RastafarI Women: Subordination in the Midst of Liberation Theology by Obiagele Lake. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 1998. xiii, 199 pp. $17.50.

This study provides an important perspective on RastafarI and should be read by all scholars of RastafarI. The work's task is to produce an exegesis of Rasta women's experiences that explicates the articulation between material and cultural power. According to Lake "Rastafarian women are doubly oppressed compared to other Jamaican women since they are subject to proscriptions inherent in Christian doctrines and practices inherent in traditional African cultures (93)." "The idea that women are polluted, which is embodied in Christian dogma and African traditional beliefs, constitutes the theoretical basis for the subordination of Rastafarian women (94)." Lake's intention is not to glorify Rastafarians. She is cognizant that her "task is risky given the popular mystique regarding Rasta." Reading this work can lead to significant dis-enchantment with RastafarI, Jamaican, Caribbean, and African societies and culture and their future. By radically questioning the revolutionary nature and potential of RastafarI Lake simultaneously questions the emancipatory potential of other movements for cultural, economic, and political transformation in Jamaica, the Caribbean, and Africa, including the feminist movement: The pieces of the movement are not working together to bring about a fundamental change in the political economy that gives rise to the various forms of abuses against women. In addition, many feminists have internalized the right (and the rite) of male privilege making it difficult to attack these problems head on. (13) Such arguments scandalize Jamaican, Caribbean, and African societies. The reader gets the impression that Lake has carefully imposed certain presuppositions from feminist and other liberationists thinkers/discourses on RastafarI, Jamaican, and African culture in particular. This procedure detracts from what is a welcome and worthy piece of scholarship. Although the work might claim to be anthropological, scholars familiar with feminist liberation theology will recognize customary rhetoric and discourse. Consequently, the book is pseudo-anthropology and more liberation theology. It contains useful insights on a range of issues. The reader must be prepared to receive these insights critically and do further in-depth research. Lake should be able to benefit from criticisms raised against the book, in response to her insights on several topics, and use them in extending African Diasporic feminist liberation scholarship. One hopes this happens.

RastafarI Women is organized around eight (8) chapters. Chapter 1 is introductory. Chapter 2 begins with a discussion of European suzerainty over the political and personal economies of Africans in Jamaica. Slave women were exploited for their labor and the sexual services they were obliged to provide European men. The emancipation of African slaves in 1838 did not fundamentally change their political or socio-economic condition which led to major rebellions by the working masses in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Chapter 3 discusses the 1938 workers revolt, a watershed event which precipitated the formation of independence movements and political partisanship. Rastafarians, who had emerged several years prior to this, were concerned with nationalist and repatriation ventures and did not participate in larger struggles for emancipation. Chapter 4 delineates the major Rastafarian houses (sects) and the position of women within these organizations. Lake argues that one of the important tenets omitted in most of the earlier works on Rasta is the belief in women's inferiority. Chapter 5 describes the general issue of sexism in Jamaica and identifies RastafarI as one permutation of this institution. In addition to local control over women's mobility, multinational corporations proliferate under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund, increasing the GNP while simultaneously decreasing the standard of living for all poor Jamaicans, women being the hardest hit. Chapter 6 outlines how the subordination of Rasta women is legitimized by religious rhetoric. Chapter 7 discusses various symbols of identity Rastas use as vehicles of protest. Chapter 8 pays particular attention to the transformation of reggae from a music "of the people" to a music that is appealing and appeasing to commercial audiences. The production of reggae within a capitalist framework questions the role of reggae in "chanting down Babylon." A central theme in this chapter is the ways in which Caribbean music, in general, and reggae in particular, have historically denigrated women. Lake's critique extends to rap. Chapter 9 concludes the book by addressing the development of RastafarI within a broader context of heterosexism and capitalist development in Jamaica. A list of tables and figures precede the chapters which are followed by several appendices, bibliography, author and subject indices.

