African Culture and Traditions as Told by Waris Dirie
Waris Dirie was born into a family of nomads in a Somalian desert. Growing up, she was privileged to run free with nature’s most majestic animals, and learned a respect for nature that many of us as Americans could never fathom. However, these thrills are just on the surface of what life is really like for African women. She suffered through intense traditional mutilation in her childhood, and endless hours of hard labor in the fields everyday. At the age of 13, she ran away to escape the marriage that her father had arranged for her to a sixty-year-old man in exchange for five camels. She left with nothing but the swaddling clothes on her back not even shoes to protect her feet from the scorching African sun. Her journey on foot went on for weeks, until she found her sister, who had also ran away five years earlier for the same reasons. After getting reacquainted with an aunt and her ambassador husband, Waris moved to England with them. When her uncle’s term was up, she stayed in England where a photographer, who eventually put her on the cover many major magazines, discovered her. In describing her remarkable journey through life, Waris demonstrates examples of a masculine culture with elements high uncertainty-avoidance, and her own individualism amongst such a collectivistic society.
Waris’s description of life in Africa is a perfect definition for a masculine culture. She explains, “Women are the backbone of Africa; they do most of the work. Yet women are powerless to make decisions.” She recalls a story of how her loving mother permitted her to be butchered, because of a traditional African ritual to please African men. When she was five years old, her mother made her an appointment to meet with “the gypsy women.” Waris didn’t know exactly what this meant, but it was supposedly an exciting moment in the lives of young African girls, and when they returned, they were considered women. Waris recalls in graphic detail being bound and blind-folded by her mother while the gypsy women sliced between her legs repeatedly, then sewed her up, leaving a whole the size of a match-head. She was then drug off to a shelter under a bush where she spent weeks alone to recuperate. Sadly, this is not an isolated case, millions of nomadic cultures still perform the ritual, and many young girls do not survive the surgery.
Although “It’s a Night Job” by Joanita Male and “Mother’s Inheritance” by Fawziyya Abu-Khalid occur in different cultural contexts- Male’s writing in Africa and Abu-Khalid’s in the Middle East- both literary works regard the formative nature of mother-daughter relationships. In addition to this, they explore the dignity and attitudes of young women in societies where they are forced to relinquish personal autonomy in order to succeed or be safe from potential physical or mental harm.
Women’s oppression is not just unique to our history alone. Different civilizations around the world have portrayed women despicably. In Japan during world war two, teenage girls were rounded up into sex camps. “An estimated one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand girls were forced to do sexual favors for Japanese soldiers, some of the girls were as young as 11 years old. They serviced up to 50 Japanese soldiers a day, while enduring beatings, starvation, sterilization and abortions. Even today, over half the 27 million people enslaved are woman in underground sex brothels.” [Robinson]
African literature is rich with examples of the plight that African women suffered during the political and social changes the continent experienced after colonialism. In Ama Aito Aidoo’s short story “Two Sisters”, and “Wedding at the Cross”, the lives of three different women are explored as they navigate a world dominated by not only the men in their lives, but by the omnipresent feeling of colonialism. The women in Aidoo’s “Two Sisters” Mercy and Connie, represent some of the difficulties perpetrated by the rigid societal structure they exist under, and the oppressing force of the men in their lives. Similarly, in “Wedding at the Cross”, the main female protagonist, Miriamu, is bound by societal pressures to assume the role of obedient housewife, and undergoes a loss of self after her husband is consumed with gaining success in post-colonial Africa. Through these stories Aiddo and Thiongo’o represent African women and their struggles as well as their journey to assert themselves independently from the men in their life and their society during a time where the continent itself was struggling with its own identity in the aftermath of Western colonization.
