AFRICAN WOMEN AND FEMALE CIRCUMCISION - SOME REFLECTIONS

Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome
Fordham University
Published in
Invited paper presented at Lehman College, CUNY, April 26, 1998

Intro | Roots of Oppression
How do we study AFRICAN WOMEN? | Works Cited

Introduction

African women in the United States are faced with many challenges. There is first and foremost, the need to adjust to a new society, find one's feet and take care of one's responsibilities. These are no different from the challenges faced by many immigrant groups newly arrived on these shores. African women however, face the burden of devising pro-active mechanisms to deal with the stigma that is often attached to their existence, especially by those that purport to be their friends and defenders. One would be hard put to find evidence of the positive portrayal of African women in the media because they are often brought to public attention as objects of pity, those beset by the oppressive weight of patriarchy, those burdened by responsibilities that are made heavier by the refusal of their husbands to share in the responsibilities of housekeeping, and most significantly, those poor women who were genitally mutilated by their barbaric kinfolk. An extensive search of media and other sources of information on African immigrants to the United States largely gives information on "female genital mutilation". Without much ado, I would hasten to reject this terminology, which has become a fixture in contemporary feminist and popular discourse. Instead, I will use the term, female genital surgeries. The rationale for this rejection is that it is not the intent of those who practice the various forms of genital surgeries to wreak violence on their girls and women. To properly understand both the phenomenon, and construct viable solutions, it is incumbent on those that are bent on saving African women either from themselves or from their "brutal" societies to understand why such practices persist.

In the United States, this problem becomes even more complex because of the growing number of African immigrants on these shores. Some are women on whom genital surgeries have been done. Some, due to their belief systems, are desirous of ensuring that their daughters have such surgeries. For women who have had genital surgeries, going to the hospital for gynecological treatment entails becoming a veritable spectacle. Everything almost comes to a standstill, in order that the doctors in training, or the experts on hand observe firsthand, this atrocity. For such women, seeking medical care becomes associated with indignity. They are thus unlikely to go to the hospital willingly, except under the most dire of circumstances. When such women are interviewed, and they express their support for the practice, are they laboring under false consciousness? Are they foolish, or worse? It is impossible to make any rational determination without stepping back from the environment created by the furor over "FGM". What is clear is that such women must be protected, and their dignity ensured. There is ongoing effort to arrange for them to be accompanied to the hospital, especially by the group, RAINBO. These efforts are commendable, but must be expanded. For those who insist that genital surgeries are an integral part of their culture, criminalization is unlikely to solve any problem, instead, dialogue, discussion and the devising of solutions which incorporate their ideas is the only way to begin any kind of campaign to eradicate female genital surgeries.

In the drive to "protect" African women from "violence", most analysis fails to explore the history of violence, or the causative factors on the African continent. Instead, those who spearhead the "FGM" eradication drive have chosen to focus on only violence to women's bodily integrity, as they define it. Are we to assume that if women have had genital surgeries, they are unable to participate meaningfully in the social, economic, and political lives of their community and nation? If they have never had surgeries, are they so enabled, or empowered?

Roots of Oppression: State Class and Gender

This is not an argument that women are not oppressed on the African continent. What I argue instead, is that if there was ever a valid argument for the universalized oppression of women, the agency that has been most responsible is the state, modeled on its Western counterpart. In both its colonial and post-colonial forms, the African state has discriminated consistently against women. The post- colonial African state, continuing the colonial assault, has done a lot of violence to women's struggle for equality, equity and justice. Alavi, in his study of Pakistan and Bangladesh, argues that the colonial state was created with an agenda of dominating society, thus, with its strong bureaucracy and military organization it is overdeveloped vis a vis society. This overdeveloped state which is built on the culture and thought of the colonizer then dominates post-colonial society through the use of compulsion and violence. Ake similarly argues that the reality of the state falls short of its idealized form, and for women, this is especially true. The facade of what the state ought to be covers numerous ills. The state is an instrument of domination which retains its colonial characteristics, as such, it guarantees the rule of law only for the bourgeoisie. Essentially, the state remains an arena of class struggle. Essentially, it also is controlled from the outside by multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund; by transnational corporations, as well as official and unofficial creditors. Many of these institutions make policy for African countries. Many interfere in the daily management of the polity to such a significant extent that the state becomes a mere "window dressing". Thus, the relations of power within many African countries are not autonomously determined. Indeed, some have argued that they never have been. Whatever inadequacies we then lay at the foot of the state, we must attribute in part to the external controllers of the state, even those that claim to be progressive defenders of the rights of women. The reason for this contention is that while some organizations/institutions claim to be the defenders of human rights, they support the entrenchment of structures of domination that further erode what little power the individual has vis a vis the state. People who are hungry and beset by anomie are not necessarily interested in, or capable of making claims on the state for the expansion of their rights or the defence of rights that are taken away from them.

