Download Female Domination

The Problem of Gender in the Sub-Saharan Countries
as Compared to Algeria
Mr. Abdelkader Nebbou,
Institute of Foreign Languages,
Department of English
University of Bechar, Algeria, e-mail: [email protected]
ABSTRACT:
The process of gender in sub-Saharan Africa is not a modern issue. As Muslims from North
Africa influenced the pagans in the sub-Saharan areas, the prevailing matriarchal system was
jolted there.
Women situation in the sub-Saharan and West African countries particularly was exacerbated
by the arrival of the colonists. Studies indicate that women’s position relative to men
deteriorated under colonialism. Male domination became nonetheless an integral part of
African societies.
Algeria one of the North African countries, whose women suffered immensely from
obscurantism during colonisation, has favoured the policy of women’s empowerment since
independence 1962. The rising number of females in higher positions is attributed to the will
of male students to start work earlier rather than continue their education, and to females'
desire to assert themselves in posts that were predominantly man’s.
This article sheds light on the women’s domination in the sub-Saharan countries by
examining how female situation worsened during colonisation and how female sufferance
continues after independence as they represent a big part of the victims in regions of conflicts.
Algeria, on the other hand, is one of the rare countries where women-empowerment policy is
reflected positively on both women and the Algerian community.
Key Words:
-gender
-female status
-women empowerment
-spread Islam
-sexuality
-male domination
- polygamy
Introduction
Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that
a given society considers appropriate for men and women. In gender analysis, one tries to
understand the differences between men and women in terms of these attributes. Generally,
the roles, activities, opportunities and access to the different resources and control over them
vary across different socio-economic and cultural settings between men and women.
The necessity for gender analysis is to promote equality between men and women for
sustainable development and the welfare of a given society. However, research has shown
that in most gender analyses, throughout history that due to the events the sub-Saharan areas
were exposed to, woman status was mostly affected.
The Impact of Islam on Sub-Saharan Societies
The impact of Islam on the group members in the western part of black Africa, which
actually was through the Moslems’ good conduct and their righteous maxim, gave rein to
such tendency as the one toward polygamy. Similar to the Arabs and other Moslem
inhabitants of the north of Africa, the Tuareg the Hausa, the Fulani, the Mandinka, the Ibos,
the Swahili and the Ashanti, in sub-Saharan areas have considered marriage and raising a
family important for every one of their members.
Most of these groups lived in villages, were autonomous and self-ruled, led by a chief
and group of elders. Before the Western compact, Learning was traditional; it was done
through stories, songs and proverbs. The Western education's impact was low on the adults
and children who learned Arabic script in small Quranic schools.
For the families among these Muslim-convert groups or the ones in contact with them, a
woman held a very importance. A family depended on the number of the wives and the
importance of each wife depended on how many children the woman had or she brought up.
Consequently, it is always the first wife that was more privileged and gained more respect
than the others wives who came later after her.
“We had only one Mama. The other two wives (at the time
– there are more now) were called mother by their children
or so and so ‘s mother by the rest..
The trouble with my father was his endless desire for wives
and children. Or I should say children and wives. Right now
he has five wives - the youngest a mere girl whom he married
last year. 1
A good wife would not object to her husband marrying a second wife to increase their
prosperity and to increase both his and her prestige in the community. The more people in a
household, the more workers there were for the fields, and the more food, and therefore
wealth, could be produced.
The Sub-Saharan woman during Colonization
Many of the African postcolonial works focus on cross-cultural conflict. They explore
the differences between the traditional culture (the African, native culture) and the Western
modern culture (the European, alien culture). The African subjects seemed to be lost between
the two cultures. The young people, particularly, were educated in western ways totally
different from those they were taught by their families at home. During colonization,
Europeans insisted that their African subjects adopt European clothing. They opposed African
non-religious dancing, local drinks, and any form of sexual freedom outside monogamous
marriage.
Colonialism was not neutral as to gender (relation between men and women).
