Toughness...

            In the concluding chapters of Downtown Ladies, Gina Ulysse continues finishes up with the concluding thoughts of the ICIs. She places focus on the different forms of toughness that are represented and also of the drastic forms of change the higgler has undergone since the start of the import and export trade. The higglers have to be tough to maintain their ground and to be able to endure the many obstacles they face just to survive. They have to present themselves in a different manner in order to try and not be detected when importing goods into the country. Many of the invisible higglers are of wealth or present themselves as an elite class so they are permitted to continue with charge of any fees or penalties as to mistakably accuse a woman of the elite class of something so offensive would likely cost one their job. The higgler was the loud BLACK woman with no class and lacked the grace of femininity. She was also, as discussed in the earlier chapters, a single mother of many children who did not marry but would reproduce in an effort to signify the femininity that was otherwise denied to her. She could still not be a lady. Yet this is the foundation of which this toughness was built they knew nothing more than the life of either higglering or struggling. They mostly learned them both from their mother who had to also have this toughness to her. This toughness was to help them endure the hardships they were going to always face as a female higgler, a woman of no real class and inferior to the lady.

            The other very brilliant aspect that Ulysse brings up is the “masculine” domination, she says that the “toughness” is a reflection or consequence per say to this masculinization of their downtown space. Ulysse states that the masculinization of poverty downtown is due in part because the male was expected to be the head of households and their efforts to maintain these roles, although unethical, were still commendable because they were doing what needed to be done to take care of their families and not face the hardships of unemployment. The connection that can be made with this toughness and masculinity was that these higglers trade was much like that of the male “preferred” trade (selling drugs). But the women faced more ostracism from men and women alike. Why was it so unacceptable for the higgler to import and export goods that they and others on the island need, as opposed to their male counter parts selling drugs? Why does it seem that males are able to get away with more than women and receive less scrutiny among their fellow peers?