“WOMEN ARE FLEXIBLE AND BETTER MANAGERS”: THE PARADOX OF WOMEN'S IDENTITIES, THEIR EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT AND POLITICAL POWER

Through a phenomenological reading of Nigerian women’s lived experiences, I examined the processes that account for the present low level of women’s participation in civic-political affairs and I argue that: there is magic consciousness in the religions and religious practices in Nigeria; that the official and unofficial presence of the religions in formal schools ensure that the beliefs and the values of their adherents fuse with the structure of the school (through the official and the hidden curriculum) and the larger society to construct an identity for women; and that the constructed identity represents a major factor in determining whether women have political power. I conclude that the potential for challenging and reordering the status quo exists in the women who perceive themselves as different from whom men would rather they are.

Introduction

In this essay, I examine the processes that account for the present low level of women’s participation in civic-political affairs in Nigeria, and explore the possibilities that exist that many women will participate in civic-political affairs at the topmost levels in future. My strategy is a phenomenological reading of the problem which links the justifications adduced by females and males for prescribing particular roles for women in the private and public spheres with their perception of the identity of women, that is, what women should believe about themselves and their world. My argument is that there is, what Friere has described as, magic consciousness in the religions and religious practices in Nigeria. The official and unofficial presence of the religions in formal schools ensures that the beliefs and the values of their adherents fuse with the structure of the school (through the official and the hidden curriculum) and the larger society to construct an identity for women. This constructed identity represents a major factor in determining whether women have political power.

The Background

The background to the problem is the meeting point in a postcolonial setting between inherited colonial formal education and aspects of pre-colonial education and culture. When, on the one hand, the Christian and Islamic missionaries came to Nigeria, their primary goal was to spread their religions through the dissemination of literacy skills in Arabic and English languages. The British colonialists, on the other hand, discovered that they could better exploit the colony and govern the Africans if they built schools and provided out-of-school education. The patriarchal cultural baggage of the three expeditions—Christian and Islamic religions and British colonialism—constructed women’s identity, and located women at the bottom of an exploitative colonial agenda. Women’s access to education was limited¹, given that the education that was provided by the missionaries and colonialists was not value neutral. Thus, historically, the development of Nigerian women had been abridged and by implication arrested.²

The 2005 UNDP Human Development Report attests to this.³ The combined primary, secondary and tertiary institutions gross enrollment ratio for Nigeria in 2002-03 was 57 percent of total for females and 71 percent for males. The adult literacy rate (age 15 and above) for the year 2003 was 59.4 percent for women, and 74.4 percent for men. For the colonial era, and for now, C. Berggren and L. Berggren’s view that—education was, and still is, a badge of superior status; literacy and schooling served and still serves the powerful classes; it is a symbol and justification of privilege and a safeguard for authority and self-interest⁴—is true.

Although there are differences in the level of access to education by female and male children, and women and men, the ratio of women that have access to education, especially tertiary education, is higher now than in the past. But this has only deepened a paradox whereby more education has failed to alter the social, economic, cultural and political status of women. The inference that I am drawing from this is that education has helped women to meet their practical gender needs and has, therefore, improved women’s condition, but not their social status. We need to be mindful of the fact that women’s practical gender needs are derived from their identity—the natural (relating to the entire reproductive system that is present at birth and which matures as the woman matures) and the constructed (acquired through nurture). Specifically, apart from waged employment or better paying jobs and healthier households (these are important too), there are no indications that education has benefited women in the area of political participation. In this respect, I-IDEA notes that “. . . despite a comparatively large pool of well trained and able women, their absence in major institutions of power and decision making processes is particularly striking.”⁵ Statistics show an insignificant representation of women in political office following the 2003 elections. Two point seven percent (3) of the total membership (109) of the senate, 5.83 percent (21) of the 360 member House of Representatives, 3.84 percent of the state Houses of Assembly, and 5.60 percent (2) out of the 36 State deputy governors are women. There is no female governor and only 10.0 percent of ministers at the federal level of government are women.⁶ Violence against women, both in the private and public spheres, persists, and there are no indications that more illiterate than literate girls and women are victims of violence and overt sexism and discrimination. In addition, the estimated earned income of women and men was 614 and 1,495 (purchasing power parity US Dollars) respectively in 2003.

Yet the consensus among opinion moulders (at public talks and in newspapers) and discussants in non-formal education settings (workshops and seminars) is that access to formal education and literacy training for girls and women will ensure more active involvement of women in politics. This suggestion, and the suggestion that economic power will help women’s active involvement in party politics, usually tops the list of recommendations from such fora.

Based on this paradox, I ask the following question: why has the social, political and cultural status of highly literate Nigerian women not improved, in spite of their education, when their status is compared with that of men? This is the key question that I will try to answer in this study. To answer this question, I raise an issue, in form of a proposition, and it is that:

The Nigerian Tertiary Education Context

In an earlier work, I took the position that in the context of the poor funding of university education and the long history of military rule in Nigeria, the poor and degrading conditions under which teachers and students teach and learn respectively do not motivate them to challenge one another to take a wider, more liberal and serious view of knowledge dissemination and knowledge acquisition.⁷ In that work, I explored the role of the “hidden curriculum”⁸ in the violations of, and disrespect for women’s human rights in tertiary institutions.

What I did not explore is the (seeming) lethargy that female students display towards the violation of their rights, given their seeming unwillingness to access education or seek knowledge outside the classroom—the official curriculum. While students, especially female students willingly attend religious gatherings—prayer meetings, fellowships and crusades—several times within the week, they do not attend education programmes (symposia, intensive training workshops) provided by non-governmental organizations, for example, unless the authority of their institutions compels attendance.

The hierarchical structure of relationships in schools, including tertiary education, ensures that the faculty are thought to be all knowing, and so they are to bestow knowledge on those who are considered to know nothing.⁹ Faculty identifies the subject matter that will be taught, and how they are going to be taught. Given that a lecturer occupies a position of power relative to the persons that he teaches, the beliefs/values that he passes on by teaching, omitting to teach or teaching subject matter in a particular way, usually go unchallenged. This is more so with respect to issues that border on and have implications for questions of dominance, oppression, equity and justice. Usually, also, most of the lecturers in tertiary institutions are men.