Like Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Nigerian traditions and customs were also fixed upon patriarchy within the society. In the early 20th century of Nigeria, it was a society that was very family centred but also heavily influenced by western ideas and values. Ever since she was young, Aku-nna has always been determined to marry a wealthy man who could afford an expensive bride price so she could pay back to her father. Aku-nna lives in a society where women are not equal to men and she accepts that as that way of thinking was considered “normal”. Men were seen to have supreme authority over their household and that "if you lose your father, you have lost everything. Your mother is only a woman; she cannot do anything for you”(Emecheta, 28). Women aren 't able to be independent in a society that believes that their father is their everything. This essentially brings us to see how the patriarchal ideas and values affect Aku-nna 's sense of self as she is swallowed by societies ideas of an acceptable woman. As a result of this we can see how the subjugation and oppression of women in society can undoubtedly change their identity and way of
Tales of a Female Nomad provides a welcome reprieve from materialistic societies. This book can transport readers to places where self sufficiency is the standard. Many of her stories give a refreshing glimpse at what makes up true communities. These stories would horrify a xenophobe, but are peacefully enrapturing for those who hope for true freedom, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
A lady is an object, one which men attempt to dominate. A man craves to get a hold of this being beneath his command, and forever have her at his disposal. In her piece “Size Six: The Western Women’s Harem,” published in 2002, Fatema Mernissi illustrates how Eastern and Western women are subjugated by the control of men. Mernissi argues that though she may have derived from a society where a woman has to cover her face, a Western woman has to face daily atrocities far worse then ones an Eastern woman will encounter. Moreover, Mernissi’s core dogma in “Size 6: The Western Women's Harem” is that Western women are not more fortunate than women raised into harems in other societies. Additionally, she asserts that though women in the Western world are given liberties, they coincide with the unattainable ideals of what is aesthetically pleasing. Furthermore, to strengthen her argument towards her wavering audience, Mernissi’s main approach in her paper is to get the reader to relate with her issue by means of an emotional appeal, while also utilizing both the ethical and logical appeal to support her thesis.
In several works—such as P. Bion and Agnes Estioko-Griffin’s work, “Woman the Hunter: The Agta,” and Maria Lepowsky’s “Gender, Horticulture, and the Division of Labor on Vanatinai”—the societies depicted show that their specific ways of survival allow more impartiality. On the other hand, works such as Patricia O’Hara’s “Divisions of Labour on Irish Family Farms,” Susan Rasmussen’s “Pastoral Nomadism and Gender among the Tuareg in Niger and Mali,” and Anne Allison’s “Japanese Mothers and Obentōs: The Lunch Box as Ideological State Apparatus,” bring other societies to attention that have implemented modes of production that essentially serve as vehicles for the existence of gender inequity.
Brief History From the 1500s to the 1700s, African blacks, mainly from the area of West Africa (today's Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Dahomey, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon) were shipped as slaves to North America, Brazil, and the West Indies. For them, local and tribal differences, and even varying cultural backgrounds, soon melded into one common concern: the suffering they all endured. Music, songs, and dances as well as traditional food, helped not only to uplift them but also quite unintentionally added immeasurably to the culture around them. In the approximately 300 years that blacks have made their homes in North America, the West Indies, and Brazil, their highly honed art of the cuisine so treasured and carefully transmitted to their daughters has become part of the great culinary classics of these lands. But seldom are the African blacks given that recognition.
Liberia, located in the west part of Africa, was a settlement to native Africans in the 1800’s would eventually stablish a settlement consisting of thousands of individuals, freed or non-slaves. This was an attempt of resolving the moral issue of enslavement by colonizing Liberia with freed, or ex-slaves. Not only were freed black men transported across the Atlantic, but women as well. No provisions had been made to ensure equality as a foundation to colonize which causes the issues misogyny and with the lack of historical content of women in Liberia the need for further analysis it is noted that women were hardly acknowledged and only seen as an object in creating a bigger population needed
Set in post-colonial Senegal, Sembene ascribes great significance to African femininity by naming his film after a female character and heroine of the film, Faat Kine. Although Kine is initially depicted as a victim of male supremacy, she is eventually represented as an archetypal figure of resilience and independence. Impregnated by her instructor as a teenager, Faat suffered severe social degradation and condemnation even from her father. Despite the significant part played by the man in Kine’s ordeal, he is neither chastised nor stigmatised by the outcome of their perpetration, but rather his life proceeds in some semblance of order. In addition, Kine is betrayed by her criminal husband who absconds with her life savings leaving her penniless with two children. Nonetheless, she single-handedly raises two children without any masculine presence. Kine’s pillars of emotional and spiritual strength are her family (mother and children) as well as her friends, which is divergent from the African customary convictions of the man as sole supporter of woman. Evidently, the men in Kine’s life are highly instrumental to her anguish and yet irrelevant to her survival. Sembene uses Kine’s ordeals to display the plight and cultural marginalization of the African woman.
