Image Of African Women In A Patriarchal Society
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Image Of African Women In A Patriarchal Society
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background for the study
Traditionally, African women have had a variety of responsibilities in pre-colonial African communities, ranging from peacemaking to peacebuilding (Amadium, 1997; Ngongo-Mbede, 2003; Mohammed, 2003). The existence and influence of African women in pre-colonial African civilisations were founded on a caring ethic rooted in their motherhood and nature, which included tolerance, nonviolence, and peace.
According to Nwoye (no date), women participated in peace-building by providing childcare, responsible mothering, and nurturing for children in ways that prepared and socialised them for peaceful coexistence.
Most pre-colonial African communities had a culture of peace, tolerance, and anti-war traditions that were embedded and passed down through folktales, proverbs, poetry, music, and dance.
Traditionally, women are typically considered as transmitters of these cultural ideals to their children and to future generations through such artistic representations.
It should be emphasised that, due to the crucial role women play in our African communities, Mohammed, a Somali poet, employs Somali stories, poetry, songs, and proverbs to illustrate the importance of African women as knowledge transmitters and builders of a secure social fabric. Mohammed (2003:102) thus states:
Mother! Without You
It would have been impossible to say the alphabet.
Mother! Without You
It was impossible to learn how to speak.
A child without your care,
Sweet lullaby.
And subtle touches.
Would not grow up.
Mother! You are the source of love!
The essence of kindness.
To emphasise the critical role that African women play in our society, a common Somali adage states that “before becoming adults, we attend a basic school and that school is mother.”
Even in pre-colonial patriarchal cultures such as the Zulu, women were traditionally able to break up fights by falling over the person being beaten, and according to Rakoczy (2006), Zulu women’s ability to do so may be due to respect for women as the ones who bear children.
According to the aforementioned, African women were symbolically referred to as basic school, and as such, they had the difficult responsibility of preparing young children for adulthood.
Again, African women in pre-colonial communities were active participants in dispute resolution. Everyone admired the elderly women, who played an important role in crisis management.
Among the Tudors of Cameroon, for example, the ‘Wog Clu’ (old women) were in charge of conflict resolution, and as a result, they were consulted on issues that threatened communal peace (Ngongo- Mbede, 2003).
According to Amadiume (1997), African women have made two distinct contributions to world history and civilisation: matriarchy and the dual sex nature of African political systems, which is closely tied to the matriarchal component.
She believes that African matriarchy was fundamentally, socially, and ideologically driven, and that it served as the foundation for kinship and larger moral systems.
However, this fundamental, social, and intellectual foundation was challenged by the imposition of authority by affluent and powerful nations that govern Africa, as well as the imposition of patriarchy, which is masculine in ideology and hence praises aggression, valour, conquest, and power to varying degrees.
On this note, Diop (1989) believes that patriarchy deprives women of their rights, subjugating and making them property in a tight hierarchical family system in which the man (husband or father) is superior and has the power of life and death over women.
In the face of imperialist patriarchy, traditional African women in postcolonial Africa appear to have lost the image, myth, and holiness that defined their being and social life.
This is because, in addition to being socially, economically, and politically marginalised (Amadiume, 1997; Nzeogwu, 2000; Rehn & Johnson-Sirleaf, 2002), they have become victims of various forms of physical abuse and sexual violence based on a distorted understanding of African patriarchies, which has resulted in negative masculinities across the continent (Isike and Okeke-Uzodike, 2008).
Women’s oppression is cultivated throughout Africa and around the world through patriarchy, which is a cultural weapon in society. Africa is primarily a patriarchal society, which is shaped by its traditional culture: “inAfrica, female subordination takes intricate forms grounded in traditional culture, particularly in the “corporate” and “dual-sex” patterns that Africans have generated throughout their history” (Mikel, 1997:9).
Men control the socioeconomic, political, and state organisational apparatus in African patriarchal societies. Men are viewed as natural, superior leaders who were born to reign over women. Women are deemed lesser vessels, and according to society, they are simply an extension of men.
As a result, Maseno and Kilonzo (2011) claim that many African cultures regard women as unequal to men. Men are often considered as overseers, while women are primarily employed in lowly professions.
Coetzee (2001) emphasises this unequal power relationship between men and women when she describes how power is dispersed between men and women in South Africa.
…our society is patriarchal. The reality is obvious when one considers that the military, industry, technology, universities, science, governmental offices, and money, in short, every avenue of power within society, including the coercive force of the police, is fully in male hands (p.301).
Under patriarchy, men and women are taught to see themselves and the world through separate perspectives. While patriarchy typically results in the subjugation of women, men have been granted a stake in the system.
Women in patriarchal societies have little choice but to accept patriarchy and its related difficulties, as Foucault (1980) succinctly puts it: “individuals, who do not comply with the social norms of the dominant discourse in society, are branded as ‘abnormal'” (p. 7).
Male privilege in African patriarchal societies begins during his mother’s pregnancy, when his family demonstrates an age-long preference for a baby boy, especially if it is the first. at some African societies, every married woman is reported to stand on one leg at her husband’s house until she gives birth to a male kid. To demonstrate the seriousness with which a male child is valued in a patriarchal society, Wentworth (2005:4) states:
In many cultures, if a guy does not have a son, his virility is questioned. The patriarchal system renders a girl a liability since it requires her to marry, a status that typically provides her with no long-term economic value to her family of origin. Male advantage also means that a son has a low likelihood of dying at birth.
In literature, African women have also been stereotyped, marginalised, and portrayed negatively. This conventional portrayal of women is repeated by Kolawole (1997), who claims that “male writers in the early phase of African literature encouraged the marginalisation of African women” (p.9).
According to Fonchingong (2006), “African literature is replete with writings that project male dominance and inadequately pleads the case of African women” (pp. 135-146).
In African literature, women have been portrayed as auxiliary to men, making them appear as objects of motherhood and wifehood. For example, Mariama Ba’s well-read work So Long a Letter, written in French in 1981 and translated into English in 1989, focusses thematically on the harmful effects of polygamy on women in patriarchal Senegalese society.
The appropriateness of this text in dealing with the aforementioned issue has prompted Harrow to write the vision of Ba in the preface to So Long a Letter: “she believed that the’sacred mission’ of the writer was to strike out ‘at the archaic practices, traditions, and customs that are not real part of our precious cultural heritage”.
So Long a Letter succeeds brilliantly in its objective of highlighting some of the harmful cultural behaviours that harm an African woman’s well-being.Ba employs an epistolary style of writing to depict the predicament of African women in post-colonial Senegal.
Ramatoulaye, the first narrator, sends a long letter to her childhood friend Aissatou, describing the consequences of Islam and tradition on women. In this book, Ramatoulaye writes a letter to cope with the four-month seclusion imposed by Islam for widows.
Ramatoulaye finally loses her spouse to death and must deal with a series of suitors, including her late husband’s brother, Tamsir. In her current state of despair, she has no choice but to respond: “My voice has known thirty years of silence, thirty years of harassment.” It explodes out, furious, caustic, and disdainful (p.60).
As a result, Ramatoulaye is opposing the practice of a man marrying more than one wife and passing down wife inheritance in an Islamic society.
As a result, So Long a Letter paints such a realistic image of African women’s struggles in postcolonial Senegal that it has an impact on both students and readers. On this footnote, Williams (1997) offers this:
While So Long a Letter focusses on the lives of two women in postcolonial Senegal, my novel addressed the concerns and challenges of the women in my class.
These students experienced significant challenges in obtaining an education because they were the first generation in their family to attend college. Some were single mothers who worked in degrading occupations during the day and went to school at night (p. 142).
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