The understanding that the state is an arena of class struggle explains the practice of tokenism in all former attempts to join the bandwagon of "integrating women into development" both in the West and in Africa. These integrationist attempts have largely benefitted the bourgeoisie, both male and female, thus, one cannot equate the struggles of all women to a universal experience of patriarchy.

Commenting on the effects of the colonization of Africa, Robertson and Berger said the following:

  Foreign domination with its extension into neocolonialism has introduced new class cleavages into African societies, sometimes onto a relatively egalitarian base, sometimes into previously stratified social structures. While earlier patterns of inequality usually intensified during the colonial period, new class systems also have developed in accordance with changing forms of capitalist penetration.

  Many of these processes of social transformation have been detrimental to women. Their previously dominant role in food production has often been overlooked or ignored in the process of developing new crops and farming techniques, yet there have been fewer opportunities for them in newer capitalist enterprises than for men. This has left disproportionate numbers of women in economically precarious positions at the lower levels of the socioeconomic scale (9-10).

In an attempt to explain the interaction of state, class and gender in disadvantaging African women, Fatton attributes African women's lack of power to the blocking of autonomous African women from the nascent ruling class. He also argues that it is impossible for women to attain positions of power politically without their being proteges of powerful men.

  In Africa, the construction of ruling class hegemony has the effect of conflating male power with class closure. Women are not totally excluded from the ranks of the ruling class, but their quest for status and wealth depends inordinately on aligning themselves with powerful men. In the absence of such alignments, women tend to withdraw from the public arena to build their own parallel and independent spheres of survival. The emancipation of women is thus linked to the struggle against ruling class hegemony; it requires both a feminist and a class consciousness.(48)

While conceding that African women deploy conventional and unconventional strategies in struggles against male dominance, Fatton is uncritical about the origin of male dominance and he sweeps aside an account which he quotes extensively from Christine Obbo as insufficient defense against male dominance and class oppression. Drawing heavily on Parpart's earlier study on Kenyan women, Fatton in a determined manner, reduces all achievements by African women to their dependence on "their fathers and/or husband's social status."(49) Such reductionism is neither accurate nor supported by empirical evidence. The pertinent questions to ask Fatton include the following: are patron-client relations in Africa confined to women? Are these relations only to be observed in Africa? Are not many men and women in the West beneficiaries of the "old boys' network?

The adverse consequences of economic programs which are advocated by multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and IMF are the most recent incursions against the autonomy of African state. These Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) introduce policies that complicate the livelihood struggles of people in most African countries. One of the predominant goals of SAPs is to promote the spread of global capitalism by making African economies open to market forces and by implication, reducing the influence of the state on the economy. The vulnerability of African countries to the vagaries of the international market forces made them susceptible to the exercise of leverage by the IMF and World Bank in forcing the SAPs through. Many studies have documented the deleterious impact of these programs on African women.

The depiction of African women as powerless is not limited to scholarly works. Media reports fortify and support scholarly ideas. A case in point is several "op ed." pieces in The New York Times by A.M. Rosenthal, television and radio commentaries. The foci of such reports is the misery, powerlessness and marginalization of African women. A report in West Africa of the situation of African women by Enid Buchanan asked,

  Why is there such a short flow of women, the likes of Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, on the leadership scene in Africa when they are so manifestly numerous on the major international forums? African women's presence and influence in senior policy and decision-making positions in their Governments or parliamentary representation is surprisingly negligible. Why? (1070)

The answer for Buchanan is that this situation resulted from the heavily male dominated nature of African society, where

  the educated and professional woman, no matter how capable, in never considered the equal of her male peers and colleagues. She may be admired, humoured, tolerated... and if she plays her cards well, she might even make an inroad in her field of activity. But too often, it will be because of "favour" rarely because of her capabilities. It is only in the outside world that she can really shine and be appreciated for her professional value. This explains the number of outstanding women in the international forums (1070).
One wonders how many women of the stature of Gandhi and Thatcher exist in India and Britain respectively, and how many exist in the industrialized countries throughout the world. Switzerland became democratic in 1848, on the eve of the first world war but Swiss women did not become enfranchised until very recently, yet, Switzerland is not pointed out as a country which sits on its women. It would be more accurate to make a truly comparative analysis of the state of the world's women, acknowledge that the absence of women from decision making positions is generalized and trace that generalization to the internationalization of the Western state through colonialism. While there were pre-colonial African states, the colonial state is the one that provided the foundation for the contemporary African state. The gender bias of the African state is also traceable to its colonial origins.

