[dropcap]U[/dropcap]npopular opinions sprout in the strangest of places, like while you’re standing front and centre at a local concert or on the grass of the Vigie roundabout during day two of Carnival’s Parade of the Bands. I hear this a lot from men but also from women: that a person’s behaviour is often to be blamed when they are harrassed; that you can’t prevent a man from becoming aroused by a scantily dressed woman. However, now coming down from the Carnival season, I challenge that notion.
One of the areas we make absolutely no progress in . . . hell, we hardly even address in the Caribbean . . . is how inappropriately hypersexualized we are and the enabling environment we foster for sexual misconduct by sweeping concerning behaviour under the rug. If anything, we all need to answer the following: Why would anyone feel entititled to touch another whom they do not know? And how does a person’s dress excuse another’s intrusion into their personal space?
Last week, at Machel Montano’s Soca Kingdom, I watched from the crowd as four women were lined up on stage to put their moves on display. One of the women, while the singer was directing everyone to stand in place, eagerly moved around.
“You!” Montano called out to her. “Stand one place. That one doesn’t listen, you know,” he added, then proceeded to smack her on the butt. Unmistakable was the shock that registered on her face. With her mouth shaping the letter O, she looked back in total disbelief at her friends in the audience before swallowing whatever words had stuck in her throat, even as she complied. Some might reason that the girl had volunteered to shake what her mama gave her on stage, therefore it was up to her to deal with the possible repercussions. But couldn’t it be this girl just wanted to have fun? Just wanted to boogie?
Ironically, as the dance intermission went on, one of the ladies on stage got a little more carried away than the others and, of course, caught the singer’s attention. She took it all the way while the audience cheered her on, even eventually dancing with the great Montano himself. At the end, just before she exited the stage, the singer held her hand up, declared her the winner, then added: “Your first prize is the whole night with Machel!”
Later, on her social media page—which has quite a following—the girl posted videos of her presumed ordeal with the captions: “So I don’t consider myself a dancer . . . BUT I LOVEEEEE to dance & I LOVEEEE soca. It was an honor being on @machelmontano stage last night… but sorry @machelmontano I don’t want that prize lmaooo.”
It’s not a stretch for a woman, or anyone for that matter, to simply want to dance; no touching, no sex no strings untied. Believe it or not, during later discussions with male counterparts it emerged that they, too, are put off by the stage shenanigans, even more so when female performers induce males from the audience to step up on stage for impromptu demonstrations.
To add, contrary to this rhetoric, that a woman does not value herself if she shows some skin—or God forbid does things that men can do freely—I can attest personally that the opposite can also be just as true. Women are not monolithic, we can enjoy a good book as much as we enjoy a wine. The notion that you can judge someone else by their dress or the way they choose to let their hair down is not only archaic but downright silly.
