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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
 Dear Madam Chair,
I would be most grateful if you would share this letter with your members.
I believe it is time for the women of the PLP to seize the day with regard to the current fight for women’s equality in The Bahamas. The four bills now before the Parliament that seek to amend the constitution of The Bahamas are I hope soon to become law and then they are to be referred to the people of The Bahamas for their approval. The PLP and more importantly for this purpose PLP women should seize the initiative to ensure that these bills pass and are approved by our fellow citizens.
I know that the PLP Women’s Branch will be amongst its leading proponents. It is my hope that this letter encourages more women to get involved.
I wish to pay tribute to the exemplary leadership on this issue of Glenys Hanna Martin, Melanie Griffin, Hope Strachan, Cheryl Bazard and Allyson Maynard Gibson, all of whom represent us in the Parliament. They have been steadfast in their defence of the effort toward equality for women. As a man, I believe it is important to state clearly my support for their cause.
I wish to repeat here what I said to my branch at its last meeting where Mrs. Hanna Martin spoke to the branch on the subject. I detected amongst some members a hesitation about this matter. I suspected that this was due to the clutter of nonsense that has been spun about this issue in public mainly by a regressive, old male dominated opinion. The voices of women have been drowned out.
I told the branch that these amendments are about equality for women. They are nothing more and nothing less. They are to make men and women equal in fact and in law.
I told them that as a man I could be quite comfortable and do nothing because the changes in the law will not affect me one way or another in law as far as equal treatment is concerned. Men are largely secure. They have no issues of disrespect and inequality to worry about in this respect. So you have to take then what those males who are campaigning against this have to say on cultural and religious grounds with a great deal of salt. They must declare their interest which in my view is that they are seeking to protect a male privilege and are hiding behind the clutter of other things to hide the fact that they do not want women to be equal to men in law.
In the process, they are not only denying women equality but also denying children their right to the citizenship of this country.
I told the branch that they should concentrate on the single fact of equality for women: nothing more nothing less. This is also about the rights of children.
Why should you and your daughters have fewer privileges in this society than any man simply because of the accident of biology? That is patent nonsense and totally unfair.
Why should you in 2014 be stuck as victims of a legal doctrine that dates way back to the 19th century? That is patent nonsense and totally unfair.
PLP women can help to change this. You women have the numbers. There are 15,000 more women on the rolls in the last general election than men. Ten per cent more of the electorate is female than male. This should therefore be a slam dunk if you mobilize the women of the country to vote yes.
Remember I said if the no vote succeeds men will not be affected but for those who have children out of wedlock. It is mainly women that will suffer. It is children who will be disadvantaged.
I think back of my deceased mother and how she drove all of us as children to succeed. The five of us succeeded because of her singular devotion to duty and her belief that she was equal to others. I remember when my father was unemployed for two years and how she carried then tire family. Yet today people would argue that because of the accident of her birth that made her female, had she been alive, she should suffer the indignity of being unequal.
All women should be outraged that there is even debate about this.
I told the branch how I attended seven funerals on Saturday 13th September. At each one of them while men stood in front at the pulpit, it was women who ran everything else. My branch is run by women and until this year had only women and one man on the executive. Today women outnumber men in the branch executive, yet there is a question about whether women should be equal to men.
I just don’t get it.
The bills before Parliament do nothing more or less than give women equality to men. That is all. They do nothing else. All the rest that you hear in the firmament is nonsense, deceit and clutter designed to stop equality for women.
I feel sufficiently strongly about this matter to send this open letter to you and urge your support of what we are trying to do in this matter. For you, for our mothers, for our sisters for our daughters, I urge your support.
I thank you for sharing this letter with your members. As a man, I plan to do all that I can to ensure that there is equality for women in this country and I will be voting yes in Parliament to all the bills without amendment and yes in the country. I will be urging my colleagues and constituents to join me in this striking a blow for freedom.
Please let me know how I can help.
Yours sincerely,
Fred Mitchell MP
Fox Hill
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