Some studies by Nigerian women are relevant here. In a study entitled “Stooping to Conquer? Women Bargaining with Religion and Patriarchy in Ile-Ife Nigeria”, Dipo-Salami went to the field with the assumption that the possession of assets such as education, wage employment and productive and social capital would help women to resist patriarchal control. She, found out that although the possession of the assets improves women’s fall-back position and increases their bargaining power to some extent, a wide range of other factors operate to restrict their active agency.¹⁰ It is instructive that most of Dipo-Salami’s respondents had some education. She concluded that given the influence of religion (Christianity and Islam), economic independence and possession of other assets are not sufficient for the improvement of women’s citizenship status and their functioning within and beyond the household. In another study that investigated the extent to which university education and wage employment serve as predictors for women empowerment in the public and private sectors, Ogunrin found that waged employment had more influence on the level of women’s participation in decision-making processes than university education. Ogunrin also went to the field with the assumption that education is a means to the social and political empowerment of human beings.¹¹

In a study carried out by the Female Leadership Forum, the view that tertiary institutions perpetuate a culture of female subordination was highlighted. Some of the interesting responses given by male participants during Focused Group Discussions as reasons women cannot take up leadership positions in tertiary institutions include: the factor of religion, domestic work, women’s flexibility, and women’s belief that they are subordinate to men. The report identified the following amongst others, as being responsible for the failure of female students to take up leadership positions: women’s lack of interest in leadership, culture and women’s fear, timidity and lack of confidence. Others are violence, corruption and high financial demands.¹²

Clearly, also, an awareness of what religious leaders teach women about whom they are, their interests and their expected roles in society, should throw some light on how to deal with the factor of religion in the school environment and in the teaching-learning transaction. Stacey found out that evangelical Christians among white working people in the Silicon Valley, California, are not monolithically antifeminist, nor are their family relationships uniformly patriarchal.¹³ Similarly, Dipo-Salami, quoting Saadallah, also said that Muslim feminists, being aware of the level of oppression directed against women, resort to Islamic sources such as the Qur’an and positive aspects of the Hadiths to validate their discourse on equality between the sexes in attempting to reconcile Islam with the universal principles of human rights.¹⁴ These are pointers that feminist educators should have information about religions, both the oppressive and the liberatory aspects.

Theoretical Framework and Methodology

It is from the liberatory and the gender models of feminist pedagogy framework, or the post- structuralist feminist pedagogy framework that this study proceeds.¹⁵ This is because it appropriately addresses my concerns about: institutions of learning as one of the sites that reproduce the power structure in the larger society; power relation in the teaching-learning situation and the construction of female identity; women’s internalization of these constructions, and resistances to the constructions.

Of relevance also is the fact that the vision of feminist pedagogy gives hope. It throws up the possibilities that formal education may, at some point, begin to serve women better because “it ultimately seeks the transformation of the academy, and points toward steps, however small, that we can all take in each of our classrooms, to facilitate that transformation.”¹⁶

Hence, I examined the status of Nigerian women which shows an inverse relationship between the transformation a feminist pedagogy anticipates and the marginal location of women. Given the presence of a large percentage of educated Nigerian women and their absence in major institutions of power, the paper proceeded on the assumption of the presence of the hidden curriculum and magic consciousness especially in schools; schools that exhibit the shortcomings of the larger society. I therefore examined the plausibility of my proposition based on the social experiences of women.

My approach was a phenomenological reading of the problem of the low social status of Nigerian women. The respondents in this study were invited to take part in the identification of the processes that resulted in women’s (especially highly literate women’s) current low social position through their own lived experiences and the experiences of women around them. Interviews were held with: seven female and male lecturers in two institutions of higher learning in Nigeria, and nine female and male religious leaders, representing the three main religions in Nigeria—Christianity, Islam and Traditional Religion. I administered lengthy and open-ended questionnaires to: 42 women and 29 men in formal work settings; 46 female and 32 male students in two institutions of higher learning; 56 semi-literate and 39 female apprentices in non-formal education/informal economy. I explored the Appreciative Inquiry “4-D” cycle in five focused group discussions with the different categories of women that are represented in this research. I also observed: the teaching of two lecturers and the interactions of three female religious leaders with the adherents of their religions. Data was collected from two locations in Nigeria—Ibadan, located in the south-western part of the country, and Lokoja, located in the middle belt, in central Nigeria. Data was collected in the second half of the year 2004.

Women’s Civic-Political Participation—Women are Better Managers

In Nigeria, women are at the bottom of layers of powerlessness. It is therefore not surprising that in quantitative and qualitative terms, women are in the margins in the public sphere, especially in the civic-political arena. Many obstacles have been identified as affecting women’s participation in politics and women as politicians, both in Nigeria, in the African continent and around the world. Often mentioned are: masculine models of politics; education and training; women’s poverty and unemployment; women’s dual burden and their traditional roles; lack of confidence; the perception of politics as dirty given the level of fraud and corruption; and the role of the media.¹⁷ As earlier indicated however, access to resources—money and education—are more frequently cited as factors that hinder women’s participation in politics. S. H. Longwe apprehends many of the ‘reasons’ given as affecting women’s participation in politics as ‘blaming the victim.’ She argues that women’s education does not lead to political empowerment. She stated that there is “absolutely no correlation between the percentage of women in university in a particular country, and the percentage of women in parliament or in the higher levels of government.” Longwe identified the key problem as “the covert and discriminatory systems of male resistance to women who dare to challenge male domination of the present political system.”¹⁸

A recent work that documented the narratives of Nigerian women who had participated in the political party primaries preceding the 2003 elections in Nigeria supports Longwe’s position. J. Ibrahim observed from the narratives of the women that “it soon became clear that there was a near systematic process of the exclusion of women from, and indeed the subordination of women in the party political process.”¹⁹ The report noted 12 recurring issues from the narratives of the women, and they were all directed at the exclusion of women. A few of the issues were: male-centered interpretations of culture and religion, such as perceptions that only men can aspire to public offices; organized campaigns to slander unmarried aspirants as lacking in morals; high level of violence which characterized the electoral process, including the use of security forces to intimidate women aspirants and their supporters, and claims that some female aspirants were too assertive and independent, and therefore could not be team players.

