West Africa Review (2000)
ISSN: 1525-4488
WOMEN IN AFRICA: THEIR SOCIO-POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ROLES
|
West Africa Review (2000) ISSN: 1525-4488 WOMEN IN AFRICA: THEIR SOCIO-POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ROLES |
|
Titi Ufomata
In general, human beings have the tendency to view the world in terms of a dichotomy, a division between `them' and `us.' `Them' includes everybody who is not like us and they are generally lumped together as homogeneous and undifferentiated. On reflection, we know nothing is further from the truth. Processing information in this way is one of the mechanisms human beings use to deal with what would amount to a deluge of information which might become problematic to handle. Unfortunately, when not handled properly, this can lead to ignorance, which demeans the ignorant and fuels suspicion. The more one knows of the world, the more one sees the value of being knowledgeable about other people and places. With specific reference to Africa, oftentimes what people outside know is so limited and so selective that it amounts to a disservice both to them and to the continent. Normal is no news, so it is possible to grow up to be an adult in some parts of the world and know Africa only in terms of its natural disasters, wars and other conflicts with an occasional glimpse of the elephant or giraffe. While it is true that the continent has had more than its fair share of these things, it is also true that for every person crying in Africa, there is one that is laughing. Those happy faces of Africa are seldom seen.
To situate this discussion, I will like to look at some of the keywords and phrases in the title of this essay that I feel are problematic. The first is "women in Africa." To attempt to talk about women in Africa is indeed an enormous task because they by no means constitute a homogenous class. Africa is a huge continent, the second largest after Asia. It is a continent of numerous people belonging to different ethnic, social and economic groups. It is estimated to be more than three and a half times the size of continental United States, with 54 countries. Roughly 1000 languages are spoken within its borders. It is easy to see therefore, how impossible it will be to cover the entire continent in any depth in one discussion. While it is possible to make some general statements, most cannot be made without exceptions. I have therefore decided to focus on Nigeria, not for any special reason, beyond the fact that it is the country with which I am most familiar. In addition, it presents as a classical example of a country characterized by diversity - ethnic, religious, political and linguistic. The women within it by no means represent a homogeneous group.
Nigeria is twice the size of California, roughly the size of Texas, with over 103 million people. More than 250 languages are spoken in the country including English. Multilingualism is a way of life for many Nigerians especially those who live in urban areas. The major religions are Christianity, Islam and traditional indigenous religions. Nigeria has the second largest economy (second to South Africa) on the continent. It is easy to see that within such a country there are bound to be different groups and classes of women. Obviously, their reality would differ from one another depending on their peculiar situation. For this reason, I will narrow my focus even further as the discussion progresses, to market women in Nigeria.
While all women around the world share many social disabilities, one must not lose sight of the fact that strong differences exist between them. This is where problems arise when any group of women purport to speak for and on behalf of others simply because they are all women. Whereas there are marked differences from location to location, western feminist theory has historically privileged gender over issues of race and economic location, both of which are of paramount importance in any discussion on women in Africa. It is fair to add however, that in recent years a more nuanced analysis of the `spectrum of differences' has emerged in the literature, thus making it a little more compatible with the experiences of African women and women from other locations.
Debates on women's issues have in the last few decades assumed prominence on the global agenda. Issues concerning women are topics of meetings and conferences around the world. Legislation is constantly being introduced and passed on ways to better the lot of women. This is a good development. There seems to be general agreement on the fact that in all human societies, including Plato's, women are not treated as equals of men. It is against the backdrop of this consensus that these debates were generally received as timely and welcome. To meaningfully carry on the discussions, women's voices needed to be heard and included. Unfortunately, not all women had equal access to avenues that made this possible. Voices heard were generally from one part of the world, the west. These voices purported to speak for all women irrespective of location. While they did a good job from the limited perspective of their own experiences, a lot of misrepresentation arose due to their lack of knowledge of those they purported to represent.
It is important to mention that it is to the credit of women in the West that Women's Studies as an academic discipline first began in the 1970s. Predictably, this had serious political and intellectual implications for the type of agenda set for teaching, research and discussion. As was to be expected, Africa and other locations outside their immediate environment became esoteric laboratories for the study of `quaint', `barbaric' and `repressive' traditional practices. Not much was made of the unique strengths and institutionalized powers of women in other places, particularly in many parts of Africa, especially prior to colonialism. A second problem is the manner in which African and other cultures are presented as static and fossilized in time. Changing dynamics of relations of power within families and societies are often ignored. Ample evidence points to the fact that traditional roles have been altered for many men and women and even traditional professional roles that were gender specific have become gender neutral. Women head several families, in others still they are equal breadwinners with the men. It used to be the case that only women were to be midwives. We know of course that in contemporary times, gynecologists are more likely to be men than women are. In several traditional African societies, men would not be seen dead selling produce that were considered women's, but now everybody sells whatever would give them money. Women now engage in all kinds of professions. Gender restrictions have largely broken down.
It is an acknowledged axiom that gender roles are socially constructed and therefore need to be discussed within the context of particular cultures. In Africa, a daughter is "husband" to women married into her extended family. Among the Igbo, Fon, and Lovedu cultures, women who have attained a certain status can marry wives for purposes of begetting children in the name of their dead husbands or sons. As the people themselves know, these relationships are not physical. They are social. I mention this particular instance because some misconceptions have begun to appear in the literature on sexuality about the relationship that exists between women in these woman-marriages (Murray and Roscoe: 1998). Citing them as evidence that homosexuality has been entrenched in several traditional cultures is an error. The mistake is based in part on the assumption in western worldview that marital relationships must be consummated in the physical sense. In her treatment of the institution of woman- marriage in Africa, Beth Greene notes that a comparison of the roles within the cultures mentioned above, illustrates not only the availability of social and political power to women, but also the relationship between power and the construction of gender. She further notes:
The institution of woman-marriage has been documented in approximately 40 precolonial African societies and has endured to the present in some cases. . Woman-marriage deserves attention because, first, the presence of this institution can be explained not only by structural demands, but also by women's access to status, rights, and authority: by studying woman-marriage we can more accurately understand women's significance in the social structure (1998:395).