Consequently, women in Sub-Saharan colonies lost their primary role that they used to play in
their clans. Rather colonization established a patriarchal order parallel to a racist ideology and
practices. Studies indicate that women’s position relative to men deteriorated under
colonialism. They also show that, while pre-colonial women had more freedom than their
colonized descendants, male domination was nonetheless an integral part of the societies they
lived in. 2
Ill-treatment for wives, from ignoring them to raping them represented the brutal way of
the white man during colonization of Africa. The colonizer wanted to see her decorated
through his eyes; according to his standard. He wanted to teach her the manners and the
physical façade of the western woman. Then he wanted to take her, to be used in his private
world, sexuality. 3
According to Beth Kramer, many scholars link between imperial oppression and
masculine domination of women, while ignoring the homosocial bonds that exist to preserve
these structures. For instance, In Masculinity and Power (1989), Arthur Brittan focuses on the
male-female binary in his discussion of patriarchy. He supports the idea that in male discourse
and pornography, “sexual objectification is reminiscent of the relationship between the slave
and the master”. Making a woman an object of desire places her in a physically and politically
subordinate position, like that of an exploited colony in the hands of its colonizer. 4
The prominent Nigerian novelist Achebe hinted to women’s subservience to men in A
Man of the People. The female characters Mrs. Nanga, Edna, and Elsie reflect the African
woman situation after before independence and after. The males’ attitude towards women
underlies the indifference to the suffering created by the European’s encroachment on the
natives' land as well as the gender relation; be it a relation between a European to an African
or between an African subject to another mainly female subjects. The men in Achebe’s novel
convey to the reader that earning male respect involves the ability to possess the female.
The African male subjects were helpless and insecure in front of their oppressor the
white man since the beginning of colonization. The impact of colonization weakened the
authority of the black man in their groupings. Colonists made laws eroding with their western
liberal concepts of ‘emancipation’ – it was part of the take-over bid – as they campaigned
against polygamy, marriage at an early age, and against keeping women at home. Frantz
Fanon’s description of how European employers put the pressure on the colonized male
subject in the industry was a certification of man’s difficult and tragic situation in the African
colonies. Exhausting him at work was not enough. They extended their occupation into his
home. In Algeria, for example, they asked him if his wife wore the veil, and they suggested
that he should bring her to the office or factory. The worker was in a dilemma: bringing his
wife to work meant exhibiting her for ‘prostitution’ which meant submission and abandoning
the least mode of resistance. On the other hand, any objection to the boss’ request meant the
worker’s running the risk of losing his job. 5
Consequently, the only option left for men to prove that they had a say in the society –
no matter how far the Europeans jolted the ties between the society members – was to turn
their fury toward women. Women were unprotected against men like Chief Nanga. This is
how colonization reinforced the notion that political power feeds off the continued
domination of women. 6
The African male subject was not only usurped from his ‘manhood’, but lost his
primary role in his family. It became obvious that the participation of the father and his role in
bringing up his child was reduced to adopting his name for his son. Moreover, the economic
role of the woman was narrowed to the bare minimum; she became only a burden behind. In
the nomadic company she did not have another role besides to procreation. Consequently, the
husband was believed to be the sole wife’s provider and the only one who ordained her fate.
In Black Africa, it is thought almost everywhere that biologically the child’s chances
of speaking with his/her mother were more than his/her opportunities to talk with the father.
Maternal heredity which is more solid than the heredity from the father usually provokes
frequent contact and stronger ties with the mother before school age. This consolidates the
African belief that of women staying at home under the superiority of their husbands. 7
Females’ Status in Sub-Saharan Countries after Independence
As most of the African countries had been either British or French colonies up till the
mid of the 20th century, the impact of the colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’ is still apparent
among African groups that seem to never get in terms together. In spite of the United Nations
involvement in the disarmament process and the establishment of peace, the regimes in these
countries have not experienced a truly democratic or accountable system of governance.
There have been civil wars and ethnic conflicts in Mali, Nigeria, Sierra-Leone, Mozambique,
Ivory Coast, Sudan, Ethiopia, Burundi Congo, Somalia, Liberia, and Angola and other areas.
Unfortunately, a high number of men were killed during the war for independence from
colonists, which means the remaining majority of the population in these countries constitutes
women and children. Women and girls became targets of violence during the conflicts. Sexual
violence has been used to terrorize, punish and subdue the resisting population. About 60% of
abducted children in Sierra-Leone were girls. Women and girls were taken from home and
villages by force and any resistance meant the death of the victim. 8 Children, mainly girls,
suffer abduction, rape, sexual slavery, amputation, torture and displacement.
Those fortunate enough ran away from their homes and became refugees in the
neighbouring countries where they had to barter their bodies to survive. 9 About 4,285,100
asylum seekers and refugees, most of whom were women and girls, were estimated in SubSaharan Africa at the beginning of 2004 by the UNHCR. 10
The current wars due to political instability in different parts of Africa are having a
severe impact on females. Women’s rights in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Mali, Sierra-Leone,
for example, are denied. These women are already suffering the effects of even more severe
malnutrition, which inevitably will be their children's fate as well. Fifty-four percent of those
children are girls who are not enrolled in school. 11 Moreover, the conflicts in the African
countries impact heavily on children as the latter’s rights are violated by the armed factions
and the antagonistic groups, in total contravention of the rules applicable to conventional
warfare.