Given the observations above, one sought to know: the nature of women’s participation in politics and community life or group activities, why women participated in politics and civic life the way they did, and the possibilities for women’s increased participation in, especially politics. Specifically, we reckoned their participation as: voters, both in recent times and in the past; supporters of female political aspirants and, elected/appointed leaders. We also wanted to know whether women and men would vote for a female politician/leader in future. In Table 1, we present a quantitative overview of the nature of women’s participation in politics. The table presents a positive view of women’s participation in politics, and shows that women are positively disposed to having women in top political positions, although some of them added provisos to their support for prospective female leaders. The provisos are: if she is qualified, competent, God fearing and has peoples’ interests at heart. Adetutu said: “certainly NOT because she happens to be female, even if she were deserving of my vote”. Some of the reasons women gave for pledging support for women among others are that: women are meticulous; God fearing; account for whatever they spend; capable; dependable; can manage resources and are focused; their yes would be yes; they have milk of kindness; and they know where the shoe pinches. In the following paragraphs, we discuss the responses of men to questions relating to women’s civic-political participation.

Key:

A: Did You Vote during the last General/Local Government Elections?
B: Did/do you vote during Students’ Union Elections?
C: Have you ever supported a female candidate in an election?
D: Have you ever been a candidate in an election?
E: Would you vote for a woman who is aspiring to the position of President/ Governor or the overall head of an organization with male and female members?

Literate Men’s View Of Women’s Participation In Politics

The position of literate men on the involvement of women in civic-political affairs shows that their views are tied to the ‘nature’ of women; the ‘femininity’ of women; religion; the structure of power and ‘natural’ structure of duties and responsibilities in the private sphere; the type of political office that is sought by women; an uncritical sense and account of the African culture; and the feminization and masculinization of certain foci of power and office. The data below reflects their position.

When asked whether women should contest elections to public offices, 12 of the 14 men in formal work in Ibadan (in Western Nigeria) said yes, while 2 said no. All the men in Lokoja (in central Nigeria) (15) said yes. Two of the 12 (Abayomi and Fola) who said yes in Ibadan added these interesting provisos: “provided she has her husband’s permission” and “if she’s sound, balanced and not overtly feminist”. When asked whether female students should contest for students Union or Departmental Association elections, all the students in Ibadan and Lokoja (16 each), said yes, female students should contest.

The men were asked to specify the positions that women should aspire to occupy. Among the men in formal work who said women should aspire to occupy public office, only five thought women should occupy offices lower than the presidency. The five said women should aspire to be senators, counselors, Deputy Governor, Commissioners, Vice President and Members of the National Assembly. The reasons they gave are: “these are the areas where their roles can be well displayed by virtue of their natural gift and intellect,” Abayomi; “women are to take supportive role,” Ade; “certain women have left indelible prints in this nation. The ladies in charge of NAFDAC and the Lagos Stock Exchange are clear indicators that women can hold such positions,” Adamu; “because the fear of God is in most women than men. They do not have the love of money at heart as men do,” Alonge.

Out of the five who thought women should occupy positions that are lower than the overall leader, three—Abayomi, Ade and Audu said they would not vote for a woman who is contesting Governorship or Presidential elections. The reasons they gave were consistent with their position that women should not aspire to the highest position. Abayomi who is a lawyer, said “I don’t believe in women leadership except where there is no capable and fit man”. While Ade said “they are to advise or support their male counterparts”, Audu argued “official functions of a Governor or a president does not only require intellectual ability but also combine physical ability that women may not possess”. Adamu and Alonge said they would vote for a woman as Governor or President even though they had earlier indicated that women should occupy positions less than the overall head. Alonge reinforced his earlier position when he said “they will not be partial in their decisions. They will rule with the fear of God at heart” One of the two men who said women should not contest elections to public offices stated that:

Somewhat consistent with his earlier position, Ola would not vote for a female for Governor or President, but he shifted ground a little on the concern for the family when he said “Women are not mentally and emotionally stable to be effective in such offices. Her home will also suffer for it, society too will suffer.” This is an interesting point that Ola has made here. The surprise is that if women were that mentally and emotionally unstable, why would men like him be willing to commit children to the care of such women, such that children will suffer when the mentally and emotionally unstable women are not there?

Male students in Ibadan were split in equal halves about the positions to which they wanted women to aspire. Eight felt that they should aspire to any position, while the rest (8), felt that they should aspire to occupy positions such as Vice President, General Secretary and treasurer. In Lokoja, a majority of male students said women should aspire to the positions of Vice President, General Secretary, Director of Welfare/Socials, and according to Mejabi, they should occupy “any position apart from the President.” Taiwo in Ibadan said “they could aspire for any position, publicity secretary, treasurer, social secretary and Vice President.” Yele in Ibadan said “sensitive positions like financial secretary, treasurer and so on”. Fijabi said “They should vie for relatively feminine offices like treasurer, financial sec, assistant to any office, general secretary, etc.”

The reasons they gave for specifying that women aspire to occupy positions that are less than the overall head were that: women are “light hearted” as regards stealing and corruption: they are good custodians of funds as they have no courage to mismanage money in whatever form (that is, they have higher moral standard); they can manage money better than men; they care more than men; they hate cheating and have good and legible handwriting. They also said some tasks are easy to handle, and the risks involved low, so it is better that women attend to those tasks, given their fragile nature. Also, women should support the President for example, by giving him advice. In Ibadan, Taiwo said: “Ladies know how to handle financial transactions and social activities than men.” Odedele said:

Fijabi said: “certain offices are feminine relative to others. Also, women can hardly undergo the rigours associated with certain offices and the dangers therein and women are often not able to harmonize certain key, very demanding offices with their private, domestic responsibilities.” In Lokoja, Joshua, Yisa, Zubairu and Daniska gave the following reasons: “The fact is that female cannot be head biblically (Adam and Eve)”; “They might not be able to cope with attendant problem of being a president. But as secretary general all they need do is to take minute of meetings and be in charge of all correspondence. Again, they are more financially prudent than men”; “Due to their nature, women cannot take positions like the presidency, so it is better for them to act as an assistant” and, “As stated earlier, women are tools to support men and with this position they can assist the men if the need arises or in absence of the men they can deputize.”

