Gender Concepts

Gender – this refers to the socially constructed roles of and relationships between men and
women. Gender concerns men and women, including conceptions of both femininity and
masculinity. Gender can change with time and vary significantly within the same culture and
from one culture to another. Gender is not determined biologically. The difference between
“gender” and “sex” is that the latter refers only to biological difference whereas gender is
constructed socially

Femininity and Masculinity: Refers to one’s gender identity. It also refers to the degree to
which persons see themselves as masculine or feminine given what it means to be a man or
woman in society. Femininity and masculinity are rooted in the social, rather than one’s sex.
Societal members decide what being male or female means (e.g., dominant or passive, brave
or emotional). Because these are social definitions, however, it is possible for one to be female
but see herself as masculine or male but see himself as feminine (Burke and Stets, 2000)

Patriarchy: Refers to a male-dominated society. It a society where men hold the position of
power and have more privilege (head of the family unit, leaders of social groups, boss in the
workplace, and head of government) than women.

Feminism: this is the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.
“It is the radical notion that women are people” hence feminism is committed to achieving the
equality of the sexes. The radical notion is not exclusive to women: men, while benefiting from
being the dominant sex, also have a stake in overcoming the restrictive role that deprive them
of full humanity. Feminism therefore believes in the social, economic and political equality of
the sexes.

Public/Private: men are responsible for the public sphere (politics and economy) while
women are expected to take care of the private sphere (home and family). This public private
divide served as an argument against women’s right to vote, on the basis that suffrage for
women would alter the balance between the public and private spheres.

Power: refers to the ability to achieve whatever is desired regardless of any opposition. This
may be expressed through consent based on the perceived legitimacy of those who hold it (the
state, run by an elected government).

Differences: Gender differences are variance between males and females that are based on
biological adaptations that are the same for both sexes.
Violence: Violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women. It means all
act of gender-based violence that result in or are likely to result into physical, sexual,
psychological or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion
of arbitrary deprivation of liberty whether occurring in public or in private life (Art 3 a, Council
of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic
violence).

Stereotype: this is the generalized view or preconception about attributes or characteristics, or

the roles that are or ought to be possessed by, or performed by women and men. Gender
stereotype is harmful when it limits women’s and men’s capacity to develop their personal
abilities, pursue their professional careers and make choices about their lives.

Gender stereotyping refers to the practice of ascribing to an individual woman or man specific
attributes, characteristics, or roles by reason only of her or his membership in the social group
of women and men. It is wrongful when it results in a violation or violations of human rights
and fundamental freedom (United Nations Human Rights office of the High Commissioner).

Empowerment programmes: empowerment refers to making people reach the best of their
ability in doing things, which ordinarily they could not have been able to do before. It means
giving people power, adequate knowledge, and capacity, confidence and support to decide the
best for them. Women leaders engage in different programmes with the aim to empower their
fellow women and other less privileged members of the society.

Gender Roles in Politics and Society (Historical)

Women’s roles in African societies are often misunderstood and underestimated. Many feel
that women are completely dependent on their husbands and male relatives. But studies have
shown that women bear greater responsibilities than men in their families. Studies also suggest
that colonial rulers were afraid of African women’s spiritual abilities in anti-colonial resistance
and therefore sought to eliminate such women. This topic examines the role of women as
political actors through their experiences, status and exercise of power in governance or other
forms of authority from the pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial era. It highlights colonial
ruler’s imposition of gender ideologies on African political institutions and its resulting
alienation of African women from the activities of government.

Women’s Political Roles in the Pre-colonial African Societies

In many of the African societies, a number of avenues existed for women to exercise some
form of political authority. This was mainly through the roles they played in family and
domestic affairs, agriculture and economic production and distribution. Their political roles
were dependent on the type of economic structure and the social stratification of their societies.
Women statuses and positions differed in centralized and decentralized states. States with
complex hierarchical structures, provided women who either belonged to, or had familial ties
with the royal family the opportunity to enjoy authoritative power through the various political
offices they held. Such women either held positions at the village or district level. The socio-
political positioning of these women would grant them rights and privileges distinct from the
rest of the women, even before they gained the ability to exercise their specific roles.

Very few women participated in the activities of governance in the centralized system. In the
central societies, royal women played roles that enabled their actions to be comparative to men,
rather than to the actions and behaviours of their own sexes. Through their marriages and child
bearing roles, they provided the basis for the solidification of political power.

In the decentralized societies, political authority was dispersed. It was not clearly divided
between women and men. Their level of involvement was dependent economic and historical
factor while their authoritative control could be comparable to men. Women had control over
their own activities. Note that in the centralized system as well as the decentralize system,
women participated in the political administrations of their societies.

