Africa: Culture And Its Women

If someone was asked of the things that he thinks about Africa, he will likely say, black people, AIDS, poverty, racism and sexualization.

These things are relatively the realities of the African life of which extensive studies and researchers have witnessed and proven true.Yet despite the harsh fate of the Africans, they were able to maintain their rich and diverse culture, so unique that Africa is known and admired for. Anthropologists, sociologists and political analysts including the religious sectors have so much to say about the causes and origin of severe poverty in the African nations.This paper will try to examine these views in order to come up with a broader yet objective view of the said nation.

This paper will also focus on the role of women in the culture, history and other aspects of the African life and how have these women survived in the midst of their harsh fate.This writer also find it important how African women, despite sexual inequality, have worked hard enough to contribute to the efforts made on poverty alleviation and political changes.OVERVIEW OF CULTURE AND ITS COMPONENTSThe primary components of culture have been summed up into one word: 1EMERALDS, which stands for Environment, Math (including science, tools and technology), Economics, Religion (spiritual beliefs), Arts (including language, writing, and architecture), Laws (government), Daily life and Social structure.These components are all included or integrated in no matter how culture is defined by experts. “Culture is the body of learned beliefs, traditions, principles and guides for behavior that are commonly shared among members of a particular group.

Culture serves as road map used by people in perceiving and interacting with the world” (Messina, S.A., 1994). To be able for the components to be established as a culture, there has to be people who are to learn and share these components.

It is culture which set standards and norms whether intentionally or otherwise, which in turn define the behaviors and views of the people who come to share them.For example, women are traditionally regarded as a possession of their husbands in the culture of Islam and so it is necessary that women in such culture are subordinates to men and will continue to be under the rule of them. In contemporary cultures and modernized countries, women play almost the same vital roles in the society as men.Women soldiers and members of the police force are already socially accepted, as well as mothers standing as breadwinners especially for single parents. Culture can be influenced by invasion by other race, by time, by need, technology, media and education.Africa, being a large continent, is inhabited by people of diverse cultures and traditions yet they share only two things for decades: poverty and the desire to escape from its pangs.

Women and children are especially affected and morally degraded as the culture of sexual inequality continues to rule almost all aspects of the African life.Women continue to do heavy labor, deprived on education and to be marginalized in the political sector. In short, African women are culturally subordinates. The components of the African culture were traditionally established to be out of their favor and protection.As the 2African Women Council have noted, “African women are not just the most vulnerable subjects of the hunger and civil wars rigged society, they are the ever most diminished economic agents.

Even out of the African context, EMERALDS, as vital components of cultures must benefit the life of every member of a cultural group. People share the same environment provided or claimed by them to be utilized as source of their basic needs such as food and shelter including medicine.In order to make use of the environment, people have to discover or develop certain technology and methodology of adapting in the environment. A study of culture will also look into the facts of how people in a certain society make their living and other economic practices.

Religious and spiritual beliefs significantly influence the way people think and act as religious doctrines somehow serve as guide for people who agree or conform with such belief. It is how people think and feel that also influence the things they create which make a good starting point of reference in understanding the language and arts of a certain culture.These components then serve as weapons in creating its law and the government. Governed these standards, the daily life of a culture including the norms for dressing, for managing their families and their homes and food preparation will be based on such context.Education and entertainment including the defense mechanisms of a nation are part of their daily routine. All these things combined will make up the social structure of a certain society which defines the specific and implied roles of each member.

The rich culture of Africa places its women in the side of inequality and subordination. In looking at literatures relative to African tradition and religion, this writer has come up with three sources from which women’s role have been established and defined in the African culture: mythology, proverbs and prayers.Africa is rich in myths of the origin of humankind told in many different ways. Some myths suggest the dominance of men over women while most of the myths suggest that women are placed by God in a special position (Mbiti, John).Woman in such stories commonly depict the role of a mother, a child bearer, a person whom God communicates on behalf of all humans as in the myths in Togo, Nigeria, Rwanda and Eastern African nations. Other myths blame a woman for having been the cause of the misfortunes and wrath of God over humankind.

Still others tell that woman was made out man or was made after the man was created by God as in the case of Nigeria. In all those myths combined, the role of women generally will fall subordinate than men, served as a mother and an instrument of human reproduction who shared on the misfortunes and human sufferings (African Traditional Religion Online).The proverbs of Africa suggest that women are extremely valuable in the sight of society (J. Mbiti).

As one proverb in Ghana suggests, "Woman is a flower in a garden; her husband, the fence around it." The woman in traditional Africa is treated special because she is the bearer of life and as such is considered the most important member of the family.This role is especially vital in the culture of Africa to the extent of considering an unmarried woman or a woman without a child as someone who has no role in the society. However, in certain societies such as in Kenya and those of Southern Africa, women are considered as someone who ruins the life of men, someone who cannot be trusted with secrets, deceitful and blamed for marriage problems.These are suggested by the proverbs that say: “"Woman, remember that the mouth is sometimes covered with a branch" (Kenya), "The good wife at her husband's home, the other one is at her parents' home" (Tanzania), "Women have no chiefs" (Uganda) and a lot more.Prayers of traditional Africa suggest that women play a vital role in their religious life.

Women take the prominent role of offering prayers for the family and the community. African religion places women in the forefront as women priests who manage healing and serve as mediums for spirits in the outside world.WOMEN IN THE AFRICAN ECONOMYAmong the majority of rural and low-income urban dwellers, women perform all domestic tasks, while many also farm and trade (Manuh, Takyiwaa 1998). The daily life of women runs around the responsibility of nursing children, the sick and the elderly. Their tasks extend to working outside their homes by gathering fuel wood and other heavy work loads. The poor economy of Africa has a set up that deprives women of their access for a better economic life.

In fact, a study done by Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), a non-government organization based in Zimbabwe, revealed that  women as the world advances towards modernization continue to be poorer (Africa Renewal, April 2005, page 6).IN another independent study, gender inequality is pushing women to the edge of poverty as women were found to compose the 70% of the poor people in the continent.The same study revealed that because of gender inequality, women were given lower priority in the job placements compared to men especially in institutions run and dominated by men (UN Research Institute for Social Development, 2001). Between 1990 and 2000, African poverty statistics showed an increase of 82 million people which only suggest that the poverty of the African economy continue to wear the face of a woman (Mutume, Gumisai, 2005).

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization found significant cultural practice that had caused women to suffer the hardships of poverty. 3The Food and Drug Organization (FAO), in its study in the nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Mauritania, Morocco, Namibia, Sudan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe found that women rarely own land.The same study revealed that trainings and inputs in farming are especially provided and given access to men. This is beside the fact that in cases where women owned a piece of land, it is comparably smaller and less fertile with those of areas given to men.Women do 70% to 80% of the work in the land but they were not given the chance and the right to decisions concerning the transfer and the farm produce because men do (Muchiri, Mary Nyambura 2003, pg 4).

Moreover, women in African tradition are deprived of the right of inheritance which remained a practice in most countries especially those where women were uneducated and uninformed of their rights (Journal of Culture and African Women Studies, issue 7, 2005).THE AFRICAN POLITICS AND WOMENWomen seem to be winning in the political battle they have started decades ago. Looking at political representations in some countries in Africa, women’s rights and skills seem to have started being recognized by the society as more and more women continue to occupy significant positions in the government.For example, Mozambique appointed in 2004 the first woman Prime Minister in the region in the name of Luisa Diogo. In South African countries including Mozambique, 30% of the parliament seats are occupied by women.

Rwanda has 49% of its parliament seats occupied by women, a far higher than the world average of 15% (Africa Recovery Online, April 1998).