In Sub-Saharan countries, the areas of various conflicts: tribal, religious, historical, and
linguistic discrepancies leading to political instability, gender equity in education remains a
serious problem. Violence and coercion have become the norm against girls in schools.
Consequently, thousands of females are illiterate because they have been deprived of learning
or dropped out of school at an early age. This practice affects the quality of their future
employment and the rest of their life.
The widespread Dropping of girls out of schools has exposed them to the risk of being
abused sexually which leads to unintended pregnancies. The absence of strict government
measures to protect female victims has created a fertile climate for the spread of transmitted
diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
As a consequence to the women status and children’s lack of care in Sub-Saharan
Africa, the scale of the AIDS epidemic is enormous. The UNAIDS’ report of 2006 estimated
that the prevalence of the HIV/AIDS in Sierra-Leone reached 1.6% among the population and
48.000 others were infected by the virus. Subsequently, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that
nearly 25 million people had died of AIDS, and more than 15.6 million children under the age
of 15 had lost their mothers or both parents in 2000. In several African countries, more than
three-quarters of all young people living with HIV are women. 12
In Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a wide gender gap in all life conditions. Lack of
resources and the enormous constraints on women to maintain their own health and nutrition
as well as that of their children put pressures on them and increase their sufferance. These
conditions lead the Sub-Saharan woman to submit to certain laws that still treat them as
minors. In certain situations, a woman faces a variety of legal, economic and social
constraints. She must have her husband's consent to have an outdoor job or to open a bank
account, for instance.
Consequently, a number of world organizations have launched or supported AntiHunger Projects firmly, believing that empowering women is an essential key to fighting
hunger and poverty in needy areas. The prevalent thought of such organizations and
Humanitarian activists is that assisting in the empowerment of the Sub-Saharan woman
benefits all of the society. One year of schooling for women lowers fertility by about 10
percent, while one or two years of schooling for mothers reduces child mortality by 15
percent. 13 With the importance given to women, the families start to feel secure and become
better. If women get employed, their family income will increase and the children will get the
opportunity to go to school. In short, the more care is given to women the more resilient their
communities become.
No country has achieved economic growth without first assuring the education of its
population. Investment in education is vital. History has proved that such states that were able
to provide the needs and wants of their citizens were civilised communities. The ‘progress’
that people outside Africa witnessed in their daily life, could not take place without a parallel
progress in their enlightenment. Ancient Greece, which is still remembered for its artistic and
cultural wealth thanks to the high level of education, constituted a prosperous society the
members of which passed from needs to wants. The high number of both scientific and artistic
Greek works could not have been produced without the availability of a large audience’s
growing taste. There were the mathematicians like Euclid and Pythagoras; also, the Greek
enjoyed the poetry of Homer and the works of dramatists like Sophocles and Aristotle,
besides to sculpture. 15 When Aristotle was asked to give his views of anything of a value to
man in public life, he thought his truest possible judgements led him to find what people had
in common with gods, then he replied, ‘Benevolence and truth’. As far as mankind’s life is
concerned, the greatest of all blessings is a good fortune, and that next to it comes good
counsel which, however, is of no less importance as its absence leads to the complete
destruction of what has been brought by the fortune. 16
Men of wisdom acknowledge that Education is a human right and a fulfilling
experience that helps both girls and boys reach their full potential in society although millions
of children in Africa are still deprived of it. Lack of opportunities for women education puts
enormous constraints on the ability of women to maintain their own health and nutrition as
well as that of their children.
Female students constitute less than two-fifths of the population in higher education
in Sub-Saharan Africa, with only 38 percent of females having enrolled in tertiary education
in 2005. Moreover, girl students are concentrated in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences,
with a weaker presence in scientific and technological subjects. In 2005, female students
constituted a mere 40 percent of total enrolment in Sub-Saharan Africa in technical and
vocational education. 17
To fight the persisting gender inequalities in education in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the
world over 189 countries at the United Nations Millennium General Assembly in New York
of September 2000 agreed on promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in all
life domains. 18 Much progress has been made over the last 10 years in narrowing the gap of
imbalances in education and of development in sub-Saharan Africa, socio-cultural, economic
and political challenges nevertheless still constitute barriers to girls’ education in the region.
Deprivation from schooling according to these factors makes girls to be non-assertive and to
accept subordination status to man as they constitute a class of people unable to raise their
preoccupations or to voice their opinion.
Women’s empowerment, the Algerian Experience
Algeria long suffered from the policy of obscurantism systematically implemented by
the colonial rule for over a century. After independence (1962), it became a necessity to
compensate women, who stood side by side men in resistance against the colonial attempt for
an indelible imprint on the country, for their wounds and the illiteracy they were subjected to.