When male students were asked whether they would vote a female as leader, eight students in Lokoja said no. Joshua was one of them and he reinforced his earlier position that women cannot be head biblically. Zubairu said “This is because women can easily be influenced by the management. Women are meant to help male and not be leader,” Mejabi argued. “She would always be controlled by her spouse and so decisions will not be completely her own;” and, Daniska said “I wouldn’t vote for a female student the reason is that if given a chance and she probably wins the election, men are in trouble. They would whip the arse of every man and oppress men and their fellow women”. Positions were pretty hard in Lokoja where more female students had contested elections than in Ibadan. To the same question, all the students in Ibadan said yes, apparently consistent with their earlier response that female students should contest Students’ Union or Departmental Association elections. All the students who said women should contest for any position in Lokoja also said they would vote for female candidates. The reasons they gave were: “gender discrimination should be discouraged, women are more responsive and attentive to issues than their male counterparts” - Gafar; “even in the class, some ladies do better than their male counterparts. Because research has shown that women make good managers as they can be meticulous” he then added. “When God said women should submit, He did not say that they should not aspire. Everybody has a right to become anything,” Ayodele.

Discussions And The Perspectives Of Religious Leaders

Though all male students in Lokoja conceded that women should contest elections, a majority thought women should aspire to positions other than the overall head. When asked whether they would vote for a woman as overall head, half the students in Lokoja said no, they would not, while all the students in Ibadan said they would. As we have earlier observed, it is interesting that positions are hardened in Lokoja among male students, where more female students had contested elections, than in Ibadan. Given the reasons that the students proffered, we are supposed to believe that women are incapable of handling positions of leadership, particularly overall leadership in the public sphere.

The picture is not so gloomy though. On aggregate, many men were positive that women should, and can take up leadership positions, including the topmost jobs, and only a few women are saying that women should not take up leadership positions in the public sphere. The men and women who say no appear to be few but influential, given that women are still few in political offices. Another way to view the seeming low resistance to women’s participation in public life is to say that the big yes to women’s participation in politics is a recent decision to say yes to women, and so we can sit back and relax and assume that women will contest elections, and that when they contest, men, in particular, will not get in their way with determination.²⁰

Although our data show that in the main, most women (and many men) affirmed women by expressing confidence that women have the potential to handle public affairs well, like some women are currently doing, we also cannot ignore the fact that many women, especially among literate women (and a few men), said they would vote for women as overall heads if the women fulfill certain requirements. Clearly, women are correct to demand that women who they vote into positions of responsibility meet certain standards, for we do not want to vote in women, who will mess up the reputation of women, given that we desperately need to show other women and all men that they can trust us with those positions. However, knowing as we do that most of the women who said they would vote for women if they fulfilled certain requirements voted during the General/Local Government elections, held in May 2003, one has been wondering whether they made the same demands of the men that they voted for one and a half years before they were asked these questions. This is pertinent because of the need to ensure that the demand that women meet certain standards is not a mask to conceal resistance to women taking up positions of responsibility.

We know that persons who are literate like to convince themselves that they take decisions from a rational and objective point of view, even if we fail to acknowledge that normative ideologies that prevail in our contexts affect our rationality and objectivity.²¹ There is no doubt that the provisos that Abayomi and Fola gave are resistance to the women’s movement and questions of equity.

One of the reasons put forth by those who will or will not support women who aspire to be overall leader is rooted in religion. Semi-literate female respondents and highly literate male respondents cited God, their religion and the Bible as part of the reasons they would or would not vote for female leaders. We therefore decided to ask female and male religious leaders to tell us what the will of God is, in respect of the participation of women in politics. Specifically, we asked that they speak to the position of their religions on women’s participation in politics, and tell us what they preach to their followers about women and politics.

Male Muslim religious leaders in Lokoja felt women should not aspire to be overall heads; they should limit their participation in politics to Houses of Assembly, which is the State Legislature, if they have to participate in politics at all, because Allah does not say public affairs is women’s turf. Also, according to them, women are caregivers, not breadwinners. Female Muslim leaders in the two locations of the study said women should participate in politics, but not women of childbearing age, for their children will suffer. The female Pentecostal leader in Ibadan felt women really do not need to push themselves out too much in public. She however said she will vote for women who contest elections into any position. Other male and female Christian religious leaders, thought women should participate in politics, if they are sure they will do God’s will when they get into positions of power. The male Christian religious leader in Lokoja and the female Muslim religious leader in Lokoja felt women need to take a more activist stance to gain political power. The Sango priestess indicated that women should take part in politics if they would not partake in lying because Sango (the Yoruba god of thunder) dislikes dishonesty and injustice.

On women taking up leadership positions in religious institutions, male and female Muslim religious leaders said there should be no female Imams. Female Christian religious leaders did not see why women should be exempted from priesthood. Male Christian religious leaders (orthodox and Pentecostal) thought there was a need to exercise caution, because of our culture, and possible resistance to female priesthood among congregation. The Sango priestess indicated that the majority of Sango priestesses are women, and Yorubas have female goddesses, an example is Oya, who is Sango’s wife, and who works hand in hand with Sango. She cites herself as an example and enthuses about how her authority extends beyond the boundaries of Yoruba land and Nigeria.

Given the position of religious leaders on women’s civic-political participation and the references that respondents made to religion, we asked respondents to indicate the religious, ethnic, political, social and cooperative thrift and credit groups or associations to which they belonged. Most of the literate women in formal work belonged to more than one group. Most indicated that they belonged to cooperative thrift and credit associations and religious groups. All the female students in Lokoja indicated that they partake in the activities of religious groups and that they are dedicated to those activities. Only six of the students indicated they took part in other activities like departmental associations, sporting and Rotary club activities. In Ibadan, most of the students also took part in religious activities, but they combined religious activities with a wide range of essentially non religious activities such as organizing (and ushering at) social events, and participation in the activities of press clubs, ethnic associations, sewing and decorating, sporting, departmental association and NGO activities.

Like women in formal work, many semi-literate women in the informal economy also typically belonged to more than one group, and they cited their religious groups often, followed by their trade guilds and ethnic associations. Most female apprentices said they do not belong to groups. The few who belonged to groups were members of social clubs, religious groups, cooperative thrift and credit societies and community youth development associations.