For a long time, discussions have continued to revolve around fundamental notions, which have acquired quasi-generic meanings, thus deriving some false neutrality. As a consequence of this anomaly, stereotypes of women have emerged in the literature including several with which women from Africa and other parts of the world cannot identify. For example, the idea of "family" in African and Eastern worldviews are significantly different from that of the West. Within the West itself, several forms now exist, such that it is becoming increasingly difficult to define what constitutes a family in exact terms. In Yoruba, there are no words for uncles and aunts or cousins for that matter. Relations are fathers, mothers, or siblings and they are expected to perform those roles whenever they are called upon to do so.
Closely related to this are notions such as "the generic man," "the domestic woman" "the state" versus "civil society." The rigid oppositions and dichotomization between the "state" and "civil society," between the "public" and "private" spheres between the "formal" and "informal" sectors which form the plank of policies emanating from the West are non-existent in most of Africa. Life simply does not proceed on such compartmentalization in a continent where straddling and multiple modes of livelihood are rife (Olukoshi 1996:60).
The idea of the "generic" man is one that does not exist in many African languages. In Yoruba for example, men are men `okunrin;' women are women `obirin,' while people are people `eniyan.' Each category is distinct with its own clear identity. The third person singular `o' is undifferentiated for she/he/it, so that it is never necessary to subsume anybody under another. Since language is a vehicle of culture, one can deduce from the above that women in that culture have distinctive status and recognition. Traditionally, women held and still hold important positions as of right. The traditional Yoruba worldview is one that is built on the strong belief that the success of society depends on the two sexes and that one cannot do without the active support of the other. Many proverbs and aphorisms support this view, for example, "L'ako, l'abo ni Olorun da gbogbo nkan" literally meaning "It is in male and female pairs that God created all things." To quote Oluwole:
The Yoruba understanding of nature as always made up of two inseparable characters when combined with their epistemological insight that knowledge and wisdom cannot be absolute suggest an appreciation of a natural but non-derogatory dichotomy between the male and the female. Hence there is nothing in these views which support misogyny. There is (therefore) no denying the fact that the awareness of gender as an important social principle in some ancient African societies was much sharper than even in contemporary Western societies. If, for example, we adopt the popular view that, "One of the best ways to understand the spirit of a civilization, to appreciate its excellence and also to realize its limitations is to study the history of and status of women in it (Janaki 1985)" then the inevitable conclusion we will reach is that precolonial Yoruba society was on a higher level of civilization than most western examples . The absolute pigeonholing commonly found in Western thought has no place within Yoruba epistemological relativity. There is therefore a recognition of the justification for male and female claims to power even though there is oftentimes an unjustifiable tilt in favor of man" (1997:111).
Women were not excluded from decision making. What used to obtain was that parallel organizations existed for both sexes, although with very few exceptions, men occupied positions at the apex. Traditionally too, women from this culture are socialized to be economically independent. Williams (1997), quoting Afonja (1986) comments that even though women were excluded from some traditional matters which necessitate ritual/discussion and from secret societies as the Oro and Ogboni in Yorubaland, to arrive at the final decision and implementation, women could not be excluded or else, whatever decisions solely made by men would fail. According to Oluwole (110) for instance, the Oro cult which women are publicly forbidden to see, actually starts its nocturnal outing only after a woman has waved the whistling calabash. The Osugbo society, which was the legal arm of the government among the Egba and Ijebu Yoruba, had only one female representative, the Erelu. Without her, the council could not function. There were more women in Ogboni. They held at least three key positions while the Reformed Ogboni has many women members. The Yoruba understanding of democracy appears, on many grounds, to be at variance with Western characterization of it. First, in the traditional setting, women's participation was a matter of right and hence was never ignored.
Unfortunately, during the colonial period, colonialists, following the patriarchal and Victorian norms of their own societies, excluded women from public affairs and gave all powers to men. They also set out to Christianize women to be more submissive to their husbands. Yoruba women were perceived to be too aggressive and independent. Paradoxically, the Europeans sought to free African women from the oppression of being able to work and trade. In other words, the colonialists set out systematically to deprive Yoruba women of their independence and autonomy. The new religions were actively employed in achieving this end. There is today abundant evidence to support the fact that colonialism actually worsened the position of the African woman in many societies.
In Africa the idea of a full-time housewife is alien. Even where a woman is not engaged in formal or organized private sector employment, she is often involved in petty trading in the market or from her home. She is engaged in caring services, looking after children aged parents, in-laws and others. She is often involved in farming and other agricultural activities. She fetches water and cuts firewood for domestic fuel. She cooks and takes food to the men on the farm and carries back produce for the market and domestic consumption. In many instances, she is responsible for fulfilling the food needs of her children. Even women in purdah (seclusion) are involved in various crafts and domestic production, which their little children hawk for them. In conventional economic terms, such women are not working, because work is erroneously equated to salaried employment. It was convenient for the colonialists and their African successors to pretend that these women were not working because their invisible contributions made it comfortable for government and employers to pay those who "work" paltry wages. A further implication of this is the sustenance of the myth that men as heads of families or households are fully responsible for their wives and children. Observation and research point to the fallacy in this as almost universally, women in Africa are viewed as ultimately responsible for fulfilling their children's food needs (Dwyer and Bruce 1988:5).
One other important point to mention is the ability of African women to organize themselves into pressure groups against oppressive rulers and policies. When occasion called for it, women rose individually and collectively to handle the situation for themselves, their husbands or families. They resorted to traditional weapons of warfare available to them in the traditional set up. They invoked their rights as mothers and daughters. Their organizations were so powerful that nobody broke ranks or crossed picket lines without dire consequences. As obtains in collectivistic cultures, group interests generally supercede those of the individual. Positions communally agreed upon are considered binding on all. There are several accounts of powerful women leaders who took up struggles for their groups. Queen Amina of Zazzau was a powerful warrior queen 18th century Kingdom of Dahomey (in present day Benin Republic). She had an army of five thousand Amazon warriors (all women, all virgins) (Perchonock 1989:16). There is the much reported case of Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti who led Abeokuta Women's Union against the payment of poll tax in 1948 and demanded participation of women in colonial administration. The Aba riots of the 1920s and 30s are also well documented in which Igbo and Ibibio women successfully protested against their taxation and the mechanization of palm products (Williams 1997:160). Therefore the image of the woman as a passive victim is one that many African women with a sense of their history reject.
