Name:                          Máiréad Ryan.

 

Id. No:                          9889205.

 

Course:                         MA. Peace & Development Studies.

 

Module:                        HI5012: International History of the Twentieth Century.

 

Lecturer:                      Dr. Ruan O’ Donnell.

 

Date:                            April 2003.

 

 

	Presentation Essay:   Gender & Colonialism.

 

 

 “The pursuit of power makes us cunning, the possession of power makes us stupid”

                                                                                                                        (Nietzsche).

The extent and magnitude of colonization is immense. D.K. Fieldhouse (1981) interprets the phenomenon of colonialism and indeed imperialism as the domination of one society by another. The colonization of what we refer to as the third world by the first world was a vigorous and mutable process lasting for over 500 years. Lonsdale and Berman (1979) argue that the underlying aims of colonialism involved capital accumulation and social control. The needs of capital accumulation meant altering social and economic structures if colonies were to be minimally self-financing to pay for their own administration. Waylen (1996), notes that the contradictory processes of capital accumulation and social control “had a profound impact on gender relations”. Changes that occurred in the nature of production such as in landholding and indeed in the organisation of labour affected relations between men and women. Waylen (1996) refers to the fact that the social control efforts were enforced in gendered terms via restrains on women’s mobility and sexuality, and indeed the regulation of relations between men and women through laws relating to marriage and adultery. As this topic is quite broad and indeed complex it is useful to explore some of the pre-existing gender relations and the interaction between these relations and the new forms of social, economic and political organisation introduced by the colonizers. One must take the collaboration between the colonial state and the traditional patriarchal assemblages into account. For my purposes, I intend to correlate colonialism and gender in relation to African colonization in particular.

 

Prior to the arrival of formal colonialism, many societies, for example in West Africa had extensive contact through trade with Europe. Societies in Africa manifested extensive diversity and variety in all spheres of life including in gender relations. Although these societies were peasent-based, they were generally complex hierarchical kingdoms. The majority of African societies were patrilineal rather than matrilineal meaning that the rights and inheritance passes through the male rather than the female line. The very nature of patrilineal societies dictated that women were expected to move to their husband’s village and were allowed fewer legal rights thus giving them less economic security. Henn (1984) illustrates this point using the example of lack of access to land and indeed use rights over it. Waylen is careful to note that whilst gender relations in pre-colonial Africa were not characterised by equality, with women having a greater interdependence than in perceived ‘modern’ societies, men and women often had different but complementary roles. Staudt (1986) paradoxically notes that as much social stratification was based on gender, women frequently had a high degree of autonomy and control over their own lives, with consequential high levels of cohesion and solidarity along gendered lines.

 

Before the advent of colonialism women possessed a certain degree of autonomy in relation to access and control of economic resources, although this was on terms we would consider disparate to those of men. Women exercised use rights over agricultural land. Men had responsibility for carrying out a limited range of tasks for example, land clearing and preparing. Women, however, did not consider themselves to be part of the same economic unit as their husbands. Consequently they had their own budgetary independence and often charged men for the use of their labour. West African women played an important role in trading activities. Etienne’s study (1980) of the Baule community in the Ivory Coast provides expansive evidence of the symbiosis and mutuality, which existed in relationships between men and women. Judith Van Allen (1972) carried out a study of the Igbo people of southern Nigeria. She focused her study particularly on female networks of political coordination and cohesion amongst the Igbo. Van Allen noticed that the women possessed their own power structures, which dealt with questions pertinent to the women themselves, including market regulation.

 

While one cannot possibly generalize about pre-colonial societies, it is evident that although relations between men and women were not typified by equality, or indeed an absence of male dominance, women often maintained a degree of power and independence over their own lives. As Europeans, the colonizers brought with them their own pre-constructed values and ideologies. Nineteenth century European cultural constructions of gender were vastly different to the situation they encountered. I will now examine the colonial period and the effects of colonial policy on existing, gender relations.

 

Colonial administrations were fundamentally hierarchical, bureaucratic and autocratic in nature. With the exception of the lower levels, the colonized, principally women were excluded from the running of the colonies. Higher administrative levels consisted of a number of officials sent from the ‘mother-country’, directed by a governor responsible to a colonial office in the ‘mother-country’. Colonial administration remained an almost exclusively male ‘occupation’ until relatively late in the history of colonialism. To minimize the cost of running the colonies, the colonial administration employed the technique of combining existing administrative structures with a system of indirect rule. Consequently, female influence was reduced as the complementary gender relationships were disregarded. Okonjo (1976) describes how the male official within the Igbo tribe was turned into a salaried official whilst his female equivalent official was ignored. The system of direct rule employed by the colonial powers connoted a proportion of collusion between the colonial state and the original male constructions of authority where their concerns coincided. Grier (1992) maintains that “the policy of indirect rule reinforced the legal and coercive powers of chiefs and male elders over their historic dependents of males over females”.

