The colonial roots of gender inequality refers to the political, educational, and economic inequalities between men and women in Africa. According to a Global Gender Gap Index report published in 2018, it would take 135 years to close the gender gap in Sub-Saharan Africa and nearly 153 years in North Africa. While much more is known about the effects of colonialism on all African people, less is known about the impacts of colonialism on specifically women. There are competing theories about the cause of gender inequality in Africa. Some scholars suggest its genesis is in slaveryHistory of Africa and colonialism. Some Scholars argue that, colonialism resulted in an erosion of traditions and rights that formerly granted women equality and esteem. Some women in pre-colonial Africa held positions of power and were influential in many aspects of their societies. Other women were slaves in pre-colonial African societies. All this changed during the colonial period. With new forms of gender inequality introduced, many of the cultural underpinnings of African societies were eroded, and this harm has been challenging to mend. Theoretical frameworks that help to explain the colonial roots of gender inequality include coloniality of power and coloniality of gender. These decolonial concepts provide an account of how gender inequality became situated within the African context and help to explain why present-day inequalities, including women's political underrepresentation, remain significant challenges for Africa.
On the other hand, pre-colonial slavery in Africa included kingdoms, such as the Yoruba kingdom, owning eunuchs, that is, slaves whose genitals had been mutilated. There were also women whose genitals had been mutilated, and female slaves in Africa before European colonialism.Boyle, E. H. (2002). Female genital cutting. Cultural conflict in the global community. Johns Hopkins University Press.Mackie, G. (1996). Ending footbinding and infibulation: a convention account. American Sociological Review, 61, 999–1017. According to Yoruba anthropologist Daniel Fadipe, a Yoruba wife could be whipped by her husband in pre-colonial times.Fadipe, N. (1939). The sociology of the yoruba, PhD dissertation, London School of Economics.Pearce, T. O. (2014). Dispelling the myth of pre-colonial gender equality in Yoruba culture. Canadian Journal of African Studies, 48, 2, 315-331. Slavery before Western colonialism can be attributed to indigenous African customs (including native patriarchy) and also to the expansion of Islam, since from the 7th century onwards, Arab Islam expanded into Africa and enslaved many African people. Millions of them, including women, were taken as slaves to the Middle East and others remained within the continent.N'Diaye, T. (2008). Le génocide voilé: Enquête historique. Gallimard.
History Gender inequality on the African continent has exacerbated as a result of colonialism, which disrupted the pre-colonial economic, cultural, and political systems on the African continent. Colonialism introduced patriarchal norms, a disruption of traditional African gender roles, and the criminalization of indigenous practices.
Some scholars argue that, European powers altered African communities with their patriarchal norms. As a result, women were cast aside and given inferior positions in the home and in society. Colonialism established the notion that women were subordinate to males and that men should hold all positions of power and authority.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) causes pain to girls and women at the time of the ritual and later when urinating or menstruating, psychological trauma, chronic pain, and inability to feel pleasure during sexual intercourse, infections and in some cases death.Ghosh, A., Flowe, H. & Rockey, J. Estimating excess mortality due to female genital mutilation. Sci Rep 13, 13328 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-38276-6Hamid Rushwan, "Female genital mutilation: A tragedy for women's reproductive health", African Journal of Urology, 19(3), September 2013, pp. 130–133. It is an ancient African custom that dates back to Africa over 2,000 years.Boyle, E. H. (2002). Female genital cutting. Cultural conflict in the global community. Johns Hopkins University Press. It was not introduced by Western settlers. British settlers tried to ban it in Kenya, but were unsuccessful.Njambi, W.N. (2011). Irua Ria Atumia and anticolonial struggles among the gĩkũyũ of Kenya: A counternarrative on “female genital mutilation”. In: O. Oyĕwùmí (Ed.), Gender epistemologies in Africa (pp. 179-197). Palgrave Macmillan.
Consequently, traditional African gender roles were transformed: in African countries, colonialism altered traditional gender roles. In many pre-colonial African communities, women held significant roles in agriculture and other economic activities. In West Africa, for example, women had much sway over disputes on markets and agriculture. Though with the establishment of colonial legal systems, laws were created that granted men precedence over women in matters of marriage and divorce. Thus, much of the pre-colonial activity that women were involved in was often ignored by colonial officials, who only appointed men to local political positions.