I am not suggesting for a second that oppression or inequity did not exist in the traditional system prior to colonialism. Such a claim would be false. There was significant subordination of women to indigenous social structures that rendered them unequal in family, lineage and state matters. There is the issue of inheritance among several African societies, for example. One has to remember however, that the basis of subordination, for example wives to daughters of a family or wives to husbands does not parallel the idea of gender subordination pervasive in the literature. While a woman can be discriminated against as a wife, she has important rights as a daughter or sister. Secondly, the English language and history have served to masculinize things to in such a way that even women's accomplishments are masked. . Many records of female rulers exist in Yorubaland. Only recently, the Regent of Ado, a major town in Ekiti State of Nigeria, was a woman. There were a lot of women in the traditional Oyo political structure and the positions were quite significant. As Oluwole reported:
The Alaafin's official mother was the feudal head of Bashorun, the Oyo Generalisimo, while Iya Kere (the junior official mother) was the king's treasurer. She was also in charge of the royal insignia and all the paraphernalia used on state occasions. She had the power of withholding them, thus preventing any state reception, to mark her displeasure with the King when she was offended. She was the person entitled to place the crown on the King's head. She was the mother of the Ilari – the male and female courtiers who constitute one third of the household officials of the court. Indeed, Rev. Johnson (1921), who recorded this history, noted that although the Iya Kere comes next in rank to the official mother of the King, she wielded the greatest power in the palace. The King's pharmacist who was the one who meted punishment to erring chiefs was also a woman (109).
Another important difference is in the attitude of the women. While African women saw these inequities, they significantly did not perceive themselves as victims. As already stated, when the need arose, they fought, either for themselves, their men or their children. They saw their situation as part of their important roles as wives and mothers. . Where they had grievances, they resorted to forms of redress, which were available in the traditional system such as the naked dance. In the traditional society, it is considered an abomination for women to bare their breasts and dance in public. What happened with the introduction of Christian, Islamic and common laws was that people were encouraged to disregard these sanctions as superstitions and to view only things that can be prosecuted in a court of law as wrong. Women, in addition, became displaced as mothers, who traditionally are worshipped in African cultures (cc "mother is gold, father is glass"). In the words of Lewis, the colonial period brought acute psychological trauma to both men and women in the sense that the familiar structure of society in which each gender had its place was severely disrupted. In Emecheta's The Joy of Motherhood, Cordelia laughs at Nnu Ego's moaning about her husband as she aptly summarizes the situation:
You want a husband who has time to ask if you wish to eat rice, or drink corn pap with honey? Forget it. Men are too busy being white men's servants to be men. We women mind the home. Not our husbands. Their manhood has been taken away from them. They are all slaves, including us. If their masters treat them badly, they take it out on us (66).
This connection between racial and economic oppression and gender is one of the things that make it difficult for African women to fully identify with feminism as defined in the west. While African women suffer(ed) as women, they also suffer(ed) as Africans under colonialism and as third world country citizens in current world politics and global economy. Several suffer as immigrants in third sites because of unfavorable conditions that continue to push them out of the continent. The emphasis of western feminists on notions alien to many African women has in addition created discursive and practical barriers to cross: for example, the emphasis on abortion rights and sexuality – issues that seem less pressing to African women concerned fundamentally about keeping their children alive. Social, political and economic roles are all interwoven, such that no meaningful discussion of any can be carried out without reference to the other. It is in this context that one must place discussions of issues concerning women in Africa.
Nigerian women as a group, make up about half of the national population. They contribute significantly to the national economy although this contribution is not fully acknowledged because the majority operates within the informal sector that is difficult to calibrate on "received" economic terms. Many are farmers. A large number are involved in distributive trade, while several engage in cross-border trading. Whatever their occupation, women tend to form supportive organizations through which they protect their interests. Market women are a very good example. On the political scene, stories and legends abound of powerful Nigerian women who exerted great influence in their time. Unfortunately, contemporary Nigerian women, like the men, are struggling to find their feet in the general confusion that defines politics in the country today. In spite of political problems, Nigerians continue to be a proud people, difficult to repress. During the prolonged period of military rule, Nigerians learnt to lead their lives "in spite" of the state.
It must be clear by now that I am moving from the general to the more specific. I find this a useful approach and will therefore conclude by focusing specifically on a particular group of women whom I have studied. I chose to study market women because they are a significant percentage of the female population in Nigeria, and they are largely self- regulating. Even though they operate within an exploitative capitalist system, they have managed to survive as a group. It may be argued that such a situation intrinsically engenders cohesion to protect group interests. May be, but that does not invalidate the necessity to document the manner in which the cohesion works and the methods used to strategize within the confines of such a society. My observation of the women shows a sharp intelligence in the handling of their relationships and in negotiating their space. They suffer no pretensions of the western educated. Their points of view are refreshing and direct. I chose to present the findings of my research on them in the form of stories, my own stories. The stories portray the manner in which the women navigate the delicate waters of family life, and life in society in general. The methods they employ might not always be conventional, but they are effective. The stories show that contrary to long held stereotypes, these extraordinary women are not passive observers at all, but astute participants who often possess a savvy not easily captured in classical social research. I chose to present my findings in the form of stories, rather than in the form of conventional reports because in a very important way, stories appeal to more than just the intellect. They affect the whole person, and through them it is possible to reach different people. While some would read the stories for just entertainment, others for research purposes, others still would read them for a critical evaluation, each person taking what she or he wants from them. Because of the universal appeal of stories, readers become more involved with the subjects, empathize with them and are affected by the experience. Even though a reader may not always submit to the heavy interpretations of the critic, she or he plays an active role in drawing conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of the characters.