The Roles Of Women: Women Must Be Submissive

Given the observations in the preceding section, one can infer that the determination of men to exclude women from politics, that Longwe, and Ibrahim and Salihu had observed, is traceable to what most men (and women) assume to be the roles of women in the public and private spheres, opinions which they derive from their own apprehension of: women’s nature and religious injunctions. We recollect that Denzer, quoted in Mama, had observed that “Nigerian and British attitudes concerning female roles had much in common.”²² The point that Denzer made is that colonialism, with its patriarchal nature, met unequal relations of power among men and women in Nigeria that it then worked with, and that fed into it.

The British colonialists brought their own conception of human nature and women’s nature, which had roots in theories of ‘human nature’ and ‘women’s nature’, particularly seventeenth century patriarchalism, to Nigeria. There were obviously other influences such as Plato, Locke and Hegel, both from within Britain and from other European countries, on the colonialists.²³ O. Fashina indicated that patriarchalists gave a justification of the domination of women by men through a theory of human nature derived from the scriptures; while Locke, in spite of his view that human beings were born ‘free’ and ‘equal’, still took the position that the subjugation of wives to husbands had a ground in human nature, and Hegel was of the view that if the state were to be ruled by women, it would be placed in jeopardy because women are guides, not by universality and reason, but by feelings and lack of abstract reason; that women are good wives, but not good public lawyers and judges. Fashina concluded that from essentialist premises, the philosophers drew conclusions validating views that women are, by nature, inferior to men.

No doubt, this was the frame of reference for the British colonialists who took over our country, and wrote their beliefs into laws. Forty-five years after the end of formal colonialism, in the face of glaring economic changes that have affected many women and men, and also in the context of the existence of formal International Declarations of equality of all persons of all races, gender, religion etc, we asked female and male respondents about what the roles of women are, and what it ought to be in the private and public spheres. The following are their responses.

Roles Of Women In The Private And Public Spheres

There were just a few respondents out of all the six categories of respondents that thought women should play equal roles with men in the private and public spheres of life. Most of the female and male respondents in this study gave the traditional view of the expected roles of women in the private sphere of life (cook, nurture children, care for husband, his relations and the home etc) even as they appear to take the fact of women’s presence in public life for granted. Many respondents implicitly or explicitly acknowledged that women have roles to play in the economy, community, governance and in politics. Women in formal work, women in the informal economy and male workers expected women would work hard and display exemplary character to affect children and the society positively. In addition, women in the informal economy and men in formal work expected women to imbue performance with relationship of care— “motherly touch”, “feelings”, and “breast will move.”

On their part, male students expressed concern that public life should not hinder women’s domestic responsibilities. A handful of female students, female apprentices and male students explicitly said women should play subordinate roles to men in the public sphere. Some of the male students in fact said they expected: women will be more flexible than men, women will teach younger ones to respect their husbands, and that women should be subordinate to men. The position of these groups of respondents, especially male students, ties up with their responses in respect of women’s civic-political participation. We recollect that many male students were not favourably disposed to women taking up the topmost leadership positions.

We observe that many of the women and men who believe women to be caregivers; who thought women should work hard in the public sphere to earn a living, and imbue performance in public life with care, attentiveness and responsiveness, also affirmed women’s capabilities strongly, and would vote for women as overall leaders.

The question then is: why do we have these responses in respect of the roles of women in the private and public spheres of life that overlaps, almost neatly, with responses to the participation of women in politics? The focus will be, on the typical and atypical responses. That is, the views that women should play subordinate roles to men, and the view that women should play their roles in public life fairly differently from how men have been conducting themselves in public.

We had earlier observed that men justified their positions in respect of the participation of women in politics by appealing to their own perception of the ‘nature’ of women; religion; the structure of power and ‘natural’ structure of duties and responsibilities in the private sphere of life, et cetera. In the next section, we will try to show that the justification adduced by most male respondents for prescribing particular roles for women in the private and public spheres, is congruent with male respondents’ perception of whom women are, what women believe in and what women ought to believe about themselves and their world.

Before we proceed, we need to acknowledge the fact that the positions of most of the respondents tally with the positions of religious leaders on the participation of women in politics, and on the roles of women in the home and in public affairs. It is therefore possible to infer that many of the respondents in this study take cues from their religious leaders, both consciously and unconsciously.

Women’s Identities: Women Are Flexible, And should be Flexible

In reckoning women’s identities and the implications of the identities for empowering and disempowering women, we return to the question of the self, that is, self definition, self recognition, and recognition or non-recognition by others. M. Rogers had indicated that feminist theories,

This position of feminist theories, presented by Rogers, is an appropriate response to the problem that Calhoun had observed and raised as follows: “there are too many challenges to the efforts of persons to attain stable self recognition or coherent subjectivity.”²⁵

Also, given women’s positioning in different social contexts and within different matrices of domination at different points in their lives, in reality, women have an identity that is a set of identities, and as such comprise inconsistencies and paradoxes that can result in resistances and creativity.²⁶ Clearly, also, women do not retain an identity (or set of identities) throughout their lives, and so when they are confronted with new experiences and new realities, they may “rethink the principles they hold dear, they may transform their thinking and perhaps turn it into action; they may form new alliances, or they may not take an either or position. They may look for a third space, where they may at times feel confused or, feel comfortable and thrive, or they may feel challenged.”²⁷

Realistically, then, in the analyses and discussions of women’s identities in this work, it is appropriate to return to Calhoun’s suggestion about drawing from the three traditions that are represented in the discourse of identity, and then add to them, the deconstruction and claiming of identities. As we do this, we need to keep Rogers’ position in view. She said:

Self-Definition

The four groups of female respondents in this study defined themselves in at least fifteen different ways (See table 2), and many defined themselves in more than one way. In other words, many inhabit multiple identities.

The responses from literate women (workers and students) and semi-literate women (workers and apprentices), appear to show that women identify more with their gender identity or their identity as women and their individual characters. Interestingly, if one ranked which identity came first and second for the two broad groups of women, literates and semi-literates, an interesting picture emerges. For literate women, gender identity ranked first, and character ranked second. While for semi-literate women, character came first, and gender came second. What this means is that the two groups of women, defined themselves mainly in terms of their gender and character, or character and gender.

