Essay/Term paper: Women in africa

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Social Issues

Women in Africa


Timothy Veneylo November 26, 1995 History 387

In many parts of Africa, there is a large discrepancy in who controlled
the resources, access to the economy, individual autonomy and central voice in
the government between the men and the women. African men, for the most part,
have the largest say in the activities of the country. When issues of concern
arise, "men's issues" usually became the issues of national concern, and those
issues pertinent to women go to the back of everyone's mind. Women are forced
to accept the results of men's actions, and usually nothing gets accomplished
that benefits them. Because women continually were overlooked, they began to
come together and protest. If one examines the following women's protests and
their outcomes: A.E. Afigbo's The Warrant Chiefs, Sylvia Leith-Ross' African
Women, Jean Allman's "Rounding Up Spinsters: Gender Chaos and Unmarried Women in
Colonial Asante", and Irene Staunton's Mothers of the Revolution, several
questions arise. What were women seeking and how did this differ from what men
wanted? Did women attain their goals, and if not, why not? If women were not
successful in getting their concerns at the forefront of national interest, at
what, if anything, were they successful?
In several instances women became so angered by their lack of voice,
that they were moved to act. In some of these cases, women were relatively
successful in organizing and mobilizing. The story of the Aba Riots, which is
discussed in both The Warrant Chiefs and African Women, proves this point well.
In Nigeria, in the late 1920's, the Warrant Chiefs wanted to impose a system of
annual taxation. What was so displeasing to the people about the tax was that
it involved a census, and that the money went towards no specific project. The
concept of counting free people was a foreign one to the Igbo. This notion went
contrary to custom, and it was believed to bring about death (Afigbo, 229). The
people of the Eastern Provinces felt that because they were being counted, the
colonial government was enslaving them or that they were out to destroy them.
Also objectionable to these people was the fact that the collected money went
towards ""development'" (Afigbo, 228), something for which these communities had
not asked.
The first year of tax collection went surprisingly well; except for a
few isolated incidents. The first year was rather non-violent for two reasons:
"It needed the shock of the first payment for people to realize what taxation
meant in practical terms" and the second reason was the large police presence
and prosecutions of opponents to the tax (Afigbo, 233). These two factors
allowed for a relatively peaceful tax collection.
However, when year two arrived, so did the resistance. In September
1929, Captain John Cook was sent to Bende as the Acting District Officer, where
he was disappointed with the male roll counts. He instructed his Warrant Chiefs
to conduct new counts, and "added that the exercise had nothing to do with a tax
on women" (Afigbo, 236). The mere mention of "women" and "tax" in the same
statement sparked immediate disapproval. Rumors began to fly that the
government had ordered a tax on women. Suddenly, the women reacted and agreed
to resist by the end of October, 1929.
Captain Cook did not want to conduct the count himself, so he sent a
mission school teacher to administer the count. When he arrived he asked a
woman whom he met outside to go and count ""her people'" (Afigbo, 237). Within
hours, women in mass numbers had gathered to discuss the tax, and went from
there to the mission teacher's home to ask them why they were being taxed. The
women equated being counting with taxation. "They also sent messengers "armed'
with fresh folded palm leaves to women of neighboring villages inviting them to
come to Oloko" (Afigbo, 238). The women traveled on foot to ask other women for
support, and the women they approached in their villages would go and rally
their peers and bring the idea to their attention. From there, the women would
decide if they would join the movement and what action, if any, would be taken.
The mere fact that women were able to organize themselves to act in such
a short time was a definite success. Thousands of women from the Eastern
Provinces participated in different activities; some of which were organized,
and some of which were not. The women disturbed court proceedings repeatedly,
decapped chiefs, looted court officials' homes, burned and vandalized court
houses, even looted European factories and shops. Their actions definitely
attracted the immediate attention of the colonial government.
Sylvia Leith-Ross describes how well the women were organized. In some
of the interviews that she conducted with participants and viewers, people were
amazed at the womens' solidarity. This text relays how the men in these areas
had no large part in the Aba Riots. It was said that the men basically "stood
completely on one side, passive, if consenting parties, to the extraordinary
behavior of their wives" (Leith-Ross, 30). This kind of activity was
unthinkable to men and women in other regions, but Igbo women were determined
not to be taxed. From one portion of the text, it almost sounds as if the men
might have taken care of the children while the women were out protesting. Some
women who were bystanders and were forced to participate in the riots, commented
on how they saw the women marching towards them and "they had no children with
them" (Leith-Ross, 32). This implies that the men were the caretakers of the
children during this period, because all of the women were involved in the
riots.There was nowhere else to leave the children. It is amazing to see the
opposite roles that men and women took in the Aba Riots.
However, the women did have some problems staying focused. There was an
incident when two of the women were hit by a medical vehicle, which sparked the
other women to participate in aimless looting. The women became so enraged at
the doctor who hit the two women, that they followed him into a factory and
began looting the European factories and shops, which was not the original goal
of the riots. Another fault of the women was their inability to gain
widespread support across the region. The method of carrying the palm leaf by
foot to neighboring regions inefficient. These women could not reach remote or
distant compounds. Any attempts that were made to get support from other women
were quickly thwarted by government officials, because they had the luxury of
transportation. The lack of modern transportation was no fault of the women,
but it caused a failure in their efforts.
The womens' reasons for revolting were purely economic. Women were
concerned first and foremost with their family's subsistence. The men had
already been taxed the year before, so family resources were low. In addition
the economy was in a deep depression, so money that was being made had far less
value than before. Therefore, the women knew that they could not afford to be