A second reason for choosing this narrative approach is that it is becoming increasingly clear that African women must represent themselves through whatever avenues they find conducive to their goals. I chose literature, because as Wilson observes, `In a variety of instances, literature makes important cultural elements explicit with a clarity unattainable by either the participants or more "objective" reporters' (10). Naturally, experiences presented in the writing of African women will be uniquely theirs.
Up until the 1960s, African Literature was male-dominated. These male writers depicted women in different ways and undoubtedly contributed to their exposure to the outside world. However, they tended to focus on social, historical and political themes. They were concerned with correcting misconceptions of Africa that pervaded the writing of European travelers of earlier times. They tried to document the Africa of their own experience. They did not generally dwell on personal or domestic themes. Some of the writers like Ousmane Sembene and Nurruddin Farah are exceptions. Soyinka and Ngugi wa Thiong'o also gave their female characters depth, often depicting them as strong, resilient and resourceful, but essentially in supporting their male folk. Most of the male writers were limited and stereotypic in their portrayals, typically showing women simply as mothers, lovers or whores or portraying a gross distinction between the rural and city female. While male writers wrote of a lost golden age before the advent of modernization, when men were men and women were women, female writers will show in their works that traditional life was also full of hardship and oppression for women. Obviously there is truth in the African proverb which says that until the lion begins to write his (or her) own story, the hunter will always be the hero.
When female writers came, they began to represent themselves in depth. They wrote on issues, which continue to be important to women, issues such as polygamy, childbearing, motherhood and other domestic issues. They generally present objective treatments of womanhood and show women as having a destiny of their own. They write on the excruciating burden of childlessness. (Flora Nwapa's Efuru and One is Enough; Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood; Ama Ata Aidoo's Anowa to mention a few). They write about divorce. They talk of changes in the roles that women perform when husbands have to leave home to work or are forced to go and fight in world wars. They show that gender roles are dynamic and ever evolving. They puncture the myth of the male as the sole provider in the family. They show women competently holding positions of authority (Sutherland's `New Life for Kyerefaso' Ufomata's The Dance that never was).
Female writers are by no means unanimous on the themes they treat. Writers like Grace Ogot, Efua Sutherland, Ama Ata Aidoo and Flora Nwapa represent the first generation. Their works are steeped "in the traditions of the land, complaining of their sufferings as subjects of the male master, but seeking solace in a society that has proclaimed woman mother" (Ojo-Ade: 1982). Coming later are writers like Buchi Emecheta, Nafissatu Diallo, and Mariama Bâ to mention a few. This second group of writers seeks revolutionary changes through the depiction of their protagonists. One of the key themes in their writing is the opposing pull of tradition and liberation. As observed by Ojo- Ade, the fundamental problem that seems to face the contemporary African fictional heroine is that she is torn between two antagonistic identities: her communally-bred sense of herself as an African, and her aspirations for self-fulfillment.
There is a new generation of female writers who are presenting contemporary, post-colonial Africa. They tend to be bolder and more individualistic in their writing. They show women in weakness and in strength. They assume distinctive political positions in their writing. It is among this last group that I hesitantly include myself. To be effective, representation has to be done taking different groups, one at a time. Even though there are significant commonalties, as I already mentioned, Africa is a large continent and it is by no means homogenous. There are many subcultures of women based on ethnic, social and economic location.
I write about market women in Nigeria, because they represent a population of women who stand as counterexamples to commonly held stereotypes of women as weak and passive. They are particularly deserving of attention. They are assertive, competent and financially independent in spite of or shall I say, because of their lack of western education. My stories about them stem specifically from a position that heroines abound among the ordinary women of Africa today. They hold important and relevant opinions on the women's question, which they are often not in a position to articulate. To exclude such voices is to leave out the voice of a vibrant and significant group. One does not need to do much more than reflect the tangible vibrancy exuded by these women to make that point.
My interaction with market women spans a long period of time. Before I consciously set out to study them, I had experienced them privately in several of "my mothers," I mean those significant women who nurtured me as part of my large extended family. They include my grandmother and paternal aunts. I have a real sense of their strengths and power. I must admit, I also admire them tremendously. I am convinced that there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from them and that not to include their voice would be for women in general to lose the voice of a vibrant group which negates many long held negative stereotypes of women. Finally, I believe it is important to document the lives of contemporary African women in this way so that knowledges about Africa would be more complete and realistic. At this point, I would like to present "A wife of Gold" (Ufomata 1998:59-72) as an example of this methodology:
I cannot place my feelings today. I feel really confused. Sister will soon come back from her outing and she will kill us if the food and other things are not ready and waiting outside. We are travelling to the village for two different ceremonies. One is a funeral and the other the traditional marriage of my older brother. Our parents were thinking of cancelling this latter one, but already too many people have been invited and the in-laws might be offended. They are not from our village and the ceremony is long overdue.
Sister has gone to help her friend prepare the corpse of the husband in the mortuary. This man is not really from our family, but we are all from the same village and the wife belongs to the same `meeting' as sister. Moreover, they sell in the same market, near each other. The way the man died, just like a chicken, is what the whole town has been talking about.
One of his wife's childhood friends had come to visit them from another town. She said she came to see their children and also to know where they lived. Sister's friend was very happy and impressed by the gesture. She introduced her friend to her husband and they proceeded to make their visitor very welcome. A few days later, when it appeared this woman was not making any move to leave, her friend asked her when she would be leaving. The visitor took offence, "we have not seen each other for such a long time, I came all that way to see you and you are asking me when I would be leaving. I only came to stay with you to enjoy your company for a while."
The woman's husband supported their guest, "I thought you said she was your friend. Why would you be asking her such an unfriendly question." Sister's friend kept quiet. She noticed however, that whenever she got ready to go to the market, her friend would say she wanted to stay back at home to rest. One week, two weeks, this woman would not leave. The madam of the house became very suspicious of her friend's closeness to her husband. Her children had been telling her of some strange happenings going on whenever she was away. She decided to confront her friend.