There is a tendency to attribute class inequalities as well as the inequalities between men and women solely to the persistence of tradition in the face of modernity. However, the inequalities observed in contemporary Africa also have deep roots in the continent's colonial history and cannot be studied just as a product of its pre-colonial past since that past has co- mingled with colonial inputs. The colonial period was one when the contemporary state was created, when state power was forcefully imposed on Africans by Europeans who justified their actions as emerging out of altruistic motives. Africans, both men and women were disadvantaged by this process, losing status, property, and power. Since the colonizing Europeans were products of Victorian culture, the subordination of women to men was the norm. This norm was enforced on African society. Wage employment was restricted to men, as were the limited educational opportunities that existed and the authoritative positions in African society. The codification of "native law and custom" also privileged male over female sources of knowledge. It is no wonder that contemporary African women are lacking in decision making positions, as are their Western counterparts. They are all part of the same world system.

In contemporary Africa, the neocolonial state is the manifestation of all that was wrong with its colonial predecessor. It has neither lived up to the social contract between African nationalist leaders and the people in the anti-colonial struggles nor succeeded in producing its own nationalist agenda independent of the powerful and influential ideas within the world system on the political, economic and social responsibility of a state to its people, thus, its agenda reveals a tacit compliance with external interests rather than domestic desires.

How do we study AFRICAN WOMEN?

The African woman that is observed in feminist theorizing is a construct of the imagination of Western scholars who engage in the misapplication of Western models to African social life. Given their portrayal in feminist thinking, It is appropriate to sum up by classifying these fictional beings, "African women" as "the wretched of the earth". How did the African woman of Western feminist thought come about? The Western feminist depiction of the African woman is the product of voluminous research that emerges out of the ideological hegemony of the Western feminist over the realm of scholarship. As a result of this hegemony, a distorted view of the world emerged which remains powerful in the characterization of the African woman. In this sense, research becomes an instrument of domination. The invention of the African woman as victim is almost inevitable, given its origins from the racial, cultural and class biases of Western feminism.

I argue contrary to these analyses that the nature of the colonial and post-colonial state is the most significant variable in determining women's inequality because there is evidence that women held important political, economic and social positions prior to the imposition of colonialism. Moreover, if we accept the assertion that women are disadvantaged all over the world, we also have to look to causal factors that are generalizable worldwide as the cause of such inequality. Colonialism and the imposition of the capitalist system on the rest of the world by Western imperialist countries is the most logical causal factor. Contemporary social, political and economic systems are necessarily shaped by the imposition of capitalism and colonialism and cannot be taken as unadulterated depictions of precolonial African life.

Contrary to the negative portrayal of Africa and its women, I argue that African women are multidimensional in terms of their status, class, involvement in politics, social life and the economy. This conceptualization enables one to understand the existence of powerful as well as powerless women in all spheres of life and that is the starting point for more meaningful research on the global nature of sisterhood among women. The means through which women gain influence include the ownership and control of means of production; the prestige deriving from the bearing and socialization of children, seniority; exercise of ritual power and authority; and wealth, which may be inherited or achieved individually.

Many examples abound on the power and prestige of given women and despite the depredation of colonialism, oral tradition is a pointer to the continued importance of the African woman in society. To quote Philomena Chioma Steady on pre-colonial Africa:

  Since production was primarily for use,... the question of differential valuation between production and reproduction was not an issue. The basis for valuation of reproduction was more metaphysical and symbolic than purely materialistic. As a result, a woman's role in reproduction often received supreme symbolic value, since it strengthened the human group, ensured continuity of life, and became equated with the life force itself. The bond between the mother and child surpassed all other bonds and transcended patrilineal rules of descent. In patrilineal societies, the structural position of women as those who perpetuated the patrilineage served to modify the undue male control made possible by the strong corporateness of localized patrilineage groups (7).
There is no allowance for female power independent of its being granted by men in Western feminist thinking. Instead of a nuanced approach that recognizes multiple variations in the situation of women, one gets a presentation of women as a jumbled mass of sameness and as a miserable congregation of the oppressed who have no concept of the self, no dreams, no aspirations beyond servicing men in all respects. These depictions indicate the presumption that African women, unlike their western sisters are in need of the salvation that only scrupulous emulation of the west would correct. Worse still, a dominating agenda is papered over by a patronizing, magnanimous facade of the generous supportive, western sister who wants to uplift the oppressed African woman.