taxed, and still have enough money to support their families. Their concerns
were local and practical. The men were concerned with their autonomy being
threatened by the colonial officials. True the men knew that they would be in a
worse economic situation if their wives were taxed too, but they were more
concerned with being taken over by the government. The fear of enslavement was
more threatening than poverty. Because they did have different aims, it is
truly amazing that the women took the lead and made their voices heard.
As a result of the women's rioting significant changes came about in
colonial Nigeria. The riot "caused a change of policy as regards the basis of
local administration in the Eastern Provinces" (Afigbo, 247). The people also
witnessed an intense investigation into their political system, which had never
been done to that extent before. Essentially, "the policy and system of local
rule through chiefs came to an end with the women's Riot" (Afigbo, 248).
There was another historic example of women's successful attempts to
protest which is seen in "Rounding Up Spinsters: Gender Chaos and Unmarried
Women in Colonial Asante." In this instance, women were again very instrumental
in changing a situation which was disagreeable to them. They also went about
their protests in an organized fashion. The occurrences of rounding up young
unmarried women took place in Ghana during the late 1920's and the early 1930's.
During this time there was a high rate of venereal disease spreading
across the region, and the Asante Chiefs were under the impression that all
unmarried girls over the age of fifteen were loose and needed to find a husband.
If a girl or woman was caught without a husband, she was sent to jail. The
Chiefs argued that they were trying to prevent prostitution by forcing young
girls to be married as their justification. The Asante chiefs gave several
reasons why they wanted to round up the young girls, but probably the largest
reason for the crisis was the different definitions of marriage held by men and
women. Men viewed marriage as "a fact, a state of being, recognized by the
court as non-negotiable" (Allman, 201). Furthermore, the men believed that once
money was exchanged from the groom to the bride's family, marriage began, and
the man had exclusive sexual rights over his wife. Many women, on the other
hand believed marriage to be something very different. One woman in particular,
Afuah Buo, thought marriage was ""a process. . .tenuous and fluid in nature'"
(Allman, 201). It was obvious from the women's responses to their arrests, that
they also felt that marriage was something that could be easily moved in and out
of; which was equated to prostitution by the chiefs.
Therefore, because "chiefs and elders were articulating a new definition
of marriage that upheld the husband's exclusive sexual rights over his wife,
while minimizing or discounting completely the husband's reciprocal obligations
toward that wife", women stopped marrying (Allman, 201-201). It is not true
that all of the women had the same reaction toward the changing definition of
marriage. Some women purposefully chose not to marry because they feared
getting a venereal disease, other women could support themselves better without
a husband, and others were simply unlucky. The women outnumbered the men during
this time, so some women had no choice but to be single.
Because the women stopped marrying, the colonial chiefs responded the
way they did, arresting the women. However, the women had made arrangements to
get around the government's plans. When women were arrested, they were all
taken to jail, where they had to wait for a man to come to get them. The women
had to mention the name of a man that they intended to marry and have him come
and pay a fee, in order to be released. Most women had arranged to have male
relatives or friends to come and profess their plans to marry her. After the
fee was paid, the girl was free to go. Then she would go back to supporting
herself by farming or other means. .
Women were so disgusted by the fact that men were no longer fulfilling
their basic marital duty, providing the bare necessities for their wives. Men
were no longer doing so because of the order made by Effiduasihene, which
"undercut one of the fundamental obligations of marriage, that a husband must
maintain his wife" (Allman, 205). As a result women began "assert[ing] a great
deal of autonomy and independence - much of it linked to the establishment of
cocoa farms or to engagement in foodstuffs trade" (Allman, 204).
Women during this period were extremely successful at avoiding marriage,
if they chose to do so, by supporting themselves and each other. They
outsmarted the system in mass numbers and many went into business for themselves.
Women who were unhappy with their present situation either divorced their
husbands, went to court to challenge "matrilineal inheritance" (Allman, 210), or
avoided marriage altogether. G. Clark's work on Kumasi market women shows that
this was the "period during which women moved in dramatic numbers into trading,
especially in previously male-dominated commodities" (Allman, 209). Although it
is not definite, it is suggested that these women better survived the severe
economic decline of the 1930's than many of their male peers.
In this account it is easy to see the difference in what men and women
wanted. Men wanted total control of the women. The colonial chiefs felt that
they were loosing authority over the women, so they wanted to tighten their
reigns. Fond memories were recounted by the chiefs of ""the good old days. . .
[when] no girl or woman dared to resist when given away in marriage to a suitor
by her parents and relatives as is the case now'" (Allman, 199-200). Women's
uncontrollability had grown too large for the men not to act. The chiefs felt
as if their respect by women and the colonial government would diminish if they
could not control their own women.
The Asante women fought back because they wanted exclusive authority of
their productive and reproductive rights. Women were angry, rightfully so, at
the fact that men no longer provided them "chop money." Also, when slavery was
abolished, men began pawning their wives and exploiting them for use on their
cocoa farms. The women became so enraged at their subjugation by men, that they
reacted, successfully. Allman affirms that these women were successful when she
says that "this particular form of coercion was unsuccessful in even minimally
facilitating the exploitation of women's unpaid labour and one important reason
for its failure was that the capture of unmarried women did not get the backing
of the colonial government" (Allman, 212). In this particular instance, women
were able to "shape actively the emerging colonial world" (Allman, 213). The
only thing that the chiefs succeeded in doing was making the arrest of women a
profit-making venture; because every time a woman was released from jail, she or
the man had to pay the fine. Unfortunately, this was not their goal, so they
were ultimately unsuccessful. Women's productive and reproductive rights
remained under their control.