My sister Ndey, I have personally tried to stay on the sidelines in this debate not because we are not interested , but as a matter of respect to our great sisters whose contributions to what we are today (positive or negative) cannot be denied. I am convinced that our womenfolk can represent themselves better than men have been doing for years. Though there is need for male solidarity, we should all be careful because mankind has a vested interest in the present system of biases which disadvantage womankind. We should therefore be careful about men who instead of listening to our sisters to workout the solutions to their problems, are always manipulating behind the scenes. It is indeed disgusting to note how some of our sisters have fallen prey to the politics of patriachal society. Besides succumbing to the manipulations of patriachy, some of them have simply joined the club and become predators like their male counters. Like students, women were in the forefront of the liberation struggle throughout Africa. But since independence the real issues that affect the lives of women have hardly been touch. In the context of the Gambia, the most important in this regard includes inheritance laws. The supreme law in the Gambia is the constitution, which clearly speaks against all forms of discrimination. But daily when parents die, we are faced with the lion share of their properties going to their male children. Its about time that someone tells us all that this practice is unconstitutional as it discriminates against the girl child on the basis of her gender. The interestingly disgusting things about polygamy can be found when we look at the household as a unit of production. In rural aggrarian societies, men marry multiple wives to get more hands for labour. Though the products belong to the household, the real powers for decision making belong to the male members of the household. Let me explain based on my fathers household. My father had two brothers and two sisters. Their sisters got married and went to live with other families. They had no control over the rice fields which they used to work on with their mothers. My mother and other women married into the family and were given control over the rice fields. But it must be stated that if anyone of them got divorced, she would have had to go home without having any rights of cultivating the rice fields. Thus everything belonged to my father and his brothers. My aunts, stepmothers and mother in reality, had nothing. This is the situation we have inherited, and the same scenario still obtains between me, my brothers and stepbrothers on one hand, and our sisters and wives on the other. It would be very difficult for one to be an advocate of social justice and yet condone the unjust scenario I have given as a way of illustration. Wth regard the women liberation struggle being western, I dont think that should be regard as a big issue. The west is the source of many of our woes. The status of women in Africa (in terms of legal rights), has never been as bad as the status of the Elizabethan woman. At some point the Elizabethan woman could not enter into valid contracts. The situation was so bad that if an employer direcly pays a female employees salary, her gentleman husband had legal rights to ask for the salary again. However, the point to make in our case is that colonialism was as patriachal as feudalism. It destroyed the vast majority of matrilineal institutions in place and generally replaced them with patriachally biased systems of administration, jurisprudence and production. Colonialism reinforced the the indigeneous patriachal structures we had to such an extent that by independence, the status of women had deteriorated significantly to leave behind a colassal system of patriachy. Thus since our interaction with the west through colonialism has contributed greatly towards the current predicament, it would not be wrong for our sisters to borrow from the ideas of women involved in the liberation movement in the west. But be aware, even this is a brother's perspective! The Struggle Continues. Omar Joof. >From: Ndey Jobarteh <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list ><[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Polygamy >Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 12:48:48 +0000 > _________________________________________________________________ http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=http://hotmail.com/enca&HL=Market_MSNIS_Taglines ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~