Abstract
This article seeks through Ejagham women’s experience in the ritual dances of Ngbokondem and Moninkim to engage the notion of patriarchal control of African women’s sexuality in ‘female genital mutilation’ discourses as postulated by second-wave feminist theorists such as Daly, Koedt, Hosken and so on. A firmly based patriarchy threatens culture, sexuality and identity; the article shows how women use varied coping mechanisms, including aid schemes, sexual insurgency and even breaking of bodies to define their place and identity in a patriarchal society. However, some Ejagham women’s practices are themselves laced with patriarchal violence where women postulate as main participants. The article coins the term ‘triple patriarchy’ to capture this phenomenon. It portrays how Ejagham women, who are interrogating domination, also act in ways that reinforce patriarchy. Using womanist theological lens as the hermeneutic framework, the article concludes that women initiation practices are the foundations through which women grasp the meanings of Christian initiation rituals such as baptism, eucharist, marriage and so on. Hence, they should not be destroyed but fine-tuned; for there is more about the women’s practices that need to be engaged than labelled.
Highlights
The practice of Nkim e Nkim, a cultural rite which has been globally described as ‘female genital mutilation’, remains a concern for the Ejagham area in Cameroon and the global community
We were interested in other initiation practices with sexual implications that go alongside Nkim to shape women’s lives such as Mbi ebe, Nkekwet [widowhood] rituals and burial of Ejagham women
Oduyoye’s (1995:82) advice could be endorsed here to check double standards within Nkim discourses as well as suspect the varied funded projects of solidarity that constantly view African women as objects than subjects. She advises that only when foreign interventions are thorough and empathetic do they become valuable expressions of solidarity. It is at this juncture that we suggest that Ejagham women cannot vindicate themselves from the patriarchal violence through the double-faced picture being painted of Nkim e Nkim as rite and ritual that oppresses women when at their personal level they hail it as a worthy mark of sexual maturation and identity
Summary
The practice of Nkim e Nkim, a cultural rite which has been globally described as ‘female genital mutilation’, remains a concern for the Ejagham area in Cameroon and the global community. We were interested in other initiation practices with sexual implications that go alongside Nkim (in Ngbokondem/Moninkim clubs) to shape women’s lives such as Mbi ebe (literarily translated marriage money), Nkekwet [widowhood] rituals and burial of Ejagham women. Ejagham women who face coloniality and cultural male domination, in turn, oppress one another by exercising agency on themselves This is done through complacency and silence over norms enforced in connection with some of their initiation practices which largely strengthen patriarchy.
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