Transforming gendered relationships: Rural women in Africa

Abstract

abstract Today the attention of the world's policy makers is focused on sub-prime woes, and the financial crises. But the real crisis is that of hunger and malnutrition…Seventy five percent of the world's poor people are rural and most of them depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Agriculture is…a fundamental instrument for fighting hunger, malnutrition, and for supporting sustainable development and poverty reduction (Okonjo-Iweala cited in Magdoff, 2008). The drawback with the above axiomatic analysis, made by the managing director of the World Bank in 2008, is its lack of reference to the gendered dimensions of poverty, hunger and malnutrition and the significant roles that women play in agriculture. Recognition is given to the fact that there are huge diversities within and across countries on the African continent, and that Africa is not a monolithic entity. However, rural women in Africa do share some common characteristics and challenges; there is perhaps more that unites them than what separates them (Doss, 1999). Often subject to the most extreme forms of patriarchy, they are denied access to power and to decision-making both within and outside the home and they are denied access to education, land and to credit without collateral. The internal domestic and the external public worlds of women are inextricably linked in a number of complex ways (Sewpaul, 1994) and this personal-political identity link is the most pervasive theme of women's financial and political dependence (Millar and Glendinning, 1987). Recognising that women's positions are hardly likely to change dramatically without the decided involvement of men, this article makes recommendations, amongst others, for transforming relationships between men and women. Transforming gender relationships requires more radical interventions than the mere adoption of women's conventions and charters. This article begins with a brief analysis of rural women in Africa with the central argument being that globalisation, with its concomitant neoliberal capitalism—which is increasingly coming to be seen as the only socio-economic governance structure across the globe—has contributed to largely skewed development. While globalisation has contributed to making a few people across the globe ultra-rich, its benefits have eluded the majority of the world's most marginalised populations, especially rural women and children. Aligned with globalisation is the impact of structural adjustment on the lives of women and children.