According to Lake, men who have advocated for the liberation of African people in the African Diaspora are not exempt from sexist attitudes and behaviors toward African women. Rastafarians stand out as an example par excellence of this contradiction since they are viewed by many as being in the vanguard of revolutionary movements. Rastafarian men have dominated leadership positions within the organization and consider women to be secondary in all matters pertaining to RastafarI. This position, although anathema to the idea of freedom, is not surprising given the existence of global patriarchy and the entrenchment of sexism in Jamaica. These uneven relations are significant as they indicate male propensity to exclusively struggle for male power--a focus that has historically pervaded all Diaspora African movements. Lake's focus on Rastafarians is not to single them out as atypical, but to offer them as a microcosm that depicts African and Diasporian African female/male relations in general. (3) Lake needs to take into consideration the actual implications of what she has written. Her work has seriously called into question revolutionary nature and potential of RastafarI. Lake's feminist "demythologization" of RastafarI has much to do with her argument that Rastafarians, in general, have betrayed the African revolution in the modern world. She shows her passion in declaring "all of this is quite unfortunate since Rastafarians had the potential of leading the most progressive movement of African people since Marcus Garvey. This potential has been thwarted by a number of historical misinterpretations and cultural practices that render true liberation improbable." (141) Why is Lake's appropriation of Garvey rather uncritical?

Lake's work has contributed in some degree to raising the question of women's status in RastafarI, Jamaica, the Caribbean and the African world. There is no doubt that women occupy a subordinate place in RastafarI. Nevertheless, the book does not significantly advance scholarship in any new directions. The author's focus, however, raises serious questions about her actual intention in writing the book. Would the author be willing, for example, to apply her critique to her host society? One gets the impression that the author is out to get RastafarI, and more. What one might ask, is Lake's actual perception of Caribbean society (ies)? She treads on shaky ground when she extends her discussion on the status of women in Caribbean societies as a whole without supplying adequate supporting data. There ought to have been greater focus on letting the voice of oppressed RastafarI women speak. The author's claim that since 1983 she has formally interviewed over one hundred women and have engaged in informal conversations with many more needs greater manifestation in RastafarI Women. Is Lake's intention designed to construct Jamaican, Caribbean, and other societies as inferior to others? Should Lake not seriously consider that when some RastafarI women claim that they are not oppressed that they have a right to claim such? Is she not imposing her cultural values on them?

Lake's treatment of Reggae, perhaps one of the best sections of her book, is very relevant. This could have been a subject all in itself. She complicates the issue by also dealing with Calypso. Although Calypso is mainly associated with Trinidad and Tobago it is popular in many other Caribbean territories. How could Lake fail to mention the veteran Lord Kitchener among Trinidadian calypsonians?

In the final analysis one wonders whether Lake actually uncovered what her focus on RastafarI, and some of her own predilections, were saying about the nature of Jamaican society in particular. It is not enough to talk about hierarchy and male domination in Jamaican society. Do aspects like traditional African culture, European colonialism, Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie, RastafarI, the Bible, and other related symbols point to a society that is fundamentally monarchical? Recognition of the pervasiveness, persistence, and problems of "sacred kingship" in Jamaican and other cultures might have significantly contributed to Lake's interpretation of RastafarI, Jamaican culture, and the implications for the status of RastafarI, and non-RastafarI women in Jamaican, the African (including Diasporic) societies, and elsewhere.

RastafarI Women: Subordination in the Midst of Liberation Theology raises the profound question of women's status in RastafarI, and African culture as a whole. Lake should be commended for her courage in addressing the question of the status of RastafarI women. It is a very complex one because it is raised in relationship to a complex movement inserted in a complex society. Much profit can be derived through careful, critical analysis and discussion of the issues raised by RastafarI Women. The subject is critical for consciousness raising, social change and transformation in Jamaica, the Caribbean and beyond. Lake has tried to indicate that it is also a global question. There are several typos in the book. (17, 71) Words are obviously missing from some sentences. The author needs to be consistent in her use of the term RastafarI. (34) RastafarI Women will be useful to scholars in the field of RastafarI Studies, Feminist/Women Studies, Caribbean Studies, Religious Studies (New Religious Movements, Religion and Social Change). Lake's work provides a lasting challenge for liberation to take place within the community of African-Descended peoples. Its greater success might well lie in the discussions it sets in motion.

Leslie R. James, DePauw University