In almost every society in Africa especially south of the Sahara, stories have it that women
founded cities, led migrations, and conquered kingdoms. For example, the Songhai groups in
the Niger, Queen Amina of Kano (Nigeria. She conquered vast territories), the Akan in
Southern Ghana, the So in Cameroon, etc

Women also participated in complementary positions in many African societies. They

complemented the leadership roles of their sons, or they acted in a capacity that balanced the
powers vested in male rulers. For example, among the Swazi the mother of King called
Indlovukati shared political authority with her son in the area of resource allocation, justice and
religious ceremonies. In Lunda society( a woman ruled(Lukonkeketha) ruled alongside the
king(Mwata) and among the Bamileke of southern Cameroom, women wielded equal political
power like men. This was also the experience among the Chamba of Donga in the Benue region
of Nigeria, Bemba in northeastern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and in groups in the Great Lakes
region of east Africa. In the Buganda Kingdom (present-day Uganda), the power of the king
was balanced off with the power of the queen mother. Both of them exercised equal powers in
the areas of appointment, allocation of land and the collection of taxes.

Queen mothers were the official authority on the genealogy of the royal matrilineage and as
such had the first and final say on who was the rightful successor to a male stool.

Yaa Akyiyaa during the succession crisis to the stool of the Asantehene (Asante King) 1885 to
1888 showed her role in election. She made sure that her son ascended the Asante throne
despite the protest from a segment of the ruling council. This action weakened and divided the
Asante Kingdom, divided it into two and made it an easy target for the British Colonial
conquest. The Queen mother did not get the support of women in the society. She could not
count on women’s collective bargaining power. the story was different in Sierra Leone, where
a female Mende chief called Madame Yoko, effectively captured state power from 1885 to
1905 by depending on collective solidarity of women through a system known as Bundu. Yoko
used utilized slave raiding and military offences to expand her empire. She train girls for
marriage( she trained them in ber Bundu bush and married them off to prospective men).

Among the Lovedu of South Africa, women exercised power superior and equal to men. The
Lovedu queen mother had supernatural powers. She could “make rain” for her people and stop
rain from falling in the enemies territory. She lead both the judicial and political systems of the
Lovedu. She appointed women as “mothers of the Kingdom” to represent the various districts
and act as the link between her office and the public. In Oyo and Edo empires, women (“ladies
of the palace”, played significant roles in the political history of the empires. Through effective
groups, they guaranteed political stability and human rule, and attended to the interest of the
women. The Igbo society had an institution known as Omu which allowed a woman act as the
official mother of the society.

All these examples show that women exerted political influence in various ways.

Women’s Political Roles in Colonial Africa

The ideological notion of the Colonial master was that women are only good for marital and
reproductive purposes. Hence they made every effort to exclude women from participation in
politics and in the affairs of government. They depended solely on male authority. For instance
in Igbo land of Nigeria, they attached salary to the traditional male office of the Obi while
position of the female Omu was ignored. Through the indirect rule, the British governed
through chiefs and other male leaders in their colonies. They completely ignored the female
political structures. The Akan female stool in southern Ghana, its supporting institutions and
the important roles that they played were submerged by the colonial rule. Women were no
longer included as chiefs and recognized members of the native Authority councils and courts.
The British colonial authorities “could not conceive of any woman as having the capacity to
hold a significant political position or play adversary roles in the public governance”

In responses to these impositions, women in the continent participated fully in the anti-colonial
resistance and in the wave of nationalist and liberation movements that occurred after World
War II. A good example is the Aba women Riot of 1929. Women used the traditional method
of “seating on a man” to humiliate men who violated women rights. The riot was also to protest
the introduction of taxes in 1927 and 1928 in the five southern provinces of eastern Nigeria.

Anticolonial protests were witnessed in Tanzania, Kenya, and Cameroon due to imposition of
taxes and interference in the socioeconomic life of women. In Kom of Cameroon, women
rioted in reaction to the colonial government’s insistence that they adopt vertical farming rather
than the horizontal contour farming. After three years of Anlu Rebellion (1958-1961), the
women seized political power from men. women in the Pare District in Tanzania in the 1940s
politically demonstrated against colonial taxation. Men also participated in some of the riots.

