woman how did she get there maybe we can do some work on ourselves to recognize when we're asking these weird off questions and just realize that we are placing a burden on women that we don't place on men when we see them out in the public space so I think as we looking at independence 43 and looking at the next 43 years ahead we can do some personal self development women and men to just reassess the views that we hold around women in society their place what they should be doing and realize that a woman's place is where that she chooses it to be whether that's a wife or mother a single career woman a single parent whatever way that she chooses to contribute is valid and it's her unique path and it's fine you know you're not committing any crimes you're not swindling anybody on Tinder or elsewhere I have to I don't need to be rescued we're in the best place opportunities and challenges I think there are many but I think that with some sober assessment self reflection and just a reality check or two we can get ourselves in a good position for the next 43 year push that was beautiful but I have one question what's your first to get her view I think looking forward from now on to the next I hope it does not take us 43 years to get a woman as a prime minister we need to work towards this and not because of how it would look or not to put us on the same level with anywhere else but I think it is because I honestly and sincerely believe that a woman would make a wonderful contribution to this country seeing things through a different perspective getting that passion, getting that commitment and being able to lead with your heart being able to really see things from perspective and if this means that I'm saying that the men who have done it before are challenged then it means that this is how you are accepting it and you need to do some reflection as well to see how we can change how we view women and so from now just now I'm hoping that we can have a strong female leader emerge in this country and to take the reins as prime minister of this country there will be challenges because any time a woman aspires to do something it's audacity how dare you you are supposed to stay where you belong and so on I'm hoping that women could remove all of the barriers that men and the rest of society place on you and just go for it now for the woman who is listening to this and this politics is not your thing because too a lot of us have been taught that politics is a man's world it's not nasty you shouldn't want to go there and so on we're not talking about that because we don't have the time let me let you politics I cannot continue to not say politics is everywhere exactly but I just want to say that this mindset should be in every every aspect of life so if you are a teacher you should aspire to lead in the school it should not be that you cannot aspire to be principal because this person has been there for so long and this woman and what no everywhere that you are if you're a restaurant worker you should aspire to move up you should aspire to do greater things I do not want women to place any barriers on themselves because they feel they don't have the capacity to do not belong a woman can do anything a man can do and do it 10 times better this is my philosophy and for me I already know within myself that I can do anything that I want to do so for St. Lucian they are supposed to just sit and say okay I'm going to wait for Jada when Jada decides what she wants to do she will do it and that's just the confidence I have in myself whether it is in law whether it is in politics so many of us are saying that by the way so I got to how I want every little girl to feel there are obstacles but I want you to think of you overcoming every single obstacle that society would place on you and not just in politics not just in the public sphere but in your private life as well whether it be in school and so on women we are moving up it's our time I think my final wrap up point is to speak about consensus building because the transformation we want is sometimes you think that it happens overnight but where we are today took time and the ideas would need to form and what are the partners that need to be involved we speak very broadly and we say women and men but what about civil society environmental groups teachers the church cultural groups everyone everyone that church but that's fun at the show we would need another 90 minutes to have a full discourse on the role of all society I feel like so a lot of people get the sense that society right now is placing too much of a lens or focus on women or gender issues especially because I think it's been acknowledged that there is a crisis as the Barbara said in men however I think we cannot not acknowledge the historical barriers that have been placed on this particular sex and so there is a justified focus on development of women in society so I think that in terms of partners just like I said at the beginning of the conversation I don't think the media has done enough of a good job in terms of viewing news items and other current events through a gender lens maybe the rest of civil society also needs to put that framework into place so that their operations their very day to day operations are conducted through that lens and so when we realize that women do have the bulk of child care duties how are our hiring practices reflecting that for example are we offering flex time are we doing or are we just chaining people to a desk from nine to five with no consideration of when school lets out how to get after school activities done how to look after the little kiddos you know so I think private sector has to look at that in their hiring practices public sector has to look at that in how they develop policy social organizations have to look at that maybe one of the charitable organizations might feel moved to creating a little crash in an underserved area you know so that's how I think that the stakeholders and partners can get involved by really mainstreaming that gender lens and looking at everything in that way because everybody will tell you men and women that women build societies we are the ones that have the familial responsibilities and so we raise the generations to come so the more support that is given to women the better off everybody is going to be the mom that has time to play with the child is going to you know the benefits are going to accrue there if you have money to make sure that your kids are fed and clothed and taken care of the benefits are going to accrue there so it's not women looking for undue accolades or support it's a recognition that this gender really needs the support so that all genders all sexes are supported because we need to look at the children so I think that's I think you have given us in a nutshell the solutions some of the solutions to this important discussion and as we receive showers of blessings the only thing that I have left to say to our viewers is thank you so much for listening and thank JD and Janika for contributing to this constructive dialogue that I hope will continue and I hope that you understand that you too are a voice of independence and you matter to our country have a wonderful day happy independence happy 43