Colonial Inheritances: The Effects of Colonial Education on Women in Developing Nations

The focus of this research is to gain a better understanding of the effects of “Structural Adjustment” programs on women in “developing” countries. This historical/cultural study uses qualitative and quantitative data to show specifically how the development process has failed to alleviate the deleterious effects of colonialism on Barbadian women and has perhaps even exacerbated these effects. The first part will focus on the effects of British colonization on the educational infrastructure of Barbados. Historical educational data will be used to illustrate the patriarchal nature of British colonialism and discuss how this has affected women of the region in terms of their socioeconomic situation. The second part will analyze whether or not the development planning process has done what it was theorized to do - allay the effects of economic “incompetence” of “third world” regions and fully integrate women into the planning process.

A major focus of this research will be an examination of the effects of British colonial education upon the socio-economic situation of women in Barbados, and how those effects linger or are magnified in the educational “reforms” attributed to development. This focus was chosen because educational systems and practices are a primary mediator of women’s interactions with state structures and their accepted societal functions.

Many scholars in the global south agree that the development planning process fails to adequately examine the effects of state restructuring on women. This is particularly problematic, given the major role of Caribbean women in the care and subsistence of the family unit.[1] Joyce Cole argues that since independence from British rule, most government officials within Barbados’ two party system have remained as dogmatic about maintaining the British style of rule as the former colonizers were.[2] It is my contention that, due to these institutionalized and internalized biases, they have become the perpetuators of a type of leadership that continues to subjugate women and keep them out of decision-making or even participatory roles in society.

Joycelin Massiah points out that planning authorities in the Caribbean have been reluctant to accept “gender” as a viable development planning issue; there has been apathetic interest on the issues specific to Caribbean women, and women have become almost “invisible” within the context of development planning and policy.[3] Therefore, the specific aims of this research project are to: 1) provide a historical look at the effects of British rule upon the educational infrastructures as it relates to their gender dynamics; 2) discuss the extent to which these dynamics have been problematic for women in their education to employment opportunities; 3) analyze whether or not these opportunities have been worsened by the effects of development planning, and finally 4) identify some efforts to improve the quality of life for women in the Caribbean.

International development as it is known can be traced to the 1950’s and the post-World War II period of reconstruction.[4] Western economists became convinced that they could duplicate the success that programs like the Marshall Plan had on European countries and began a phase of aid-based strategic planning to enable developing countries to “bridge the gap that separated them from the industrialized world”.[5] The growth of the ‘development project’ that began in the 1950’s swept across the globe and crossed both political and ideological boundaries. Rich nations committed their wealth and technological surplus, and aid was channeled through United Nations (UN) agencies, based on the theory that this would foster economic growth that would trickle down to the masses.[6]

Theoretical Basis

This research is grounded within the empirical work of Danish anthropologist, Esther Boserup, who in 1970 concluded a 10-year study in which she found that the process of development planning in Sub-Saharan Africa effectively undermined rural women’s work, because it removed the value from their roles within the care and subsistence of the family unit.[7] The results of Esther Boserup’s research led to what is now widely known as “Women in Development” or WID.

My research is also influenced by the divergent ideologies that criticize the shortcomings of the WID paradigm and have led to an alternative, “Gender and Development,” or GAD perspective. GAD proponents contend that WID focuses too narrowly on an economic framework to approaching development and that within it the inequalities that serve to keep women oppressed are still not challenged.

Methodology

To accomplish this, I rely on available official sources from the period spanning the late nineteenth century to the period of independence through the current period. I do not attempt to conduct an exhaustive investigation on the entirety of those years; rather I use a method of reflective analysis to illustrate my theory. No primary data collection was undertaken; the methodology consisted essentially of a review of existing statistical and documentary literature.

A thorough search of local resources was conducted, including all of the University of California libraries. Additionally, an extensive search was conducted for viable sources available via the Internet, such as online scholarly journals and other official publications.[8] In the first part, I focus on the educational socialization of Barbadian citizens under colonization and into the twentieth century. Historical data on the education of boys and girls were compiled and analyzed for biases and differential impacts along gender lines. I chose to focus on the educational infrastructure because education is a reliable source for analyzing the entrenchment of the colonizing legacy upon the oppressed society. It can be a useful tool or a dangerous weapon in the perpetuation of certain norms within a culture. The second reason for choosing to focus on education is that it is closely tied to economic potential and social positioning for women in many regions of the world, and at least in theory, should lead to economic empowerment.