Apart from protesting against colonial taxes and other social impositions, women’s roles in
nationalist and liberation movements to a large extent influenced the end of colonial rule in
many places in Africa. Examples: Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Angola, Tanzania,
Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Some of them became prominent and emerged as
leaders of liberation movement. Examples include Muhumusa of n orthern Rwanda, Nehanda
Charwe of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and the Empress T’aitu Bitoul of Ethiopia. Their claim to
spiritual and political authority allowed them to engage in resistance activities against colonial
rule. The nationalist movements in Nigeria experienced less violence as the electoral processes
were utilized. Market women through their income politically influenced the outcome of
elections.

In South Africa, women demonstrated against passes which required women to carry reference
documentation already carried by men. In fear that this might affect their lives and family
structures, they took to the street in protest to protect their way of life and family values. In
Pretoria August 9, 1956, 22,000 women took part in the demonstration. The demonstration
spread to the country side. Eventually, the women did not win the struggle against the passes.

Individual women also spearheaded political agitation or engaged in political to encourage

other women to participate in the affairs of government and in public life. For example Mrs
Elizabeth Adeyemi Adekogbe in Ibadan, Nigeria. She became a member of the colonial
administration and created a movement for women’s participation in public affairs in 1952.
She was later incorporated into the National Council of Women’s Societies (NCWS).

Constance Cummings-John of Sierra Leone worked tirelessly to unravel the hold of

colonialism in her country. With the help of market women, she fought for self-actualization
and self-government. In 1938, Commings-John was elected to the municipal council of
freetown making her the first in Africa to occupy such position. She became an effective leader
as her political activities gave birth to two women’s unions: the Sierra Leone Market Women’s
Union and the Washerwomen’s Union. In 1966, after the end of her mayoral duties, she left
politics but women who were encouraged by her efforts continued with the struggle for
women’s participation in government and public affairs. Nancy Koromah was one of such
women.

On the Gold Coast (Ghana), women played significant role in the nationalist struggles against
colonialism and pioneering for women political development in West Africa. By 1951, women
on the Gold Coast attained the right to vote and the first female candidates stood for elections
in municipal assemblies. In 1953, Mrs H. Evans Lutterodt and Stella Dorothy Lokko on the
ticket of the Ghana Congress Party (GCP) and Mabel Dove on the ticket of the Convention
People’s Party (CPP) stood for election in the Accra Town council elections. None them won
but their participation set the pace for other women. For the CPP, Evans devoted her columns
in the Accra Evening News to espouse the objectives and ideologies of the party, Nkrumah’s
heroism, agitation for “self -government now “and brought attention to injustices of colonial
rule. In her constituency, she toiled hard to ensure that clean water, good roads, dispensaries
and the promotion of women’s education.

Keita of Mali and Adepeju Esan of Nigerian also made significant contributions in the early
stage of African women’s nationalist and political activities. Keita was the first woman to be
elected a deputy to a national assembly in French-speaking West Africa. she was also elected
to the national political bureau of the Rassemblement Democratiqe Africain (the African
Democratic Assembly). Esan on the other hand became the first woman to serve on the federal
legislative council in Nigeria as well as the first to be on the federal executive committee of
action group.

Rebecca Njeri of East Africa political leadership role in Kikuyu society was very significant.
Her nationalist activities between 1947 and 1948 helped organized the “women’s war” against
the British colonial government’s insistence that women use antierosion contouring in their
farming practices.

It is therefore believed that women’s active participation of colonial resistance and in

nationalist activities would help Forge (falsify) their political consciousness in the period after
the end of colonial rule on the continent. “colonialism eroded whatever political power women
exercised through the systematic transfer of political roles to African men.”

Women’s Roles in Government in Post colonial Africa.

Though women fought side-by-side with men in the struggle for independence (especially in
eastern and southern Africa) and made great efforts to bring the plight of women and children
to the forefront of national discuss ( Mabel Dove, Wurola Adepeju Esan, and Aoua Keita). In
the post colonial era, political power was restricted to men (continuation of colonial
government’s gendered restrictions). The women were completely neglected. This did not
discourage them rather, they continued to work hard to engage the general public and political
leaders about the importance of women participation in politics and in the general activities of
public life for the betterment of society.
During the early years of independence, it was difficult for women to gain access to political
positions. In Nigeria, for instance, although Yoruba women became politically active in the
1950s and help organized women’s wings of political parties, but between 1950 and 1960 not
a single woman was elected as a representative in the Nigerian national legislative council.

According to the United Nations 1986 survey, an average of only 7.1 percent of women
occupied seats in their countries national legislature. This was attributed to the fact that politics
is the quintessential male sphere of influence and action and one in which women are
considered inefficient and generally not welcomed. Also, elite women in politics pursue
interest that have little or no relevance to the interest and needs of “ordinary” women. This
discourages other women to join and play roles in government. This gap has reduced in recent
time as a greater number of women are getting educated and becoming conscious of the power
of their electoral vote and voice. Gradually there is an increase in women’s participation in
government and in other political capacities as prime ministers, cabinet members, ministers,
legislative representatives, and even presidents. Women are playing significant roles in national
and international politics.