"I thought you came to visit me, you did not say you had come to marry. Which one are you up to?"
"Anyone you say is correct," she replied unabashedly to her stunned friend.
When the argument was getting heated up, the husband joined in.
"Well, she has come to stay. If you know you cannot share with her, then you better carry your things and leave. I want to marry her, if you cannot bear to see that, then leave."
Sister's friend was too shocked to speak. She looked from her husband to her friend, and back to her husband. Neighbours came in and calmed her down. They said she should not move an inch. They said that was her home, and that the other woman would soon go back to wherever she came from.
The situation persisted and they continued to stay together. Things were so bad that the man would beat his wife for the flimsiest of reasons. She really wanted to leave, but her people advised her against it. They said she should persevere.
The landlord however, got so fed up with their constant quarrels that he asked them to move out and go and find alternative accommodation. They pleaded with him, but he refused. He said he needed to renovate the house for his son who was coming back from overseas.
The man moved out with his new woman to another part of the town, leaving the first wife with her children. The landlord was now bothering her to vacate his property. "The others have left, can't you find somewhere else to go as well?"
This woman packed her children and property and moved in with her sister. The sister helped her to procure an alternative accommodation. She started struggling, she, together with her children. They sold soft drinks, fried buns and chinchin, and sold bread and anything else that they could sell. This way, they were able to manage.
Things were just beginning to look up for them when, one day, the man came to look for her and told her he heard she had been busy sleeping with other men. She responded to him with annoyance, "is that all? I do more than that. If people tell you I am sleeping around, why didn't you tell them you showed me the way. When you married me, I was an innocent girl, but when you saw another woman, you drove me out. Tell me the truth. Something must have happened for you to come looking for us after such a long time." He walked off angrily, leaving a threat hanging in the air, "if I see you with any car owner..."
The man became restless. He started going round people to help him beg his wife. He wanted a settlement. The woman refused. She said if another woman could come into their home and snatch him away that easily, there was nothing to settle. He should go and stay with his other wife.
She was adamant. The man went to see her family and pleaded with them to talk to her. In the meantime, he looked for money and completed the house they were trying to build before the trouble started. Her family pleaded with her to move back in with her husband into the new house. She finally agreed.
When the other woman realized what was going on, she became very angry with the man. She said she was not going to move into the new house with him and his first wife. People mocked her, "did you think he would never settle with his wife? You must be funny. You don't understand men at all. Where were you when they bought the land and started building that house? She was the one who suffered with him to start everything."
Anyhow, she refused to move in. Sister's friend, the first wife, decided to ignore the antics of this woman and get on with her life. Not long after, her husband started beating her again. He was still seeing this woman outside and other women as well. She blamed herself for agreeing to come back to him just when she had settled down with her children. She decided she was too tired to pack her things and start all over again. She decided to ignore her husband totally and act as if he was not there. Soon after, for reasons best known to him, he decided to move out and live with the other woman, with whom he already had some children. He moved out to stay with his woman friend and left his wife and children.
Things became very difficult for his wife because the new place where their house is situated is far from the market and schools, so that petty trading was not profitable. She went to report her husband to his boss in the office that he was not feeding his family. His boss called him and tried to counsel him, but he would not listen. He said his wife was not a good woman. The people who work with him and know his wife very well said, "now that you have found a good woman, what about your children?" He said they were his wife's property, she could do what she wanted with them. Everybody told him he was being a fool and would regret these things he was doing. At the end of each month, his boss would deduct a certain amount from his salary and give to his wife. Even though he did not like the arrangement, there was nothing he could do. This went on for about five years.
Last week Monday, we were getting ready to go to the market when this woman ran to our house. She was shouting Sister's name from the main road and crying, "Come and see me oh. See what my eyes are seeing. Please come and save me oh."
Sister calmed her down enough to hear what she had to say. It turned out that very early that morning, around six o'clock, she too was getting ready to go to the market when two men came to her home. They asked her, "Do you know such and such a man?" She replied yes. She told them he was her husband. They informed her the man had died and she should come and arrange to take his body to his village for burial. She told them, `No. He has another wife. I have not seen him for five years. Why should I come and carry his corpse?' All the same she could not stop crying. He was the father of her children and she did not wish him dead.
Sister had followed her to the house where he lived with the second woman where they confirmed he was indeed dead. With Sister's help and the help of other women in the market, they informed his people of what had happened.
They are carrying him home today for burial. I wonder what will happen because I hear his family has gone to make a lot of trouble with the woman he was living with and that they say even his wife would have questions to answer at the funeral. Sister and other women in the market are accompanying her to the funeral. That is all they have been planning for the whole week. They are going to sit with her throughout. They will see who will dare to come and manhandle her.
"I better hurry. Oghogho is shouting my name again."
"Isi we are running late. Can you help me with this wrapper? I am having a lot of difficulty with it. Every time I think I am getting at something fairly acceptable, the whole thing loosens again. At this rate we will miss the bus and Sister will kill us."
"Nonsense. How can you allow an ordinary wrapper to defeat you? I thought you were the iron lady of Ugboja. Come on, just tie the thing first and then we can work on the adjustments," I shouted back, trying to sound cheerful.
"Come, tell me, did you say your brother's first wife will be at the wedding ceremony today?' Oghogho wanted to know.
"Yes, where else will she be? She will be there. It's her house."
This is another thing that is making me so sad. For once, I don't feel excited at all about going home. My brother had married this woman whom we all like. She has been such a devoted wife. A beautiful woman too. I remember the day of their wedding. We were all so excited, because the marriage was considered a very appropriate one by all. Her family is well known and they are good people. Moreover she lived not too far from Sister's house and she was so nice to all of us young children. She and my brother got on so well and people used to tease them. They used to go everywhere together, wearing clothes made out of the same material.