In the second part of my study, I look at whether or not the process of development has been successful in alleviating economic indebtedness, as it was supposedly designed to do. As such, I review development plans for Barbados from 1983-1993 to determine whether or not they have actually helped or hindered women’s access to relevant resources.

Additionally, resources that have been generated by these women (and men) for their education and empowerment offer a clearer picture of what they feel needs to be done, and how they would like to do it. I examine what is actually “on the ground” as far as women-identified educational empowerment initiatives.

In the English speaking territories of the Caribbean, the educational infrastructure that has been the lasting legacy of British colonialism has had specific implications for the region. One major implication is that it was, in fact, based on nineteenth-century Victorian England.[11] Nineteenth century education in the British colonies emphasized class, race and gender divisions, separated secondary education for boys and girls, and entrenched sexist stereotypes and images of women that were detrimental to Caribbean societies.[12]

For example, from adolescence most girls were socialized, in the school and at home, to adhere to their assumed roles within their societal context. As a consequence, the curriculum for girls was focused on subjects such as home economics or domestic skills and clerical skills, while young boys were socialized towards engineering, math and science.[13] Also, in spite of efforts to further secondary education for girls in the latter half of the 19^th century, in terms of schoolhouses, they remained clearly disadvantaged. In Barbados, for example, there were six second-grade schools (four for boys and two for girls) and three first-grade schools (two for boys and one for girls).[14]

With the expansion of education in the 20^th century girls began to participate in larger numbers and by the 1960-70’s participation had increased significantly at all levels.[15] The problem is that the educational infrastructure did not change; therefore girls and women were still being socialized into the service sector and other fields and not towards professional or technical skills. Provision for the education of boys was superior both in quantity and quality to that provided for girls.[16] This was justified by the much higher expectations of men in their fields of work. In fact, until the second decade of the 20^th century, many women in the middle-class did not work outside the home, while the less privileged women were employed in the worst paid occupations.[17]

The education of women was undervalued and consequently women were forced into gendered positions within the context of Caribbean social formations.[18] This is problematic because it tends to steer large populations of Caribbean women into “gendered” industries or occupations (such as those in the informal sector, manufacturing, or Export Processing Zones[19] or into domestic related fields, such as housekeeper, tailor, etc.). For example, in Barbados women employees account for a total of 91.8% of the total 3,185 persons employed in the Export Processing Zone sector.[20]

In 1945, the British government introduced formal development planning to the Barbadian colony. In the early post-colonial period, Parliament was still very involved in the development planning process in Barbados. However, in 1961 Barbadian leaders successfully negotiated complete self-control of their government and for the first time Barbadians were totally responsible for development policy and planning.[21] A review of development planning in Barbados reveals that between 1960 and 1970 there were no significant changes in development policy as it related to women.[22] The two main political platforms or parties, The Barbados Labor Party (BLP) and the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) traded control over state affairs between 1961 and 1994 several times. However, they both advocated mostly analogous ideologies that remained dedicated to upholding the Westminster style of government inherited from the British.

Eudine Baritteau points out that both parties are guilty of circumscribing “women’s affairs” to the realm of social policy, thereby removing any economic value from development planning regarding women, and creating around them a welfare state, from which they benefitted somewhat. The DLP articulated no specific economic programs for women, but instead only concerned themselves with women as a category when dealing with issues of “population, fertilization, unemployment, health and labor force participation.”[23]

Additionally, the BLP recognized women’s affairs as community development. These actions served to relegate women to the sphere of social service/community development and removed them as viable players in the economic sphere. Once the economic viability was removed, it became easier to dictate women’s lives in terms of how the state wants to use them.

Post-independent Caribbean states, with their earnest striving towards modernity, were primarily interested in the material relations women had with the state and did nothing to address issues contained within the social sphere. Eudine Barriteau, in her essay on the political economy of the 20^th century Caribbean states:

According to Barriteau the main economic role the Barbadian state creates for women is reproduction, and women are integrated into development through population control, reproduction of the labor force or the maintenance of the family unit. Notably in most societies these roles are undervalued, and in the Barbadian case this is no exception. For example, April Gordon argues that in Post-colonial Africa the colonial capitalist economy has been effective in embedding their colonialist values into the colonized society, and dividing labor between men and women in such a way as to give men control over women and their productive resources.[25] This process reproduces itself in many other developing regions of the world, where colonial legacies intersect with patriarchal tendencies of capitalist expansion.