The process of women’s empowerment is to gain them greater control over their lives
by giving them access to education, employment and getting integrated into associations to
express themselves instead of referring to indirect proxies. These factors are believed to have
influenced positively women’s inherent abilities as well as their attitudes towards gender
roles.
Unlike other countries in the region, equality for women is enshrined in Algerian laws
and the constitution. They vote and run for political positions. .Because the horizons for a
better future are open for girls in Algeria, female students are encouraged to continue their
attending schools and consequently they outnumber male students. While boys think of
ending their studies to serve the country for a year and a half in the Military Service, the
Algerian girls endeavor to attain a higher social standing through academic achievement.
Opposite to the traditional view about women’s necessity to remain at home for the sake of
their kids, now they are encouraged by family members to become educated and contribute to
Algerian society. 19 In fact women start to dominate the fields of medicine, healthcare and
science. Out of 462 seats of the newly elected lower house of Parliament, 143 seats are held
by women. This is the highest rate of women participation in the government decision in the
whole continent.
This is attributed to the will of male students to start work earlier rather than continue
their education, and to females' desire to assert themselves in positions that were
predominantly man’s. According to the July study from the National Social and Economic
Council (CNES), the higher the class level is, the lower the number of male students one
finds. While male students outnumber female students in elementary and middle schools, the
gender disparity reverses by high school, where there are an estimated 596,347 female
students compared to 439,516 males. In university, females total 528,105, versus 410,662
males. The report indicates a new reality in Algerian schools: females appear to be more
interested in learning and have become outstanding achievers. They represent 61% of
graduates of higher education.
The baccalaureate exams conducted in last few years reflect the new female educational
dynamic in Algeria. My research in two secondary schools where I was teaching showed that
females made the highest number of successful candidates, whereas the number of males was
lower.
YEAR TOTAL
2001
131
GIRLS
66
BOYS
65
2002
2003
2004
2005
123
130
173
111
97
86
87
70
26
44
86
41
2006
2007
2008
2009
184
136
40
57
103
78
25
39
81
58
15
18
2010
2011
2012
112
160
113
60
94
71
52
66
42
Table1:Direction d’Education Nationale,
Lycee Colonel Othmane, Bechar
YEAR TOTAL
2000
133
.
GIRLS
81
BOYS
52
2001
2002
2003
2004
97
129
107
/
66
77
68
/
31
52
39
/
2005
2006
2007
116
169
145
78
/
/
38
/
/
2008
133
81
52
2009
2010
31
119
17
80
14
39
Table2 : Direction d’Education Nationale,
Lycee Abu-Lhassen Al-Ashaari, Bechar
Conclusion:
Helping Sub-Saharan children, especially girls, enrol and complete schooling beyond
the primary level is very important in compensation for years of people’s frustration in these
areas during the colonial rule. Secondary school and tertiary education delays early sexual
encounters increases the age at marriage and leads people to the safe side for protected sex,
and above all ensuring women a prominent role to play for the well-being of their society.
This policy towards the people remains valid for redressing gender inequalities. This ideal
objective that makes sub-Saharan societies keep pace with modernity requires global efforts
including North-South cooperation.
REFERENCES
1
Achebe’s A Man of the People, Heinemann, Ibadan, 1982, p 30
Florence Stratton, Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender, p7
3
Sheila Rowbotham, Women Resistance and Revolution, Penguin Books, Britain, 1980, p237
4
Beth Kramer, Postcolonial Triangles”: An Analysis of Masculinity and Homosocial
Desire in Achebe’s A Man of the People and Greene’s The Quiet American, New
York University,2008, p 14
5
Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonization, as quoted in: Sheila Rowbotham, Women Resistance
and Revolution, Penguin Books, Britain, 1980, p 237
6
Beth Kramer, op. cit., p10
7
Cheikh Anta Diop, Unite Culturellde l’Afrique Noire, Presence Africaine, p67
8
UNCHR-Report,2003, Refugees, Vol 2, 131
9
Idem
10
UNHCR recorded. Six of the ten largest refugee flows by origin in 2003 in addition to
nine of the ten largest refugee arrivals took place in Africa.
11
http://www.fawe.org/about/work/education/index.php, 2006
12
Education and HIV/AIDS a Window of Hope, p xvi
13
Idem
2
15
16
Anthony Burgess, English literature, 14th edition, Longman, 1989, pp 2-3
Aristotle Horas Longinus, Classical Literary Criticism, Penguin Books, Britain, 1965, pp 100-1
17
Education in sub Saharan Countries in: http,://www.fawe.org/about/work/education/index.php
18
Education and HIV/AIDS a Window of Hope, the World Bank, Library of Congress Cataloging,
Washington, p 4
19
Michel Slackman, Women in Algeria, The New York Times,in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/