Scholars point to the colonial legacy of African underdevelopment to explain gender inequality and female disempowerment. When Europeans settled in Uganda it caused a century-long transformation of Kampala which led to a gender Kuznets curve. African men were educated and employed in the white-collar (high-status) economy built by the Europeans. Women, on the other hand, were slower to obtain education and employment in the white-collared economy. This disparity contributed to the gender inequality gap in the early pre-colonial period, however, the gender gap gradually decreased during the late colonial era. Economist believed the gender gap may have been rooted in indigenous social norms. Less-educated women often worked in traditional informal economies rather than formal work. Consequently, they were subjected to marital gender inequality in comparison to women who worked in the formal economies created by Europeans.
Literature often characterized African women as subservient to their fathers and husbands. But in pre-colonial Africa, women were queen-mothers, queen-sisters; princesses, chiefs and holders of offices and villages, occasional warriors, and in one well known case, the Lovedu, the supreme monarch. Yet, colonial laws and regulations restricted women's access to land and other resources, which resulted in their exclusion. In many African communities, colonization displaced women from their traditional roles in society, eroding their prestige and limiting them to passive beneficiaries of support.
Furthermore, many African indigenous traditions, like widow inheritance were made either completely illegal or restricted severely by colonial authorities, meaning that women would not benefit as they would during the pre-colonial period. The criminalization of indigenous ways of life frequently resulted in the demonization of African cultures. By imposing their own rules and ideals, which included a Westernized gender ideology that delegitimized native cultural practices, the colonial authorities intended to change the "uncivilized" African societies. As a result, women in post-colonial Africa were not always protected from certain abuses because their societal or political power was severely limited. Many scholars believe African women became virtually voiceless, unable to gain economic and political equality.
Theories of gender inequality in Africa Different theoretical frameworks have been identified by scholars as being at the root of gender inequality in Africa. Most theories establish that contemporary African societies cannot be viewed outside the context of European colonialism, as it is through this lens that the oppression and marginalization of women in Africa can be understood. Scholars generally believe that the present-day African patriarchal system is one modeled after the Eurocentric perspective, in which European hierarchical structures were adopted, contributing to the diminution of women's roles in family and home life throughout the continent. They identify notions of coloniality of power and coloniality of gender to help explain the genesis of gender inequality on the continent.
Coloniality of power Scholars identify the concept of coloniality of power, coined by Aníbal Quijano, to provide a framework for understanding the role of colonialism in producing a power inequality between men and women. This concept, initially advanced in Latin America post-colonial studies, has now been adopted to describe the interactions between Europe and other parts of the world, like Africa. This theoretical framework establishes that colonialism regulated and continues to regulate various dimensions of African societies, including gender relations, culture, and the economy, among others, thereby establishing that the European imperial project is at the core of the oppression of women in Africa. This theory explains how historical patterns of dominance and social hierarchies are interwoven with contemporary forms of oppression and marginalization.
Patriarchy became accepted in African cultures and solidified the subjugation of women in Africa. According to scholars, patriarchy can be thought of as an ideology or political system where men direct women on what roles they shall or shall not play in society, and women are thought of as inferior to men. Yet, patriarchy was not Africa's primary system of political and social organization prior to colonization. Many matriarchal societies have existed throughout Africa's history where women played important roles and maintained social equilibrium. In pre-colonial Africa, there was no transition from matriarchy to patriarchy since the social structure was fundamentally matriarchal in that women held power, passed down property and lineage, and were the flexible party in marriage and sexual unions. This changed drastically with the introduction of colonialism. Coloniality of power illustrates how the power imbalance between men and women became severe with the introduction of colonialism.
Coloniality of gender Coloniality of gender outlines that gender cannot be separated from colonialism. This theoretical framework, created by Maria Lugones to explain the role of colonialism in enacting Eurocentric gender structures onto Indigenous people of the Americas, builds on the coloniality of power framework to explain colonialism in Africa, though now with a deeper consideration of gender, sexuality, and race. From a coloniality of gender perspective, colonialism radically transformed the indigenous sense of identity and gender relations in Africa. Thus, Europeans understandings of gender supplanted pre-existing notions of sex and gender that had been established long before the arrival of Europeans. Furthermore, European understandings of gender became a tool for dominance by identifying two binary, hierarchical categories, where women became defined by their subservient relationship to men in all facets of life.
According to prominent de-colonial feminist scholar Oyeronke Oyewumi, "gender was not an organizing principle in Yoruba society prior to colonialization." Oyewumi bases this conclusion on her studies of the Yoruba people in modern-day Benin, Togo, and Nigeria, where she finds that it was the Western world that introduced the idea of gender as a tool for dominance that denotes two binary and hierarchical social categories. As a result, women came to be defined by their relationships to men and were consequently denied access to power, land, and leadership positions in society. With the introduction of gender as a concept, women were created as a distinguishable category that was always subordinate to men in Yoruba culture.