My contention is that some African women are powerful, influential, intelligent and capable. Similar to women all over the world, there are those who lack power and influence as well as those who are more powerful than most men in their society. Most studies however, look for the "dog bites man" kinds of cases to reinforce the dominant thinking in the West about the inferiority of Africa and her women.

The idea that women are dependent first on their fathers, and then on their spouses and the aforementioned idea that they depend on the influence of powerful men to propel them into politics indicate that even their western feminist supporters believe that African women jural minors. Otherwise, why would Enid Buchanan say that African women "are always owned by someone. Generally father, family or husband." In these perspective, African women can only be owned in the sense of being chattels. I contend that this is only so when considered from the ethnocentric position of the Western scholar. The studies that demonstrate the autonomy and command of African women over their lives and resources (despite less than ideal material conditions) remain overshadowed by the ones that stress negativity. Some of the more productive studies contend that there was complementarity among men and women in pre-colonial African society, with women as well as men being able to hold positions of power and leadership in all spheres of life. Studies also exist which indicate the ability of contemporary African women to autonomously determine their own fate, but much more needs to be done.

The underlying assumption in most studies on African women is that these women are impoverished, downtrodden and oppressed as a result of their ignorance. To quote Buchanan once again,

  Given the present situation and status of the African woman, (as legal minors) the promoters of African women's rights will have a hard uphill struggle to attain their objectives. The obstacle in their paths will be, not only the societies that relegate women to their present inferior position, but the very women themselves, who unenlightened, are obstinately resigned to their situation. (1070)
Unfortunately, ignorance and lack of enlightenment are neither useful nor productive as analytical categories. To reduce the reasons for the persistence of practices that perpetuate certain rituals to the ignorance of the practitioners is to take an arrogant stance of being more capable than they of apprehending and interpreting reality. As Hicks argues, "Qualifying a given problem as social does not make it so. Infibulation (the most extreme form of female circumcision) is a case in point. ... (for) the vast majority of the female population in infibulation-practicing societies, not being infibulated would be the social problem." (1)

Koso-Thomas, a Sierra-Leonian medical practitioner, in a book directed at devising a strategy for eradicating female circumcision, falls into the same pit in evaluating the arguments proffered by societies that practice female circumcision(5-9). All of the arguments that she enumerated were rejected, again, she stresses "the ignorance factor" as being in large part, responsible, together with "Mystical and ritualistic factors" (12-14). To buttress her points, she makes the following statement:

  "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." The eye that finds the normal female genitalia ugly has been conditioned to this perception. Even in those very rare cases in which enlargement of the clitoris and labiae occur, to the unbiased mind the enlarged organs are never objects of disgust or embarrassment (10). 
Of course, the standards of beauty are only acceptable to Koso-Thomas if they comply with what she believes they ought to be, in contradiction of her quote. If African women cling to their traditions and practices, they have to be approached as sentient, rational beings and studied using the same standards as are used in all other studies, not as exotic carry-overs from a dim and brutal past. Moreover, if and when there is a shift from this preoccupation with negativity, the more useful studies will emerge which avoid the gross over-generalization and under-specification that exists in much of the literature thus far and produce a more balanced depiction of African women in the multi- dimensional manner that is fitting.

The studies of the 1970s are a carryover of the historical tendency to underestimate the extent to which African women were productive members of their societies. In response to the critiques of these studies, present studies tend to overestimate women's ability to generate income under the adverse conditions that are the consequence of SAPs. As with all adverse situations, some individuals profit, but the livelihood of the overwhelming majority is threatened. These individuals are both male and female. The assumption that gender equality will ameliorate the situation of working class women is erroneous because women join the labor force under the same exploitative and alienating conditions as men. Structural constraints often cause a perpetuation of these same conditions by women.

In contemporary Africa, the study of women's responses to SAP is a salient issue precisely because it demonstrates the ongoing struggles of women with ideological, political and economic inequality. In studying women's responses to SAP, it is possible to analyze the struggles of women to make meaning out of their lives, grapple with difficult socio-economic problems, contest onerous state policies and make change in their lives. Women's responses necessarily differ by the objective situation faced, and depend on the opportunities and constraints arising from their class and regional situation. For scholars interested in other issues, the caution is that objectivity is well nigh impossible, especially in situations where another culture is being studied. The responses we get to questions depend on the questions we ask, which depend on our perspective. Our perspective is informed by our socialization and cultural biases.