In sub-Saharan Africa, thousands of languages, cultures, and geographical regions helped influence our African society. The ways in which we produce our artwork, spiritual ideals, and ritual performances are organic and raw. From the tropical regions of Congo and Ghana, to the arid regions of Mali; I pass through the global gateway into a domain where the Western world lost its roots and artistic imagination and grandeur. Africa appeals most to me for its ability to create a realm where the living, dead, and artistic ideals come into a single unit of tranquil philosophy.
The traditional women of Africa were “docile, submissive, and hard working.” During the strike, this changed dramatically. Ousmane illustrated this change through the two major confrontations that the women started with the police. The first confrontation was started after Ramatoulaye killed the ram. After the ram’s death, the police came to take Ramatoulaye and the ram meat. Ramatoulaye refused to let them take the ram meat from the children. She justified, “He ate our rice; I killed him. The children were hungry; Verndredi ate the children’s rice.” Although Ramatoulaye was willing to go with the police, the other women did not allow the police to take her. Instead, the women began arming themselves with clubs and bottles filled with sand. Then they attacked. The women’s response confused many, especially the men, because they were not used to women acting this way. Their response was not in line with the traditional gender roles of Africa. In its place, a new set of gender roles were emerging. Another example Ousmane provides was when the women started a fire in there village, in hope of scaring off the police and their
Throughout the centuries, the roles of Nigerian women have continuously evolved. During the pre- colonial era, women in Nigerian tribes were not only child bearers and wives, but also free adults. They played critical roles in food preparation, weaving, pottery, and the economy. However, the impact of British rule in Nigeria made a significant shift from the pre-colonial to the post- colonial era. The influence of the Catholic Church, Western style education, patriarchal government and modern ways of making money took a major toll in a woman’s role in society. In Chimamanda Adichie’s novel, Purple Hibiscus, Mama Beatrice and Aunty Ifeoma are dynamic female foils who represent opposite sides of spectrum in post- colonial feminism. Mama epitomizes the product of colonialism, while Aunty Ifeoma challenges the British influence and growing power of men.
There are constant struggles between gender, identity, commodification, and class. Among the men and women in many African tribes that still exist today, there are divergences, which will always remain intact because of the culture and the way in which they are taught to treat each other. Chinua Achebe wrote the novel, Things Fall Apart, which is a great piece of African literature that deals with the Igbo culture, history, and the taking over of African lands by British colonization. The ongoing gender conflict is a prominent theme in Things Fall Apart presenting the clash between men and women of the African Igbo society. Throughout history, from the beginning of time to today, women have frequently been viewed as inferior, men’s possessions whose sole purpose was to satisfy the men’s needs. Maybe it's because men are physically stronger than women and have always had the ability to control them that way. In Things Fall Apart, the Igbo women were perceived as being weak. They received little or no respect in the Igbo society and were harshly abused. The recurring theme of gender conflicts helps drive the novel Things Fall Apart by showing how important women are to the men, yet they do not receive the treatment they deserve.
The oppression of women in the Middle East and North Africa was commonplace, with women often beaten and deprived of fundamental rights. Entrapped by social constraints, there was little hope for opposition, as the patriarchal perspectives of society were enforced by everyone, even women themselves. One of the most prevalent ways was through the use of hypocrisy and double standards to cast an illusion of justice and equality, when in reality, women were disadvantaged in nearly every aspect. The hypocrisy of society is demonstrated in Nawal El Saadawi’s novel Woman at Point Zero, where women such as Firdaus are dominated by double standards. She finds both initial hope and consequent