The growth in women’s participation in government and national decision making is not only
peculiar to Africa. Since the 1990s, women’s participation in government and politics steadily
rose across the world. They have enjoyed some form of formal equality such as the right to
vote, stand for elections and compete for offices –although not religious.

According to the 1999 Inter-parliamentary Union report on women in national parliaments in

south of Sahara rose to 11.5 percent with four countries showing an average of 20 percent or
more (Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa). But in Nigeria, Niger, Togo... they
accounted for less than 5 percent. In spite of the fact that women have been underrepresented
throughout the history of political participation, they have continually made effort to rise to
positions where women did not exist before.

African women’s participation in politics and governmental issues was not limited to their
countries’ political space. Women took major steps in the international scene and made
significant impact in redirecting Western feminist focus on women and political power. African
women made significant contributions towards the changes in global discourse

They participated in the 1975 and 1980 United Nations Decade of Women Conferences in
Mexico City and Copenhagen respectively and played significant roles in instigating changes
in the views and position of women in the international women’s movement. The conferences
which were constituted of women from Western and non-Western worlds addressed the
challenges and problems that women face around the world and proffered solutions to these
problems. Both conferences were plagued by conflict of interest and ideological positions. For
example during the Mexico City Conference, Western feminist participants wanted to focus on
the disparities and inequalities between women and men, while the non-Western participants
prioritized socioeconomic disparities between the developed and the developing countries and
on issues relating to racial and class discrimination.

At the Copenhagen conference, the Western women insisted that the issue of clitoridectomy-
the removal of the clitoric practices in some African countries must be the focus of the
conference but the non Western participants did not support them. The African women were
offended. They felt that the Western women know nothing of their needs and struggles and
hence could not possible understand their position. The western feminists saw the African
women’s action as a betrayal of the cause of women since the focus of the conference was to
dialogue women’s issues and not general political struggles.

One of the African leaders, Ruth Mompati of the African National Congress (ANC) countered
the Western feminist accusations by reiterating that for African women, all the basic
sociocultural, economic and political components of life must be instituted if they were to
achieve equality and equity in society. This meant that for the African woman, all issues were
women’s issues, and they must be addressed in unison if poverty and other social
discrimination against women were to end. This can happen when women gain access to the
political process and a space of agency in their country’s national decision-making processes
in order to be able to talk about and effect any change.

The dialogue between both sides, led to the development of global feminism which was
certainly more inclusive and broadly based than the Western Feminism. The reassessment of
effects of social, economic, and political factors in advancing women’s life together with the
activities of the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) on women’s
empowerment agendas worldwide produced a change

DAWN, women’s political empowerment was twofold: one that insisted on a new trend in
which development would be characterized by the redistribution of wealth from rich countries
to poor countries, and two, women have a greater role in the sharing of political power.

Challenges Women Encounter in their Political Roles

1. The origin of these challenges that women politicians have to deal with could be from
the women’s personal family relationships where spouse and family members object
their participation in politics because of the dangers associated with offices.

2. Women’s political party affiliations and their roles in government where ideological
pressure force them to kowtow to certain norms

3. How they relate with people in their electoral constituencies and with their male
counterparts

4. One of the ironic sources of challenge to women’s political roles is other women.

5. The fact that they have to work in male structured environment and from within the
context of rules, values, and expectations established by the male order.
 6. Social impositions that view women as incapable of performing public roles even
before women political figures have the chance to prove themselves otherwise.(this has
made women in politics to go the extra mile in carrying out their public responsibilities).

7. Caricaturing of the way female politicians appear in public (media focus on the
appearance of women for ridicule. They are judged based on the sexuality and morality
rather than their intellect). Some countries have dress codes for women parliamentary
members (Zambia, Zimbabwe)

8. Sexual harassment from their male counterparts

9. Lack of trust that they are as capable and as qualified are their male counterparts get
their jobs done effectively and efficiently.

10. Patriarchal structures, gendered normative practices and role expectations, conform to
certain prescribed behaviours, combine their public and private roles with any hiccups,
follow party directives, and satisfy the demands of their constituencies.

Factors that Hinder Women’s Roles in Politics and Government

1. Lack of women’s access to educational opportunities

2. Women’s minimal participation in general public roles

3. Socioeconomic and cultural conditions

4. Cumbersome electoral processes