Some crucial questions to ask with regard to Africa are: Do the Western feminist models apply? Do African women believe that they are under the oppressive weight of patriarchy? Is circumcision a symbol of men's control of women's sexuality for men's pleasure? To avoid over generalization and the reification of any given experience, it would be most instructive to conduct research on the multiplicity of ideas that exist among African women, ideas that are necessarily informed by the diverse cultural differences that exist among African ethnic groups. This is a gargantuan task which cannot be undertaken as has often been done in the past, by studying one group or a fraction thereof and assuming that what is observed applies to all Africans, as is done by Hanny Lightfoot-Klein who conducted studies in Egypt, the Sudan, Uganda and Kenya, but talks quite authoritatively about Africa as a whole. This approach to Africa is problematic since one cannot assert correctly that even within one country, all ethnic groups observe given practices or even that all parts of one ethnic group do. Circumcision is for instance not practiced by all Yoruba speaking people within Nigeria. Another misinformed tendency is to take whatever is observed in Africa as representative of tradition, as though its peoples have been frozen in time.

The task ahead is four-fold. In the first place, the feminist contention that gender is socially constructed must be taken seriously. Doing so necessarily involves the recognition that multiple fabrications of the concept of gender are inevitable. It cannot be reduced to an essentialist, unproblematic definition, and the consequences of gendering will differ with variations in time and space. As a first step then, studies of African women must be clear on the differences that set apart African societies. Of course, biases cannot be totally ruled out, since individual perspectives are shaped by experiences and socialization, but when generalizations are made, they must have a clear eye on reality. Secondly, experiences of African women of inequality and oppression cannot reflect those of their sisters in the West. Thus, more African women must use their specialized knowledge to construct their own theories. It is inevitable that these theories too would reveal multiple perspectives, since there is no unified, indivisible African viewpoint. To enrich the cross-cultural debates among all feminist theorists and erode the presumed Western monopoly on knowledge, Africans in the self-conscious examination of their individual societies, must build theories that are not mere replications or confirmations of age-old Western constructions.

It will attract much more attention and support for African women to jump unquestioningly on the bandwagon of the anti-"FGM" brigade. It will however, be more productive for them to be wary of the undue cosmopolitanism that such action entails, and for them to begin in a concerted way, to study their societies in a manner that does not assume that Africans are savages. Only by so doing can the rationale for the persistence of female genital surgeries be unearthed. Therein lies the mechanisms with which those who still engage in these practices can be persuaded to change their behavior. The discourse thus far has been extremely unproductive, unenlightened, and unenlightening. As more Africans settle in the United States, it is imperative that the scholars and activists in the various African communities become pro-active instead of constantly responding and reacting to Western agenda.

Third, it is highly problematic that Africa continues to be treated as one single unit of analysis, instead of a continent that should be studied comparatively. Comparative analysis is necessary in Africa because there are societies that differ radically, one from another. Indeed, some are similar, but the similarities ought not to be privileged over differences. Otherwise, the situation develops where what we say amounts to very little, because we deliberately ignore the differences that exist among the peoples of the continent in cultural practice, philosophy of life, language and ideology.

Fourth, to conflate poverty with powerlessness is to be unreflective and ignorant of the fundamental qualities of power. To the extent that discussions on power make statements on the degree to which an individual is influential, on the relational aspects of life, on the possibility of having power in one situation, on some issues, while one may be powerless in other situations, on other issues, we cannot reduce power to wealth and powerlessness to poverty. In the main, most analyses that exist today tend to fall into this trap. Related to circumcision, my contention is that its practice is not necessarily an indication of the powerlessness of women. Its persistence may be better explained by the desire of embattled and beseiged people to hold on to what they have come to accept as traditional because of issues of faith and conviction of the rightness of the procedures. For others, these practices ought to be practiced and defended because not doing so would be to allow outsiders to set one's agenda, or to become total victims to circumstances that disempower, disenfranchise, and denude. African women scholars ought to be in the forefront of developing a well-designed agenda that steers of the pitfalls of scholarship as usual in the academy. Only when this is done will we have rich, useful works that teach and inform.

WORKS CITED

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Steady, Filomina Chioma, "African Feminism: A Worldwide Perspective." in Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Sharon Harley & Andrea Benton Rushing, eds. Women in Africa and the African Diaspora Washington D.C.: Howard University, 1979.

Stichter, Sharon B. & Parpart, Jane L. Patriarchy and Class: African Women in the Home and the Workforce, Boulder: Westview, 1988.

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