The second phase of development planning in Barbados began in the late 1980’s and is marked by three key features: official recognition of women by the state, a retrenchment of the welfare state, and the increasing privatization of the economic and entrepreneurial sectors away from state control.[26] These factors all intersect to create a paradoxical position for Barbadian women. The combination of the reduction in social services (maternity, disability, unemployment and other benefits) upon which they had become somewhat dependent during the earlier period, and the introduction of International Monetary Fund (IMF) sponsored state Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP’s), have had severe consequences for women of the region. The reduction in social programs have been manifested in: cuts in education, health and food subsidies, increases in taxation and levels of unemployment; and higher levels of drug addiction and associated violence and crimes, especially those against women.[27]

Additionally, available evidence suggests that Caribbean women bore the brunt of the economic crisis, and paid a higher price in terms of their mental and physical health due to the double burden of work and home.[28] For example, women in the Caribbean are responsible for the primary care of society as a whole and are the first line of defense against the economic squeeze felt by Caribbean men. The survival of the household is largely dependant upon the productive labor of women as well as their earning potential and domestic management skills.[29]

Because planners in the Caribbean have been reluctant to, or have not known how to, properly address women’s issues in development policy, there has been a huge lag in the practical growth of women’s access to economic resources.[30] Arguably, there could be several reasons for this challenge, for instance lack of knowledge of alternative methods, no gender analysis done on the part of planners therefore rendering the problem invisible, as well as no direct pressure on planners for them to actively pursue this direction in their planning methods.

So the question becomes then, what are the interests of women which should be reflected in Caribbean development plans? Who should be responsible for those plans? And what types of educational experiences might better prepare these women for successful economic participation in the current era of global market structures? In the next sections I will attempt to identify whether the historical experiences continue to skew the educational infrastructure against women in more subtle ways than mere access. I will then indicate some answers to these questions through an analysis of some education to employment opportunities for Barbadian women.

Current Trends: The New Global “Sweatshop”

Currently, literacy rates for women in the Caribbean remain among the highest in developing countries, and females and males are equally likely to have access to education. However, economic trends show us that the current problem is not with access, but relevance. In other words, it is not that women are not equally educated but that the education they receive is not relevant to the current trend towards globalization so they are still being forced into certain types of gendered industries, as I describe below.

For example, in Barbados in 1998, the literacy rate for men was 98% and 97% for women, while the employment rate was 54% for men and 46% for women.[31] Additionally the opportunities for employment for women were most specifically within the realm of the service industry,[32] where women made up 73%, while men were 69%.

Contemporary women in the Caribbean find themselves in a paradoxical position, in the sense that, while there exists no blatant attempt to circumscribe them from equal access to resources, the above mentioned gendered societal structures serve to limit their ability to benefit.[33] In other words, it is not that they do not have access to education, but rather that the socially accepted educational options are insufficient to prepare them for the current trend towards globalization (i.e. highly technical and geared towards increased mobility). Also at work here are the societal expectations or pressures regarding parenting, as well as historical factors that need to be properly addressed.

Furthermore, the area of development, as it correlates to capitalistic expansion has been key in forcing women to remain disproportionately dependent upon service sector occupations and careers. According to the 1999 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development, women’s participation in paid work has been increasing steadily since 1950. This is largely attributable to corporate globalization and the changing nature of labor market structures and can be most clearly illustrated by analyzing employment data from manufacturing sectors, foreign direct investment and export processing zones, and the service sectors of developing countries. These sectors of the labor market tend to be highly gendered due to the desire of multinational corporations to employ the cheapest labor, which is usually female and un (or under) educated.

The “Pink Collar” Ladies of the Caribbean

In her analysis, she states that Barbados has become sort of a test pilot area for governments considering these data enclaves as part of a new development strategy. She also relates the differing of opinions on whether or not this is a viable and prosperous career opportunity for young women and highlights that this industry can be seen in relative terms to Export Processing Zones such as Mexican maquiladora factories and Malaysian electronics plants that proliferate the global market.[35] In fact, in Barbados, of 1,730 total employees in data processing in 1991, 1,576 were women (92%).[36] While this may give the initial appearance of third world women finding successful advancement, it is problematic in terms of longevity and sustainability. Due to the ability of many of these multinational corporations to uproot and move elsewhere in search of cheaper pay and higher profit, the women are left with little to no bargaining power for better pay, working conditions or benefits. Additionally, there is no clear evidence that the net contribution of these Export Processing Zones to the Caribbean economies is a positive one. Only a small percentage of each dollar remains in the Caribbean, there is little transferability of skills attained in these sectors to other sectors of the labor market and most of the jobs created are temporary, so that there is no “career path” sufficient for these women to follow.