However, women in formal work and female students defined themselves in more ways and self-identified with a whole load of interests than the semi-literate women. Female apprentices were the ones who defined themselves through the least number of interests, that is, eight out of the fifteen. The interests or identities that women identified with are ethnic; religious; gender; character; physical; professional/vocational; ‘feminine’; ‘masculine’; marital; identities that are deconstructions of feminine or masculine identities; age; maternal (natal); activist; co-curricular or other interests and human being or person.

It is helpful that we note how women defined themselves through identities other than gender and character. For women in formal work, after gender and character, they identified with religion, while their profession and their identities as mothers followed immediately after religion. After gender and character, female students identified with their femininity, while their physical attributes and their professional identity (in this case, course of study), both followed identification as feminine. Religious identity then followed. For women in the informal economy, after character and gender, came religious identity, and their femininity. Female apprentices described themselves in terms of their character and gender, and to a lesser extent, by their physical attributes. We ought to note that for both women in formal economy and women in the informal economy, identification with religion came immediately after identification with character and gender or gender and character.

At a general level, women have described themselves, and showed or rather portrayed themselves to be confident persons, who: are comfortable with themselves as women; are comfortable with their characters; draw lessons that are inspirational and so empowering (and the not so inspiring and disempowering lessons) from religion, and are also comfortable with being feminine. In addition, women in the formal economy appear comfortable with their identities as: professionals, married women, and mothers.

One fact that has emerged from women’s perception of who they are is that, apart from the obvious fact of their being women by virtue of physiology and social construction, women have defined themselves from the point of view of their character. They have defined themselves as bold, aggressive, humble, gentle, patient, brooking no nonsense, hates cheating, and not feeling inferior to anybody, intelligent and so on. We note that one literate woman described herself as flexible. This is how women view themselves, and so, in this study, we assume that their self- definition is a reflection of who they think they are, irrespective of whether or not they had factored into their definitions the point about who others think it is valuable to be. One wanted to know how women saw themselves in relation to men and one also thought it would be better that one finds out what characteristics men thought they shared with women. That is, we attempted to find out what women and men thought they share and how they thought they differ from one another.

Women Are Similar To Men

While literate women attempted to deconstruct maleness by insisting that they also have attributes that are ascribed to men, which is a good way to proceed, semi-literate women were deconstructing male superiority by claiming and valuing the specific role (material provisions for the family) that supposedly make men more important than women in present-day Nigeria, and which gives them the authority to claim superiority and leadership in the home.

Clearly, in our society, it is not just material provision for the family that make men claim superiority over women. Patriarchy, made worse by our colonial experience, has established that. Patriarchy affects the ability of women to access resources—education and land—as some women have pointed out in this study, and so dictates the material condition of women who are poorer than men in terms of material well-being. However, given capitalism, men and women have had to work outside the home and both are now breadwinners. In addition to breadwinning, society has ensured that women retain their ascribed roles of caregiving. The basis on which men can then continue to claim superiority (and insist on leading women) in their homes and the larger society is patriarchy and religion. That is, religion apprehended not as liberating, but as opium, which powerful groups (in this case, men, supported by women) have successfully fused with culture, or long-held, institutionalized and conventional beliefs (patriarchy) to determine women’s interests, their roles and their identities.

We also note that the similarities that literate men (workers and students) identified as existing between women and men differ from the similarities that literate and semi-literate women pointed out. While literate women (workers and students) identified themselves as possessing characteristics that are traditionally and socially ascribed to men, such as aggression, boldness, being independent-minded, and pushful, and a few literate and many semi-literate women indicated they were breadwinners and co-breadwinners, men did not identify women as similar to them in these respect.

Women Are Different From Men

In articulating the differences between women and men, literate women and semi-literate women stated the facts of how they differ from men, not just as they perceive it but as it applies to them personally. They also stated the realities, even when such have become real only through social construction. In addition, at times, women communicated their own beliefs and what they have learned (both positive and negative) as the truth/fact about how they differ from men.

On the part of literate male respondents, their responses to what differentiates them from women can be categorized into the following: statements that are true; statements that are true as a result of social construction; and statements that apply to a few, but are then generalized to all, because that is what men would (prefer) rather is. Thus, the statements are make-believe and self-delusional, and unfortunately too, outright lies. Examples of such responses are that: men are assigned the presidential role of their families and the macro-society; men are emotionally stable, have ability to withstand pressure more than women, are more mentally stable, and are better leaders; and men provide, while women are caregivers.

We recall that in their responses to questions about the participation of women in politics, a lot of men acknowledged that women are better managers of resources; more suited to discharging official functions; will not be partial in taking decisions; they organize people better, they are meticulous, and are responsive and attentive, et cetera. What attributes do men who say men are better leaders require of a leader, which women do not already have? In addition, there is already a response from literate women and semi-literate women to the assertion that men are less flexible than women. Women had said: “when a woman is in an office, her yes would be yes, and her no would be no”, and a woman “will not condone nonchalant attitudes to duties and indiscipline.” This indicates firmness, and definitely not flexibility in the sense in which the men in this study would like us believe. Clearly, it is consistent with the totality of men’s perception of women that men would rather have women believe women are flexible because that accords with femininity—being unable to make up one’s mind, pliable, indecisive, etc. Given the way socialization, nurturing and the social construction of identities of persons work, when men continuously tell women that they are flexible, women begin to believe they are flexible, and they begin to act flexible especially if they get ‘rewarded’ for being flexible. When we stand by our words, especially in the socio-economic political context of our country today, we get sanctioned for not being pliable. One of the sanctions meted out to a woman who is not flexible is that she is denied the opportunity to be voted into office.²⁹ So she is taught what it is valuable to be, which is, being flexible.

Given then the identities of women that have emerged from this study, what women do, in both the private and public spheres of life is that they humanize leadership, they humanize their actions; thus they are not flexible. In the following paragraphs we examine some of the experiences of women, which have definitely led some of them to believe that men hold negative views of women. Precisely, that men think they are superior to women.

Women And Feelings Of Inferiority

All the women that took part in this study were asked to indicate whether they had at any time felt inferior to men, and whether or not men had tried to make them feel inferior. They were also asked to cite instances of such experiences. Women cited experiences of discrimination, sexism and violence in different spheres of life—in the home or family circle; in educational institutions; in workplaces, and in public places—and how their experiences have challenged, subdued, irritated, and at times affected them positively and negatively.