Then this trouble of not having a child started. By the time my aunts and those other wives in the family dug their nails in, my brother's wife stood no chance at all. They started asking her questions, "our wife, when are we going to start carrying your babies?" I think the climax came when the family called my mother to explain why her son's wife was not having any children. They more or less accused her of having a hand in the matter. She said she just kept quiet, waiting patiently for the first person that would be bold enough to call her a witch. That bitter experience was what made her mind up. Her son must leave this woman and marry somebody else.
"In a way I blame your brother. Why were they staying in the family house? Why didn't he rent an apartment far away from everybody or even move to another town? I have seen him and his wife together and they so obviously like each other. Why? I remember that when they first got married, he was just a schoolteacher. Didn't you tell me it was this woman who encouraged and even paid for him to go to university?"
"My dear Isi, one thing led to another. May be they shouldn't have come back home at all in the first place. But anyway that is in the past. The damage has already been done. As I was saying, my mother joined in the campaign against this woman and finally convinced my brother to take another wife. I was told that when he informed his wife he was planning to take another wife and that she could go and try somewhere else if she wanted, she refused. She said she would stay, he should go and marry another wife if he wanted. If after that she found she could not stay, then she would go. She wondered which other man she would go and marry after such a long time with my brother. So my brother left her alone, and they continued to live together like husband and wife.
The day I learnt our brother was having children with somebody else outside, I was shocked. He was the last person I expected to do that. By the time we knew, he already had three children with this woman. He rented her an apartment and furnished it very well. He bought her a television and video, a fridge and freezer and did everything. At least that was what his wife said when she reported him and they were stating the case before the elders. I had stayed close by them to hear the whole story because I really like this brother's wife.
She was very bitter that she had to learn about the children from an outsider. It was somebody she met who asked her if she was on her way to the naming ceremony. She asked, "what naming ceremony?" She was told it was for her husband's third child. She waited for him to return.
"Welcome my husband", she said. "So today is your child's naming ceremony. So you are happy that I have no child, and did not even bother to tell me."
The husband got angry. He felt cornered. He became very aggressive toward her. "So that is what you will say. We have been together all these years. You did not have any children. I have taken you everywhere. So you too were happy I had no child. When I die, who will bury me? You want dogs to eat my corpse in the dustbin. You know I will not be buried decently if I die without a child."
She reported that they quarreled and quarreled that day. The following day, after her husband had gone to work, she went to meet the other woman at home. She accused her saying, "is what you people are doing good? So you are happy I have no child. You could not tell your man that what he is doing is bad by not telling his wife". They exchanged angry words. The other woman ran to meet our brother in the office to say she was not prepared for this type of trouble. He should do something to protect her. She also ran to Sister and some of our other relations. Of course Sister and other members of the family were on her side. They have found the opportunity they have been looking for.
"Isi, Isi, what are you still doing there?," the girls hear Sister's footsteps coming down the corridor.
We are in deep trouble today. If we don't hurry up we will be left behind. Sister does not joke with her meeting members who are mostly women from the market. They are all following her to the village for our brother's wedding and also for the burial of that her friend's husband. She promised to pick them up in front of the post office. I wish Oghogho and I had another means of travelling actually. I am tired of hearing how those women will deal with this and that group or anybody who tries to ill-treats their friend.
"What are you two still doing there. Before I open my eyes, I want you out here in the kitchen. Who will carry the coolers and crates of drinks? Is it me? Look at them tying headties. Who is looking at you? Are you the ones getting married? I don't want to be late, you hear? I have an important function to perform today. Hurry up. That woman who says she is not going to leave my brother will pack her things and go away by herself. She will do it in one day and one night. Nobody will tell her to go. She will not know when she will pack her things by herself and go. I have not seen where it is a crime to marry somebody. Then she says she must die with you even when you no longer want the relationship. She should go. What am I even saying she should for? She will go. Unless I am not my father's daughter. I have moved around seriously on this her matter. May be she thinks she is strong. She will know that there is strength and there is strength. It is true she has suffered with my brother to build up a home, and I sympathize with her on that, but what is a man without a child? Because they had no children, he could not proceed to the appropriate age grade. All his mates are now his superiors in the village. He could not even take up our dead father's title because he had no son. What type of love is that, and he is not growing younger. A whole man, I don't understand. It's my mother and the others I blame. They married this girl for him because they wanted him to marry from our place. Now she does not want to leave. She wants to stay and kill his children from this other woman we are going to marry. The nice girl he was following in Lagos before would have been a better wife. At least she went to school and is now married with children. Nonsense. Hurry up girls. Let's go. We mustn't miss anything. I am really going to show that our wife today. I have to save my brother. You know when a woman has suffered with a man the way she did, and she is just keeping quiet there, allowing the man to do what he wants, he should consider his life in danger. It is possible she wants to kill him. She really must leave. Let's go."
Sister is a real troublemaker. No wonder she could last in her own marriage. She is real pepper. She is always the one to lead attacks on the wives in the family, and yet she can be so nice to those her meeting people and friends in the market. They all know her though. They joke with her often that she should remember she has sisters and daughters. May be it is jealousy that is worrying her, nobody knows. The wives who are smart in the family quickly make her their friend. She can be as fiercely loyal as she can be terrible.
"She it was who led the others to go and drive our big uncle's wife away from her home when the husband died. It has been a long time Sister has been waiting for her. The woman thought too much of herself, by Sister's estimation. She would not allow anybody near her husband. She was enjoying the man's wealth alone, she and her children. Sister and her gang in the family blamed the woman for everything our late uncle did. Even the things that happened in her absence, things, which she could not possibly have known about, were all blamed on her. If he visited somebody, it was her fault. If he did not visit somebody it was still her fault, even though we all knew our uncle was his own man. Nobody could control him and he was a man about town. Anyway, the moment he died, Sister led an assault group on his wife, including all of them who would not have dared to move near their house when her husband was alive."
"In the midst of this woman's agony, all they were doing was querying her on how he died and the whereabouts of his property. They even went and brought some children from nowhere that they were parading as his. The woman just looked at them and kept quiet. She showed them anyway, but that is another story for another day."
