In Gina A.
Ulysse’s reflexive, feminist, and anthropological text, she engages in academic
activism by exposing the lives, stories, and narratives of ICIs. Focusing on
the raced and gendered stratification of this unique group, Ulysse reveals the
social, cultural, and symbolic capital that is acquired, exchanged, and
converted, oftentimes not even for material gain.
What struck
me most as I was reading was the fact that I consistently forgot I was reading
about Jamaica. The immense detail that Ulysse engages in with regard to
slavery, pigmentocracy, and the lady/woman dichotomy was all too familiar of
the nineteenth century south. This is especially true when considering the
colored/black dichotomy within the marginalized population in Jamaica, for it
was reminiscent of lighter/prettier women being house slaves and
darker/masculine women being field slaved in the United States. Still, what
separates the two is the assertion by Ulysse that there was more class fluidity
for the nonwhite women in Jamaica. Through dress, discourse, and social
presentation, “women” could present themselves as “ladies,” thus portraying a
life of leisure and not labor (27). Ulysse refers to this practice as a type of
class cross-dressing, which fosters the social distancing of browns and blacks;
more literally, social distancing was accomplished by social acts such as
obtaining an education and getting married. This is not the situation for
market workers, though, who represent “the ultimate bad woman” because she is
both independent and dismissive of men, financially and sexually (50).
As
illustrated above, Ulysse presents the ICI as an independent, autonomous woman
who experiences a strange duality of being able to move freely within a
stratification through business dealings and family structure, but it still
bound by the limits and assumptions of that category. Just like Ulysse herself
is both insider and outsider, the ICI is able to move both freely and not
freely. This reality makes for a convenient situation in which the ICI’s social
positioning can be framed in a way that highlights the positive aspects of
Jamaica. In chapter four, Ulysse writes: “ICIs conceal the realities of
Jamaica’s unemployment rate; they obscure the ways the state fails to provide
for its citizens. Second, they benefit the state economically” (133). In a way,
the ICI’s narratives is being used to erase (silence?) the reality of actual
problems in Jamaica, and I can’t help but notice how they are framed in the
exact opposite way of an American welfare queen: a woman who is perceived to be
dependent, a problem, draining resources whereas the ICI is independent, a
solution to unemployment, a shining example of women’s autonomy.
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