Conclusion: Women Helping Women

Women’s organizations, including Centro de Investigacíon Para la Acción Femina (CIPAF) in the Dominican Republic, Sistren in Jamaica, and Women Against Free Trade Zones in Trinidad and Tobago, have exposed and fought for the improvement of the conditions of export processing industry workers. They have been among the few organized groups that have questioned the contributions of this type of export-oriented industry to national development and have advanced a critique against structural adjustment and export-oriented industrialization in the Caribbean. Says Asha Kambon of Women Against Free Trade Zones:

In addition, the Women in the Caribbean Project (WICP), which was established in 1979, has focused on making education relevant to its female populations as well as relaying an accurate description of the issues facing women in the Caribbean from their perspectives and experiences. This organization was focused on “providing background materials for persons interested in the issues affecting women in the Caribbean; (and) placing relevant Caribbean material on the growing international literature on Women and Development.” [38]

Further, there are several networks in the region involved in addressing the needs of women as they relate to their socio-political, economic and cultural perspectives. For example, the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA) is active in the region and focuses on unblocking the channels between women’s needs for relevant resources and their access to obtaining them. Marilyn Jones wrote in CAFRA news:

few people understood that Free Trade Zones or Export Processing Zones form part of structural adjustment programmes recommended by the IMF, the World Bank, and other US-controlled agencies, which result in enhanced profits for a few and further underdevelopment for the majority... concentrated in the developed world; that under that system, ‘Third World’ countries remain woefully ignorant of the new technologies that are never shared with them.[39]

They have to date worked on many projects that facilitate education and support of women, such as Women in Caribbean Agriculture, Women and the Law, Women’s History and Creative Expression and Women and Development and Sustainable as well as Health and Reproductive Rights.[40] Finally, this regional network of grassroots women to women projects have been extremely hopeful and effective and are perhaps the best source for positive change for women in the region.

[2] Joyce Cole, “Official Ideology and the Education of Women in the English Speaking Caribbean, 1835-1945, with special reference to Barbados”, in Women and Education, Women in the Caribbean Project, ed. Joycelin Massiah, Institute of Social and Economic Research, (Barbados: University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, 1992), vol. 5, 20.

[14] Joyce Cole, “Official Ideology and the Education of Women in the English Speaking Caribbean, 1835-1945, with special reference to Barbados”, in Women and Education, Women in the Caribbean Project, ed. Joycelin Massiah, Institute of Social and Economic Research, (Barbados: University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, 1992), vol. 5, 12.

For example, in 1960 about one-third of female numbers are found in clerical occupations. In 1970 this majority shifted to service work, and only 10 percent of these moderately educated women were found in clerical jobs. Among those women who have acquired some form of certification as a result of their secondary education, again there is variation over time. In 1960, the heaviest concentration was to be found in the professional and technical occupations, with 34 percent in clerical work. By 1970 the position had reversed itself and only 40 percent of these women were located in professional categories while 50 percent were engaged in clerical jobs. “The Education of Women in Barbados,” in the Report of the National Commission on the Status of Women, (1978), vol. II, 67-80.

[19] An EPZ is a region within a country designed to encourage the development of labor-intensive exports that use a high proportion of imported inputs, as most of the activity in EPZs involve the use of labor who “process” imported inputs to then be exported. http://www.populareconomics.org/globalization/html%20/Glossary.html

[33] Obviously, women in the Caribbean are not a homogenous group and have varying degrees of experiences, opportunities and burdens from one region to the next. However, for the purposes of this short paper I will use the term “Caribbean women” or “women of the Caribbean” to mean women in the Commonwealth Caribbean region (i.e. Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and where specified, Jamaica).

Cole, Joyce. 1992. Official Ideology and the Education of Women in the English Speaking Caribbean, 1835-1945, with special reference to Barbados. In Women and Education, Women in the Caribbean Project, ed. Joycelin Massiah, Institute of Social and Economic Research, 12. University of the West Indies, Cave Hill.

Abstract

Theoretical Basis

Methodology

Current Trends: The New Global “Sweatshop”

The “Pink Collar” Ladies of the Caribbean

Conclusion: Women Helping Women