 

A further cleavage arose between the colonizer and the colonized. Stoler (1989) sums up the situation by observing that colonialism was based on a significant but erroneous premise. Firstly that Europeans formed an “easily identifiable and discrete biological and social entity; a ‘natural’ community of common class interests, racial attributes, political affinities and superior culture”. Spatial boundaries were created whereby the ‘white’ Europeans were separated from ‘native’ populations. Therefore, the sexual, conjugal and household lives of the colonizers and the colonized were disconnected and separated (Stoler, 1989).  The arrival of European women in the colonies was seen as an opportunity to redefine and enhance colonial morality thus strengthening and augmenting racial tensions and boundaries. White women were seen to demand unconventional and superior facilities. This perception brought about clear class divisions and women sequentially became responsible for ensuring that certain principles and standards were met and upheld. This involved, women ensuring that the rituals associated with middle and indeed upper class life in the ‘mother country’ were emulated in the ‘new’ territory. Women were expected to fulfill other indistinct roles such as the maintenance of certain moral ‘standards’ and the performance of what were considered to be ‘good works’. Gartell (1984) makes the interesting observation that it was felt the presence of women would help to conserve the imperative moral strictures and an upper-class way of life. In this way women took part in informal colonizing activity. 

 

Colonialism profoundly changed the fabric of the societies it imposed itself on, not just obliquely but as a direct result of colonial policies. Colonialism brought about significant changes, acutely altering political, financial and social systems. The modifications were inherently gendered. The colonial aim of cash accretion radically altered the character of production. The production of capital intensive ‘cash crops’ generated different labour patterns for the resulting mines, settler estates and plantations. This type of exploitative capitalist primary industry replaced existing pre-capitalist systems of production and social order. The colonial administration decreed a taxation policy, which obliged households to acquire cash earnings. These ‘developments’ fostered the creation of large numbers of male workers, often migrants. It also stimulated these workers to produce outwardly lucrative cash crops thus facilitating the duel processes of urbanisation and proletarianization. The effect of these changes on gender relations may appear somewhat hidden. The changes however were immense.

 

The evolution of an export directed colonial economy conferred a lower status upon women. Access to economic possessions and labour was drastically reduced whilst responsibilities simultaneously increased. The production of cash crops facilitated a breakdown in the pre-colonial interdependent relationship referred to earlier between men and women. The new administration focused their efforts of economic redirection on men. Cash cropping became man’s domain. Henn (1984) sums up the situation by remarking “the traditional powers of patriarchs and chiefs were reconstituted, as colonial states attempted to strengthen the power of those households and chiefs who could ‘produce’ what the colonial powers wanted: export crops, taxes and laborers”. Therefore, men also had access to instruction and training in new technologies as well as access to credit facilities. This subsequently encouraged men to withdraw from their previous subsistence agricultural production methods and concentrate on the production of cash crops. Women often bore the brunt of this change in focus, consequently incurring heavier workloads but failing to secure the right to share in the collateral generated by this process. The nature of agricultural production also changed radically. In Etienne’s study of the Baule, the reduction of dependence upon women’s production is notable.

Like the rest of the world, African countries are struggling to find direction in the post cold-war era. Debates about the structure of African societies and states are fundamentally related to the legacies of the colonial era and the failures of the first post-colonial generation. It must be recognised that progress for Africa depends upon the advance of women in all spheres of life. African women still face enormous obstacles. Female adult literacy rates are 50% or less in twenty-nine African countries, Maternal mortality rates for sub-Saharan Africa averaged 980 per 100,000 live births in 1990 as compared with 12 for the U.S. and 470 for all developing countries[1]. Therefore addressing ingrained gender disparities is not only an imperative in it’s own right, it is essential for Africa’s economic and political advancement.

 “Empires come, empires go, and on the whole their intangibles last longest; manners, customs, ways of thought, beliefs” (Jan Morris)

 

 

 

Bibliography:

 

 

1.      Cain, P.J., Hopkins, A.G., (1993) British Imperialism-Crisis & Reconstruction 1914-1990 New York: Longmore Singapore Publications Ltd.

2.      Etienne, M., Leacock, E (Eds)(1980) Women and Colonization: Anthropological Perspectives New York: Praeger.

3.      Fieldhouse, D.K., (1966) The Colonial Empire- A Comparative Survey from the Eighteenth Century (2^nd Edition) London & New York: Macmillian.

4.      Freund, B., (1998) The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800 (2^nd Edition) Boulder, CO; Lynne Reinner.

5.      Grennan, R., (1994) A Critique of Western Colonialism- it’s effects on culture, race and gender. University of Limerick: Thesis: MA International Studies.

6.      Lessing, D., (1980) The Grass is Singing London: HarperCollins.

7.      Momsen, J.H., (1991) Women and Development in the Third World. London & New York: Routledge.

8.      Said, E., (1993) Culture and Imperialism. New York: Pantheon.

9.      Sen, G., & Grown, C., (1988) Development, Crisis and Alternative Visions: Third World Women’s Perspectives London: Earthscan Publications.

10.  Staudt, K.A., Jaquette, J.S., (Eds)(1983) Women in Developing Countries: A Policy Focus. New York: The Haworth Press.

11.  Waylen, G., (1996) Gender in Third World Politics. Buckingham: Open University Press.

 

 

 

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