Interview With Joycelin Massiah

CAFRA News spoke with Joycelin in Barbados, following receipt of the Caribbean Award. This interview brings with it warm congratulations and best wishes, Joycelin, for health, happiness and continued good work.

CN: Was the Women in the Caribbean Project our first involvement in women’s issues?

JM: Demographics are my discipline and as a matter of routine, data are collected and analyzed in a sex-disaggregated way. In a sense then, I can say I had always been aware of the difference between men and women. But I’d never had an opportunity to find out form women what were their own realities, concerns and issues. So in that sense the WICP was a first.

CN: How would you describe the change from being an academic to manager of a regional women’s program in terms of your thinking about women’s issues and about development?

JM: One thing I miss is time to do the thinking and creative writing one has to do in academic life. The program officers and consultants do this work and I am dependent on them in order to make a statement about anything and a critique of the data.

CN: Of course, that would be difficult for you because of your training. You would prefer more concrete research to support activity.

JM: We have the possibility of action on the basis of both academic research and strategic interests whereas academic research other stays on a shelf. We have a great concern about violence against women, for example. In some parts of the world this is understood to be mainly domestic violence. In other countries, that violence plays out in the context of war. In another, it plays out in party political violence. They’re all violating fundamental human rights of women.

The larger the number of cases and the wider the range of those cases that you can bring to bear on that problem, the greater the chance of demonstrating that the fundament issue is the violation of women’s human rights. If we can make that case loud enough and long enough and strong enough we can do something about it. The Women’s Human Rights Campaign (November 1997 to December 1998) with which CAFRA was centrally involved is an example.

CN: In what ways has thinking about women’s issues changed from the 1970s and how do you see these issues in the future?

JM: I have always thought it unfortunate that women’s issues had to be s separated out in order to draw attention to the problems facing women. But it was the only way to go in order to clarify issues and to learn how to use that clarification to bring those issues back into the wider development mainstream.

The thinking has moved from a concern for women’s practical gender interests to a concern with their strategic interests. Ultimately that shift prompted fundamental questioning of the concepts and praxis of development itself. Parallel to that movement has been a shift away from ‘women in development’ to ‘women and development’ to ‘gender and development’.

CN: ‘Gender is a household work now, but there’s some confusion in the way its’ interpreted. Do you think it’s a positive move?

JM: Yes, if you’re asking the right questions. Women’s Bureau is being charged into Gender Bureau and they’re not being given a new mandate. There’s a lot of anxiety that it will be used to dilute the work. But I look at it as an opportunity to do gender mainstreaming; to create a gender-sensitive, bureaucratic environment; for training in gender analysis and planning, action and policy-oriented research; and the development of advocacy programs around the entire process.

CN: What about the weakness of women’s organizations on the ground?

JM: First, distinguish between the traditional NGOs and the progressive groups that did the research and analysis. They both continue what they did in the past, perhaps with less gusto. Allied to that, many of them haven’t done much for their own renewal. They are tired. They face a backlash for which they were unprepared. The question of management and capacity of programs continues to bedevil them.

Yet some of the most creative ideas for moving forward in this region come from NGOs and we really have to find a way of building their institutional capacity. Related to the issue of ‘self-renewal’ of NGOs, is that of young women, or their relative absence.

The women of my mother’s generation did what they had to do and they’ve done it well. Those of mine built on it and carried it forward, particularly in research and analysis, and skill in working with their international donor community. The next generation has the task of finding a stronger link between the women’s movement and government. This relationship will have to be re-crafted if we are to make any substantial move forward.