"Tell me what did she do?"
"I said that it is a story for another day."
"You know once you say that I cannot rest. Please tell me what she did. I know the woman. Wasn't she the one who gave us a ride to school one day when it was raining?"
"You know her. She is the one. I hear that sometime after the burial, they went and told her it was time for her to move out of the house and she reminded them it was not yet three months and so she could still stay on. I hear Sister and the others told her that traditionally, three months did not mean three calendar months, but three lunar ones. She pleaded with them to give her some more time. They agreed. Please let's drop that story. I don't want to remember it and if Sister should catch us discussing it she will kill me."
We hurried up and folded our headties as cushions for our heads to carry the things on. By the time we got to the post-office, many of her meeting members were waiting. Most of them, like her, sell textiles in the market and they were wearing one of their uniforms.
By the time the journey got well under way, it was clear she had been talking with her friends. They are all chatting excitedly. By the time we got to the village, the wedding ceremony was already heating up. Drummers are drumming and of course, the villagers are already gathered, uninvited, and dancing. My brother's wife is there entertaining people. She runs to meet us and greets us very warmly. This woman is really nice. We all respond in like manner, and everybody is well disposed towards her, except Sister who answers from the corner of her mouth. The other wives of the family run to meet us as well, and to take the things we are bringing inside. Here, thank God, even I have an important status. I am a husband. I am not allowed to carry things when wives are around.
It is a very festive occasion. This is the first time I would be meeting this second wife. I wondered if she is as beautiful as the first one. Anyway, this ceremony is just to formalize the marriage. The bride price has already been paid. She has given birth to a baby boy, and everybody is ecstatic. She can do no wrong. She is a wife of gold.
My younger sister who lives at home with my mother in the village, winked and beckoned to me that we should go to the back of the house, she has something very urgent to tell me. She is very anxious to get it out. We have hardly turned the corner before she blurts it out.
Big Mama is gone. The old woman whose compound backs ours has moved away. At first I could not comprehend what she was saying. Big Mama never goes anywhere. She is always at home. As a matter of fact, I was just getting ready to run across to her house and greet her. One is always sure of a warm welcome at that woman's house. She is like everybody's grandmother. She and her husband have been living in that compound before any of us was born. Their house is a storey building, the very first one in the village, we are told. We always knew they were from another town, but they have stayed so long that people generally forget that fact. Their house was always full of children.
Big Mama, as we all call her, has no children of her own, but she has many relations from her family and her husband's family staying with them. Moreover, all difficult children in the village are taken to her for correction. Everybody admires the two old people, she and her husband, Pa Soldier, as he was called. He fought in one of the European wars. He used to tell us about a place called Burma. Whenever I came home from town where I had gone to stay with Sister, she would give me fried meat or sugar cane or guinea fowl egg or any of those sort of things she knew children loved. Her husband too was very well respected. They were among the town's unofficial magistrates. Normally, they would be among the special guests at any wedding in the village.
`Why did she leave? I asked my sister. Where did she go to?'
She has no other home as far as I know. It turned out to be a long story. The gist of it is that Pa Soldier decided to go back home to his village. Big Mama did not want to go and without telling her, he sold their storey building, the one they were living in, over her head, and moved to his hometown. My sister says people are saying he had a child all along, living in their village with one of his relations.
People are shocked and angry. Some young men in our village have taken the case to court on her behalf. They got an injunction, but in the meantime, her husband claims that he has treated her fairly by renting her an apartment. He has not turned her out in the cold. The old woman is heartbroken because, according to her, they built the house together, even though her name is not included in the papers and she does not want to live in a rented apartment. That house was the only home she had known all her adult life.
This happened about two months ago, and her people have come to take her away because she would not stop crying, bemoaning her childless state. My sister said she kept saying it was because she has no child of her own to stand and speak for her.
I was still trying to absorb what my sister was telling me when the singing started. The women are bringing the bride out to greet her husband and in-laws. They sing happily:
A wife of gold
A wife of coral
A wife of precious gems
We hope you have come to remove shame from our faces
The shame we have borne for a long time
A woman who has removed our shame
A woman who has not made our husband's penis to sweat in vain
We thank God
At least when a man performs
The result should be seen
Not that he just expends his energy in vain
A wife of gold
A wife of coral
We hoped you have come to remove the shame from our faces
The shame we have borne for a long time
We rush to the front of the house to watch the group, and there among the dancing women is Sister. She really has no business being there. She is not a wife. I search among them for my brother's first wife. She is not there. I find her in the kitchen, crouching in a corner, rummaging among her utensils. I find her sobbing, wiping her eyes with the tip of her wrapper. I hold her tightly, and we weep together.
Writing the stories also gave me an opportunity to put into practice my firmly held convictions that the humanities offer a depth of analysis which when combined with the methodologies of the social sciences provide a rounder and more accurate picture of social phenomena. Literary studies, for example, are very important in developing and transforming questions posed in the social sciences. I am of course very much aware of the implications of the methods I adopted in terms of the politics of representation and the role of my own voice.
To end on a note that has to do with representation, I am aware of the implications of the methods I adopted in terms of the role of my own voice. I am not a market woman, and I write in English, a language that is not commonly spoken in the market. Realistically for now, Africans will have to continue to write in English because it is the language of global discourse. I believe that my portrayal of market women presents the view of an insider, the most authentic possible through the eyes of another person. After all, as a Yoruba adage says, `the only reason a deaf person is vilified in front of his or her child(ren) is the certainty that the message will be delivered.'
As much as possible, I tried to represent the views of the women objectively. Like others, I realize that, "Speaking both for and as a woman (rather than `like' a woman): . is the problem of women's writing" (Jacobus 1989:55). Following Gillian Beer therefore,
We favour currently the word "representation" because it sustains a needed distance between experience and formulation. It recognises the fictive in our understanding. It allows a gap between how we see things and how, potentially they might be. It acknowledges the extent to which ideologies harden into objects and so sustain themselves as real presences in the world. The objects may be books, pictures, films, advertisements, fashion ... Representations rapidly become representative - those empowered to speak on behalf of their constituency: the authentic voices of a group. That is where the trouble starts when the claim is representing women: Are we offering and receiving formulations of an abiding group; offering accounts of a person, or a group of people, conceived as stable? (1989:63-64).
