African Women Developement

African Women Developement

The women of Africa have endured the systematic oppression of their development for countless of years due to elements in cultural, political and, historical events. Long before British-colonial occupation and the slave trade, the male dominated African tribal culture adhered to many oppressive yet accepted and structured forms of role categorization of women in African society. One can begin to understand the lineage of African women’s’ developmental encumbrance. The position of women in pre-colonial Africa was impeded mainly because of cultural aspects of their way of societal existence.African females would be type-cast from birth and instructed in manners of learning subservience, as is the case of human behavior in most societies, as strict and hindering gender rolesdetermined the path of their life (Dennis 69).As young girls, African females developed very closely with their mothers and would acquire the constricting elements that continue the ongoing chain of events. The young females would take part in the daily duties of their mother and learn the oppressive traits, as did their female ancestors before them. They would perform backbreaking chores for the tribal family in prepa 

Increased political participation among African women

28 September 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Millions of African women’s progress is challenged by their everyday realities of hunger, violence, exclusion, sickness, and discrimination. According to the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), most African women are worse off today than they were a decade ago.

According to UNIFEM’s flagship 2008 publication, “Progress of the World’s Women”, eight out of ten African women workers have vulnerable employment, meaning they contribute to family work or are self-employed. These informal work arrangements are paid too low to generate savings and lack social protection. Through these jobs, women have become the backbone of Africa’s “informal” economy.

However, they have been unable to reap the gains from the sustained growth of their national economies because they are marginalized by deregulation and privatization, labor migration, and resulting changes in family structures.

The Role of Women in Post-independent Africa

1. Overall status of women in Africa

African women have always been active in agriculture, trade, and other economic pursuits, but a majority of them are in the informal labour force. In 1985, women's shares in African labour forces ranged from 17 per cent, in Mali, to 49 per cent in Mozambique and Tanzania (World Bank, 1989). African women are guardians of their children's welfare and have explicit responsibility to provide for Read More

South Africa’s Rape Epidemic

In a recent study, one in four South Africans acknowledged committing a sexual violation in his life and close to half of all those surveyed admitted having done more than one attack. 73 percent of those who admitted to rape had their first violation even before they reached the age of 20. In addition, one in 20 respondents said he had raped a woman or a girl in the last year.

Although all the victims in the main survey were females, the survey report also includes cases of rape to men, whether suffered by the respondents themselves or as committed by them. One in 10 said that he had been raped by a man, while 3 percent said to have perpetrated the rape of a male, either adult or child.

Culture

Honoring Our Ancestors, Families, Our Culture & Humanity.

Inspired by One Love

Culture: The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, beliefs, institutions, arts, and all other products of human works and thought characteristics of a community or population.

A style of social expression, peculiar to a society, or class. Intellectual activity and the works produced by.

South African rape survey shock

One in four South African men questioned in a survey said they had raped someone, and nearly half of them admitted more than one attack.

The study, by the country's Medical Research Council, also found three out of four who admitted rape had attacked for the first time during their teens.

It said practices such as gang rape were common because they were considered a form of male bonding.

The MRC spoke to 1,738 men in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces.

The research was conducted in both rural and urban areas and included all racial groups.

Using an electronic device to keep the results anonymous, the study found that 73% of those who admitted rape said they had carried out their first assault before the age of 20.

Almost half who said they had carried out a rape admitted they had done so more than once.

African women and domestic violence

The annual mobilisation of women around the world around the theme of "16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence" from 25 November - 10 December 2007represents a tremendous global effort to increase awareness of violence against women in all its forms. In light of the 2007 theme - demanding implementation, challenging obstacles - this article looks at the issue of domestic violence from the perspective of African experience, and examines the impact of attempts to address it by legal means. It poses three questions:

African Tribes

 

Europe over more than two millenia of over devestating conflict has organized itself along ethnic and linguistic lines. This has not occurred in Africa. Most modern African states reflect the boundareies drawn by European colonial powers in the 19th century during the scramble for Africa. The Europeans commonly ignored tribal and linguistic afinities among African peoples. This mean that tribal groups were often fracrtured and separated by the European imposed boundaries. Thus modern African states commonly are Read More