The Great Black Mother

Africans were the first to inhabit the earth. Fossil records as well as DNA analysis give scientific evidence to support this fact. Therefore, the first woman to give birth was a Black African woman. It is from us that all humans have come. The other races of humankind all evolved from Black Africans.

Ancient Africans had a deep-seated respect for women. Charles Finch in the book Echoes of the Old Darkland explains that early man did not know the link between sex and birth. Therefore, it was believed that new life was created by the woman, the mother alone. It was perceived that all life in nature emerged from women ALONE. Therefore when the first concept of God was developed, the female served as the model of the Supreme Being. Finch explains how it was under this initial Matriarchal System that the first rules and taboos to govern human behaviour were articulated. Another important contribution of ancient woman can be seen in the fact that as the gatherer of grains, seeds, roots berries and plants to the group, we had the opportunity to observe how seeds sprout when they fall in the ground. This observation led to the practice of organized cultivation. It was the woman who probably developed the practice of purposeful cultivation. This may have happened as early as 15,000 BC. It is the practice of agriculture that made population expansion, food surpluses and community settlement possible.

Women In Africa

From Egypt in the north to South Africa in the south calls for the recognition of the rights of women in each of the countries in Africa are urgent and insistent. Statistical data supports what the eye plainly sees, women throughout Africa do much more than their share of the work in many spheres of daily life. They maintain households, fetch firewood and water, work the fields, sell goods in the marketplace, and more. And yet the irony is that this work remains so invisible and undervalued that a chapter entitled “Women in Africa” still seems appropriate in a book such as this. (Imagine a chapter or a book entitled “Men in Africa”!)

The resource materials in this chapter shine a spotlight on the enormous contributions that women in Africa make on a daily basis. At the same time they underline the fact that “women’s work” continues to be circumscribed by traditional boundaries, eve n in situations where they have been actively involved in largescale political movements such as in South Africa. Viviene Taylor, National Social Welfare Policy Coordinator of the African National Congress, notes that “Women in South Africa are in the majority and have played a crucial role in the liberation struggle, yet they are under-represented in all spheres of life except at the lower end….The political and economic empowerment of women, both as representatives of the majority…and as representatives of the most exploited and oppressed class must be given concrete form and content” (Development 1994:2, p. 36).

The Role Of Women in African Society

The Role Of Women in African Society

What place should women have in society? Traditionally, a woman’s place has been inferior to that of the average man. Whatever is considered most valuable in society is placed under the direction of men; whatever is considered less valuable is given to women to care for – even when people ostensible know better.

The culture of women, especially higher education, was of greatest concern from 1880 to 1900, even though the issue nearly dropped from view by the turn of the century. Although there were a few sprinkled comments in favor of identical education from males and females, most commentary took one of two approaches. The first supported education for women within their sphere. Women should be taught to be “teachers to their children” and better housekeepers and they should receive “some careful instruction regarding the beauty of girlhood as shown by modesty, by unselfishness, by unostentatious care for others.”

The Nsei, The Kpe of Coastal Cameroon

The Nsei:
The Nsei people confine the mother and twins behind a fence for several years. When the fence is taken down, there is a great feast. A twin pot decorated with a large red spot surrounded by a black circle is put in the mother’s house. This post contains palm wine mixture with some large snail shells. This is noteworthy as generally cowri shells are used for rituals. Snail shells would be unusual and may survive in the archaeological record.

The Kpe of Coastal Cameroon:
Found along the coast, they are a Bantu speaking peoples. In this culture twins are considered a difficult thing and rituals are performed when a pregnancy is discovered to prevent twins. They are often sickly, they are difficult to nurture and it is believed if the twin does not like the house it is born into then it will die. Twins are welcomed if born, but are viewed with apprehension.

Warriors: African women in African society

http://cultureafrico.wordpress.com

Western media coverage on African women usually centers around issues of oppression such as female circumcision in East Africa, “Islamic” extremism in West Africa, or rape in South Africa. While the world should not dismiss these issues, what we are seeing is a lopsided image of African women’s lives. Africa is home to many cultures, and the place of women varies in different African societies. Unfortunately, a large number of non-Africans perceive the whole of Africa as a single cultural entity, and cannot imagine that two different African cultures can have value systems that are diametrically opposite to each other.What follows is a non-comprehensive list of African women warriors. It is our hope that these portraits will show a side of Africa not often seen by the rest of the world – the historic reality of strong women who forged their own destinies.

West Africa

Warriors and Rulers: the roles of African women in African society

http://cultureafrico.wordpress.com

In a chance conversation with a visitor from Asia, I was surprised to uncover the view that Africa was a continent plagued by misogyny. Even people from a far flung corner of the globe, who had little exposure to Africa and Africans, had somehow acquired the idea that African men were sexist and violent, and that the lives of African women were disproportionately marred by sexual violence.

Rape certainly occurs in Africa, just as it occurs on other continents. Much of rape in Africa occurs in the context of war, just as wartime rape is common in other parts of the world. But our Asian visitor does not label all Europeans as rapacious because of the gang rapes they perpetuated against fellow Europeans during the World Wars and the recent conflict in the Balkans.

Without doubt, there are some African cultures with misogynistic practices, just as there are European and Asian cultures that have sexist customs. But Africa, like Asia and Europe, is a continent of diverse ethnic groups and social cultures. There is a wide range of African attitudes towards women and any other topic for that matter. It is overly simplistic to see all of Africa (or Asia or Europe) as culturally uniform.

The fact is, Africa has been home to a large number of matrilineal cultures. According to a 1961 article by David Aberle, 20% of “traditional” African societies have matrilineal descent groups; and 43% has descent groups in both male and female lines.1 Among the matrilineal Akan peoples of West Africa (including the Ashanti), the status of women was particularly high, a situation believed to have been altered by the influence of European missionaries.2

Even non-matrilineal cultures of Africa are not necesarily as oppressive towards women as non-Africans often imagine to be. The Igbo of Nigeria are patrilineal and allow polygyny, but marriages are arranged by women and women’s associations controlled the markets.3.

The ambilineal the Betsileo of Madagascar allow polygynous marriages but women arrange the marriages.4 Betsileo society gives women a prominent role in agriculture, in contast to European peasant societies such as the French and Spanish, where people think of the house as the domain of women and the field as the domain of men.5 Not surprisingly, gender stratification is a greater problem among French and Spanish peasants than it is among traditional Betsileo farmers.6

Among the Ju/’hoansi, a !Kung ethnic group in southern Africa, the rate of female murder victims compared to male murder victims is extremely low compared to the high level of female homocide victims (20-50%) in most Western societies, something which the anthropologist Richard B. Lee thinks might be related to “women’s high status in Ju/’hoan society”7. Lee states, “the many forms of sexual oppression that women experience in other societies, such as rape, wife battering, purdah, enforced chastity, and sexual double-standards are rare or absent in Ju/’hoan society.”8Are the social positions of African women really that much worse off than that of women in other parts of the world? Let’s take a brief look at African women’s roles in African societies:

Africa Women In The Workplace

Africa Women In The Workplace

    Although a dramatic increase in the number of women participating in the labor force
has taken place in the past decade, women have played a secondary role in that work
force since the ancient civilization of man. The value of women was and still is viewed as
less than that of a man. Traditionally a women's role in society was that of raising

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 

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 women’s role in Society and Governance

Economic roles


In traditional Africa, women had recognized and vital roles in the economic well being of their communities.Among the Kikuyu of Kenya, women were the major food producers and thus not only had ready access to land but also had AUTHROITY of how the land was to be used and cultivated. Therefore, the value of women’s productive labour in producing and Read More