Markets in Nigeria have a life of their own, a vibrancy difficult to capture anywhere else. They are, to a large extent, self-regulating. Questions have been asked on possible reasons for the Nigerian market woman's ability to hold on to her space and to control her own resources in a manner that is not often found elsewhere. Put differently, what is it about the Nigerian context or the Nigerian market women that has allowed them to develop such assertive economic strategies as well as social and cultural codes? The first reason, to my mind, is cultural. The market system has been in place for as long as people can remember and has become integral to the economy. Trading in Nigeria is an established profession, with its own apprenticeship system and internal regulation. Levine, looking at gender roles and economic change in Africa, detailed several examples of women's economic activities from various groups in Africa. He made several observations, from among which I quote the following:
A final illustration from Nigeria comes from the Yoruba people, whose women are perhaps, the most independent in Africa. The Yoruba case is particularly interesting because it appears that traditional sex-role arrangements allow women a more autonomous economic role and a higher degree of mobility than the other groups we have been discussing . The role of woman as independent market trader is and has been highly institutionalized. (1970:179).
There is evidence that this pattern of women in the marketplace is replicated along the West African coast. Gracia Clark, in her work on market women in Ghana noted the same phenomenon, `The apparent personal independence and forcefulness of market women in the West African forest zone featured prominently in detailed studies and casual references alike, even to the point of stereotype' (1994: Introduction, xviii).
The second possible reason is that, traditionally, women have always had status in the cultures of many peoples of Nigeria, particularly that of the Yoruba with which I am most familiar.
The third reason perhaps is that women in these locations have always organized and borne responsibility for many practical aspects of their lives. In addition, they have always worked because of their heavy responsibilities. Over the years, various women's forums which have been organized in Nigeria, especially by government agencies and various NGO's, have tended to look at the women's question as one dealing with the problems, mostly of uneducated women, who need help with organizing their lives. The evidence of my observations however, points to the contradictions inherent in such a scenario. Who really needs help? What is clear is that there are many subsystems among women and each group operating a code based on the particular battles it has to fight. For market women, the issue is survival. How they go about fighting for and changing their space in the family and in society is a way of life unique to them and other women in their class.
The stories deal with the important issues of sexuality, personal and economic autonomy, marriage, polygyny, divorce, prostitution, fertility decision making, time use, allocation of income, self-perception and the importance of children. What I attempted to do with them is to present the marketplace version to the debates on these issues. A major insight I gained along the way is that issues that are of paramount importance to the market women are not necessarily `received' women's issues and vice versa. An understanding of these differences is essential for feminisms from different locations to speak to each other.
A brief instructive anecdote about the collection of the data I used for this project. Just before I started writing the stories, I needed to do one final check on my findings and impressions. I sent out a research assistant to do some interviewing for me. He is the son of one of my "customers," a woman I have known and befriended for many years in the market. He is in his second year in my university, studying Sociology. I decided to work with him, as he is, so to speak, a "native" of the market, and male. His brief was simple. He was to ask the women to tell him anything of special interest that has happened to them or to other women they know who sell in the market. He came back a few days later to say he did not use up the tapes I had given him as he decided to stop the interviews. He had had no difficulty whatsoever in getting the women to talk. On the contrary, he stopped because all the women seemed to want to talk about was their husbands, their husbands and other women, and their husbands! I invited him to think critically about that and see what conclusions he could draw from the experience! Obviously, women define their own agenda differently from men and only they can truthfully decide what is important to them.
For obvious reasons, it is not possible or appropriate for me to present a more detailed analysis here, but a few general comments should not be out of place. Broadly speaking, my findings led me to conclude that market women are generally in control of their economy, that they are most concerned about attaining a better life for their children, that they still consider being married the ultimate in spite of their economic independence. I also concluded that survival is the main issue with them and that they strive for this in a single- minded manner. They see childlessness as a major problem. While they admire educated women and view them as very intelligent, they also view educated women as quite unwise in handling their relationships with men.
Beer, Gillian. "Representing Women: Re-presenting the Past." In Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore (eds.) 1989. The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and Politics of Literary Criticism. London: Macmillan. 1989. 68-80.
Clark, Gracia. Onions are my Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. 1994.
Dwyer, Daisy, and Judith Bruce, Introduction. A Home Divided. By Dwyer and Bruce. Stanford University Press, 1988.
Greene, Beth. "The institution of woman-marriage in Africa: A Cross- cultural analysis." In Ethnography 37. 4. 1998. 395-412.
Jacobus, Mary. "The difference in View." In Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore (eds.) The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. London: Macmillan. 1989. 42-62.
Levine, Robert. "Sex Roles and Economic Change in Africa." In J. Middleton (ed.) Black Africa: It's People and their Culture Today. London: Macmillan. 1970. 174-180.
Mabogunje, Akin. Urbanization in Nigeria. London: University Press Ltd. 1968.
Olukoshi,Adebayo. "Extending the frontiers of Structural Adjustment Research in Africa: Some Notes on the Objectives of Phase II of the NAI Research Programme." Structural Adjustment And Socio-Economic Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet Research Report 102.
Oluwole, Sophie. "Culture, Gender, and Development Theories in Africa." In Africa Development. 22. 1. 1997. 95-122.
Williams, Pat. "The State, Women and Democratisation in Africa: The Nigerian Experience (1987-1993)." Africa Development. 22. 1. 1997. 141- 182.
© Copyright 2000 Africa Resource Center, Inc.
Citation Format
Ufomata, Titi. (2000). WOMEN IN AFRICA: THEIR SOCIO-POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ROLES. West Africa Review: 2 , 1. [iuicode: http://www.icaap.org/iuicode?101.2.1.4].