A few women indicated that they had had no reasons to feel inferior to men, and we will attempt to categorize their responses into two. The first are literate and semi-literate women who felt equal to men because they had excelled at work, and they occupy or had occupied positions of leadership at work, in governance and in civic groups. Given this, they just did not feel inferior to men. The second category comprises mostly semi-literate women who were comfortable with patriarchy and the way things were, especially in terms of accessing resources, mainly education and land. This, I interpret as being comfortable with their subordinate position to men. Interestingly, they at times justified their position by appealing to religion in a way that can only be deemed fatalistic. They displayed what Friere referred to as magic consciousness.³⁰ The semi-literate women felt comfortable with the experiences of sexism and discrimination because they thought that was the way things were, or that is the way God wants it. The only literate woman who gave indications that she did not feel inferior to men, but who also did not claim that she felt equal to them, expressed her irritation with the demands that social engagements place on women’s time.³¹

It would appear that women in formal work do not or did not have a lot of experiences of discrimination or sexism, so only two of them said they ever had a feeling of inferiority, while two said not all the time. It may also be that the literate women did not just feel inferior to men, or that they had decided to be silent about it. I think the former is the case, for when they were then asked whether men have tried to make them feel inferior, at least one third of the women said yes. The women in formal work cited their experiences of discrimination while in school, and at work, while female students cited their experiences of rejection in school politics and discomfort with their own level of performance, relative to their male counterparts’.

Women in informal work and female apprentices, who were the semi-literate category of respondents in this study, cited their experiences of discrimination, sexism and violence: in relationships with husbands or boyfriends; in family life and this includes domestic work; in public places and, in accessing resources—land and education. The women appeared irritated when they spoke about their relationships with husbands/boyfriends, and the way they were denied access to education. The women said their spouses thought they were senseless, and Chioma said she was asked to beg her husband after a quarrel, even though he was at fault.

Within the experiences cited, there are outright discrimination, sexism and violence that left women feeling inferior to men. However, there were women who played into the hands of patriarchy and so men took advantage of their errors. An example is Olaitan who exhibited deviant behaviour while in primary school, and so gave her father an excuse not to send her to secondary school. There were women who felt inferior not exactly as a result of (overt) discrimination or sexism, but because of the feeling (and the fact) that they fell below the achievements of the men who were their counterparts. There were those who were both victims of economic depression and patriarchy. Persons close to them resolved what appeared like economic dilemma with patriarchal norms. We know that many girls who have had problems accessing formal education have actually been affected by the problems of poverty and patriarchy.

Also relevant are the experiences of two women, Alake and Farinde, who could not receive male guests as youngsters. Their experiences are similar to those of many young women, and the thinking among older persons is that they frown at girls receiving male friends at home to protect their daughters from abuse and protect the integrity of the family. However, the same groups of parents allow girls to pay visits to their male children. Perhaps this ought to be interpreted to mean that they are not worried about their boys abusing other people’s girls, and that when boys receive female guests it does not mar the integrity of the family. The thinking could also be that the boy will marry a girl, and would have to, at least symbolically, bring the wife to his father’s home. At any rate, women have pointed this out as a privilege that men enjoy that they do not enjoy.

The Identities Of Women And Women’s Abilities To Attain Political Power

On aggregate, the responses that women and men gave to questions in respect of: women’s civic-political participation; the roles of women in the private and public spheres of life; women’s perception of their identities; and men’s perception of the identities of women, have implications for whether or not women can gain political power, or transform power relationships. The task here is to determine how empowering and disempowering women’s identities can be. The following are women’s identities that have emerged from this study: First, is the individual character of women that influences and is influenced by their relationships with other people, their work ethic and performance at work. Second, is claiming and valuing those things that make men the male gender—some of the character of men and their roles as breadwinners. Third, is women’s acceptance of the socially constructed female, one that is subordinate to and inferior to men. The last is the acceptance of what is deemed feminine (caring, feeling, nurturing) but which has the potential for being put to productive use.

Men, who think women should aspire to any political office, do not appear to constitute a real problem to women attaining political power, because their position is already positive. Many of them have implicitly, and at times, explicitly acknowledged two of the four identities of women that we have identified in this study, as representing potentials that will help women perform well if they attain political leadership. The identities are women’s character (meticulous, trustworthy, firm, honest, not partial), and how it influences their relationship with others, their work ethics and performance, and the positive view of women’s femininity—caring, feeling, nurturing—and its potential for productive use if women attain political power. Fortunately, men who support women and women (both literate and semi-literate) who affirm women are united in this respect.

However, and unfortunately too, most of the men who support women, and women who affirm women, also accept, mainly implicitly, women’s subordination to men in private, especially given the assumption that women can better handle care giving, than men. Although they may not accept it, they are in agreement with the people who insist that women should be submissive to men and should therefore take subordinate positions to men in public. They reinforce women’s identities as subordinate to men. The point here is not that women are subordinate to men because they cook or care for children/home/husband. The point is that the women in this study all work outside the home, and so they are co-breadwinners. None works full-time inside the home as a caregiver. We recall that only a handful of all the categories of respondents who would support women in their aspiration to attain political power considered women’s and men’s roles at home as the same, complementary or about partnering. Partnership is about fair distribution of rights, responsibilities and privileges. When a wife who is a co-breadwinner returns home after work to do care giving and the husband does not partake in care giving, the husband is being accorded or is insisting on a privilege which patriarchy confers on him, and which his wife does not enjoy. When a husband who is a co-breadwinner insists on taking final decisions on matters concerning the family, he is insisting on a right and privilege that he is not granting his wife. When he then implicitly (through all kinds, of back handed tactics), insist that his wife pick the bills equally with him, he is clearly not sharing responsibilities commensurate with the rights and privileges that he enjoys in the home. In this case then, the woman is subordinate to the husband.

