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Send responses to this document to Rotuman Forum for posting. Please include your full name and current home city. |
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Send responses to this document to Rotuman Forum for posting. Please include your full name and current home city. |
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The Forgotten Women of Our Community by Henry Enasio I am a great believer in and an ardent supporter of Rotuman culture and traditions. I am very proud of our culture and traditions and have defended them in the past from racial taunts of ta'roro, pesket, or even tufu, while knowing Rotumans are not. Rotuman culture and traditions are very structured and, I guess, identify and differentiate us from other races, especially our Pacific Island cousins. However, having said this, I feel that our culture and traditions favour men and appear very chauvinistic. We therefore need to revisit them. Frankly, our culture and traditions seem to ignore the fairer sex--our beautiful women who seem ignored and seldom appreciated for their great contributions to our community. Women play a very critical role in society and no doubt in our culture and traditions, too. I grew up in a family where the men were outnumbered by the women and can appreciate their influence in my life. I believe that in every good man's life there is a good woman working behind the scene to assist and support him. Thus, the roles that the wives of the chiefs, subchiefs, village chiefs, ministers, late and ex-senators, etc. played in supporting their husbands were just as important as the roles the men played. These women went out of their way to support and assist their men to ensure they met community expectations, and as a result were accorded similar respect to that of their husbands. But they are forgotten almost immediately when their husbands predecease them. Given the tendency of the women to outive men, it's really sad to see how these widows who have faithfully served the community are so quickly forgotten. I have spoken to some of these women; feel let down and so downhearted that they shirk going to kato‘aga to avoid the shame of being ignored. They are the forgotten women of our community. Personally these widows deserve better, for they have earned the right to be respected for the services they have rendered in the past and should be accorded a päeag het 'e ri hap ta whenever there's a kato'aga or a community function. Thus, given the time we live in and being more tolerant than ever before, can we Rotumans be more accepting and accommodate these deserving women? Submitted 26 June 2004 I applaud Henry's views on "The Forgotten Women of Our Community." Being the son of a church minister (the late Rev Jimione Etike), I have grown to see my late mother, Garisau, having to fend for herself and trying to keep her family together on the island as well as after migrating to Fiji. Even as a kid, I noticed that after the death of my father, my mother became 'ordinary' on the island and not just in the village. This is not to say that my mother was more deserving of respect than the woman next door prior to being married to my father. The status that my father acquired was through his own hard work and after mum married him, she earned that same status through the dedication and support she accorded and afforded my father. I know from stories that were told to me about mum, and growing up with her, that she was the strength and energy that my father drew from. It’s not that my father was incapable, but he knew that she was there for him always. My mother was devoted to my father. Being a church minister took my father and the family all over Fiji and the Pacific. I dare say that it wouldn't have been easy for mum having to move the family every time dad got transferre. My mother is only one of the women that Henry refers to and although my mother is gone, there are those still around within our communities who need to be recognised, and I wholeheartedly agree that we should never forget them; we should always be mindful and grateful for them. I know that my mum is always and forever in my heart. Submitted 28 June 2004 --o0o--
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