| In a traditional African/Caribbean context, concepts like folkore, storytelling and orality generally seem to belong to the feminine realm. Female bonds are incredibly strong (this has, of course, everything to do with the system of slavery where men and women were separated by force) and it is the task of the woman as the keeper of the memory to pass on certain stories, songs, proverbs and riddles (this usually happens between grandmother and granddaughter). However, if we look at some contemporary manifestations of orality in the Caribbean, we notice that this seems to be a male-dominated domain. Most of the dub poets are men, although there are a few strong women in the business, like Jean Breeze and Lilian Allen. Exploring the Jamaican dancehall scene also generates some interesting observations. It seems that slackness pervades the music and that disrespecting women has become a trend. Lately, some powerful women have also entered the world of dancehall, but they are still treated as if they were in some way inferior to their male counterparts. The lyrics and performances of female dancehall artists are just as raunchy as those of their male counterparts, but there is a difference; women do not sing about violence and guns, and, strangely enough, I do not know a single track by a female artist that instigates violence against homosexuals (and this is one of the most popular themes among male artists). Women performers like Lady Saw, Tanya Stephens and CeCile present their sexually exuberant lyrics in truly revealing ( bare as you dare ) outfits. European critics often condemn this and claim that these women are degrading themselves. They even complain that this kind of behaviour keeps women in the Caribbean from emancipating themselves. There are, however, Caribbean scholars who feel that things are the other way around; it is exactly through these performances that dancehall artists emancipate themselves. Male dj s degrade women by using a substitution technique, and thereby turning them into sexual objects. Female dj s have, in a delightfully ironic way, designed their own strategy in order to defeat slack dj s on their own territory. These women turn slackness around and, in doing this, they put themselves in the position of sexual predators. It would be really interesting to look at the female perspective (bearing the crucial symbolic figure of Anansi in mind) on several levels. First of all, we should look at the way women are presented in oral texts, performed by men and women and try to identify the most important tendencies with regard to this in the field of performance poetry and dancehall music. Secondly, we need to look at the woman as author and discover and evaluate the strategies that are used on this level (including also performative strategies). On a third level, we should try to gain insight in the female audience, those women who attend poetry or dancehall performances. This way, it should be possible (and extremely fascinating) to look at the way how these three levels interact with one another. This analysis would provide a valuable insight in the way that orality and gender are intertwined in the Caribbean region. |
