Patriarchy And Gender In Africa

This timely and expansive multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary collection dissects precolonial, colonial, and post-independence issues of male dominance, power, and control over the female body in the legal, socio-cultural, and political contexts in Africa. Contributors focus on the historical, theoretical, and empirical narratives of intersecting perspectives of gender and patriarchy in at least ten countries across the major sub-regions of the African continent. In these well-researched chapters, authors provide a deeper understanding of patriarchy and gender inequality in identifying misogyny, resisting male supremacy, reforming discriminatory laws, embracing human-centered public policies, expanding academic scholarship on the continent, and more.

A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title Negotiating Patriarchy and Gender in Africa: Discourses, Practices, and Policies examines the entrenchment of patriarchy in Africa and its attendant socioeconomic and political consequences on gender relations. The contributors analyze the historical and modern ways in which gender expectations have enabled women in African societies to be systematically abused and marginalized, from unpaid labor to poor representation in decision-making areas. Exploring regions such as rural Uganda, the suburbs of Zimbabwe, the Gold Coast, South Africa, and Nigeria, contributors incorporate a wide range of academic theories and disciplines to establish the need for improved policy implementation on gender issues at both the local and national government levels in Africa.

This book argues for the applicability of a materialist mode of production analysis to the situation of women in Africa. It briefly reviews some of the intellectual background and current theoretical dilemmas of marxism-feminism.

Gordon analyzes the interplay between capitalism, development and the status of African women. Drawing on the work of both African and Western researchers, she shows that capitalist development projects have mainly benefited a small stratum of African elites and proposes concrete strategies for making it more equitable for women.

This book examines the entrenchment of patriarchy in Africa and its attendant socioeconomic and political consequences on gender relations. Using both historical and modern examples, contributors analyze the ways women have been systematically marginalized in African societies...

This book investigates why the rate of female labor force participation in the Middle East and North Africa is the lowest in the world. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the book explains that the primary reason for the low rate of female labor force participation is the strong institutions of patriarchy in the region. Using multiple proxies for patriarchy, this book quantifies the multi-dimensional concept of patriarchy in order to measure it across sixty developing countries over thirty years. The findings show that Middle Eastern and North African countries have higher levels of patriarchy with regards to women’s participation in public spheres compared with the rest of the world. Although the rate of formal female labor force participation is low, women across the region contribute greatly to the financial wellbeing of their families and communities. By defining a woman’s place as in the home, patriarchy has made women’s economic activities invisible to official labor statistics since it has caused many women to work in the informal sector of the economy or work as unpaid workers, thus creating an illusion that women in the region are not economically active. While religion has often legitimized patriarchy, oil income has made it affordable for many countries in the region.

Africa has witnessed massive changes in the last fifty years – from independence through structural adjustment, rule by military juntas in several countries and to a period now where the focus is on how best to prioritize their needs based on resources, national goals and human potential. There is general agreement that human capital is important in economic growth and development. There is always the need to ensure that resources and human capital are used appropriately to advance development. Gender disparities, whether in treatment, access to resources, resource utilization and the law, may in themselves retard or slow down development. Resources and human potential in all societies include how best to ensure there is no gender disparity and to fully tap the resources inherent in women for personal, social and national development. Beginning with the women’s suffrage movement, there has been the push to encourage gender equality worldwide. The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 embodies the commitment of the international community to implement policies that will enhance the political, social, economic, educational empowerment of women. This book highlights the issues affecting women in Eastern and Southern Africa – what role does custom and patriarchy play in gender disparities in education, access to health, problems in the workplace and family relationships? How have women writers in the last twenty years presented the issues of patriarchy, women’s rights, globalism and women’s holistic development? What are recent developments that have helped improve the situation for some women? These are some of the issues that are covered in this book. The thesis of this book is that there have been policies and strategies developed that have worked to empower women. However, vestiges of sexism, gender disparities in several fields still remain and traditions/customs and patriarchy have aided in still keeping women down.div“/div>

African feminism, this landmark volume demonstrates, differs radically from the Western forms of feminism with which we have become familiar since the 1960s. African feminists are not, by and large, concerned with issues such as female control over reproduction or variation and choice within human sexuality, nor with debates about essentialism, the female body, or the discourse of patriarchy. The feminism that is slowly emerging in Africa is distinctly heterosexual, pronatal, and concerned with "bread, butter, and power" issues. Contributors present case studies of ten African states, demonstrating that—as they fight for access to land, for the right to own property, for control of food distribution, for living wages and safe working conditions, for health care, and for election reform—African women are creating a powerful and specifically African feminism.