In addition, when many women and men believe that women should play the role of caregiver at home, and also aspire to political leadership if they wish, they fail to realize that women who spend much of their time shuttling between cooking, caring for the children, home, husband, and breadwinning, will not have much time left to partake in civic-political affairs. That is to say they will not have much time left to take part in the decision-making processes that have consequences for whether or not they can feed their children well; they can continue to work (in both the formal and informal sectors), and they will be drawn into conflicts, the sources of which they do not know and understand, and conflicts for which they are going to reap little and lose much. Clearly also, they will not be able to take part in decision-making processes that can stem or heighten violence on their gender, and those that can pauperize women the more, and so, increase their powerlessness and vulnerability.

The point that is being made here is that, women and men who believe that women should aspire to any political office and who also accept as given, the view or position that women are the sole caregivers, reinforce the view that women are subordinate to men; they are one with persons who think women should not aspire to certain positions because they are flexible and the home will suffer, and so they push women farther off from political power. And this core group of women and men constitutes the obvious hindrance to women attaining political power. They form the core of resistance to a democratic gender relation.

Power And Its Preservative Nature

The resistance to a democratic gender relation is not because there is overwhelming evidence to show that women are incapable of holding the positions; rather, it is explicable in the preservative nature of power or what the orthodox male religious leader in Lokoja called the greed-lust for power. Holders of power, specifically men, cannot just think of loosening their grip on power. A female professor, one of the women that the Anglican Church in Nigeria had refused to ordain as priests, agreed with the Bishop when she said it appears that men are afraid of loosening their grip on power. In her view, the ordained ministry should not be about power but service because, after all, ‘minister’ means ‘servant’. This is equally true of participation in secular politics. Persons who attain political power do not see themselves as holding the positions in trust for the people that they supposedly represent. Rather, they are excited about wielding oppressive power. We take two scenarios. If women are truly caring, loving, or nurturing, and they have truly internalized the positive aspects of the socially constructed notions of femininity, and many of them begin to occupy top political offices (or the topmost jobs in Churches and Mosques), it may just be, as many women hope, that they will perform better than their male counterparts who have monopolized governance, both secular and religious, and thereby putting the men to shame. There will be limited: violent conflicts; economic and social deprivations; and corruption. In other words, women may humanize the public sphere and performance. Now men do not want to experiment, for they do not know how it will turn out, so they continue to devalue their own notions of the feminine, the traits that they would rather women have. By devaluing what they insist is feminine, they can ensure that women do not aspire to and get to the top political and religious positions.

On the other hand, if some women are indeed like the men who presently wield political power, as some women have indicated, and men know it, men will forever block such women from gaining power because the women may, as one man indicated, oppress men. If this group of women gets into power, men’s “presidential role in macro society” may become insecure. Given this, men then block this group of women with all manner of tactics—divide and rule (women won’t vote for women); lies (they are mentally and emotionally unstable), and emotional blackmail (the children will suffer).

Clearly, the identity of women that men would rather women favour, which is being feminine and subordinate to men, is not empowering. The identities that most women explicitly favour—their characters; the characteristics ascribed to men, especially breadwinning; and positive views of the feminine (caring, feeling and nurturing) have potentials for empowering women, but I think we should briefly focus on character, for it would seem that the rest of the identities of women can, and do take a cue from it.

The Character Of Women

We note that the traditional or indigenous education system in Nigeria covered amongst others, the development of character. Fafunwa had observed that indigenous African education places considerable emphasis on character training, and he said J. A. Majasan in his study of Yoruba (in Western Nigeria) education identified character training and religious education as the two main objectives of Yoruba education, and showed that other objectives were pursued through the latter. Fafunwa also indicated that parents in traditional Nigerian society were concerned that their children be upright, honest, kind and helpful to others, and would go a long way to ensure that their children imbibe these values. He also stated that “each child or youth is also expected to know about hospitality, etiquette and other social graces.” Fafunwa further said that traditional education in the area of character training is severe, and that while persons will tolerate the absence of other aspects of education, the absence of ‘good character’ is thought to be a shameful thing, not just on the individual, but also on his immediate and extended family.³² Thus among the Yoruba of Western Nigeria, when a person displays uprightness, kindness, etiquette, hospitality, and so on, it is said that: Oni iwa—meaning that she has character, but more appropriately she has beauty of character. Today, there is a tendency to believe that a person who is cultured, that is the one who has imbibed the norms and values of her community, whether negative or positive, is the one with beauty of character.

A point to note here is that throughout the section of his book that dealt with the development of character, Fafunwa referred to the moulding of the character of: ‘each child’; ‘youth’, and the ‘individual’ by the community. One did not therefore get the impression that the Yorubas for example, expected particular character traits of their female children, as distinct from their male children. Whereas in other sections of the book, in dealing with respect for elders and peers for example, he was specific about how men and women were expected to greet elders.

Given the identities of women that have emerged from this study, we may want to conclude that the traditional belief about beauty of character still subsists among women, many of who defined themselves through their character. Of course we can take the position that because women have been socialized to think first in terms of their characters, one should not be surprised that they defined themselves more through their characters.

Given the responses in the different sections of this research, it does not appear that men hold true to the ideals of good character. This is because women and men accused men of being corrupt, callous, dishonest, and deceitful. Some male respondents stated that women are “lighthearted” as regards corruption, and “women do not have much courage to mismanage money.” This means to steal public funds requires courage, or amounts to being courageous, and women do not have that kind of courage, because men have also said they are more courageous than women.

One important point that needs be raised is that the Nigerian society of today is not exactly the same as the traditional society that Fafunwa described. The influences of colonial, Christian and Islamic forms of education have redefined the public space. The point that is being made is that the Europeans, who brought Christianity to Nigeria, and the colonial administrators who were Christians, considered that sharp differences existed between the roles of men and women in public and private spheres of life. They transferred this to our hearts and laws, and this worked to alter the status of Nigerian Women. Concomitantly, women were and are being evaluated, not in terms of the traditional beauty of character that Fafunwa described, but in terms of whether they are ‘cultured.’ That is, according to the extent to which they have imbibed the norms and values prescribed by the new religions or more appropriately, by the leaders and preachers of the new religions who are mostly men.

We take the Yoruba proverb that says “Iyawo so iwa nu, o ni oun ko ni ori oko”, which translates, a woman who looses her character complains of being unlucky with marriage. A statement that implies that a woman’s character is responsible for her marital woes.³³ It is not usually said that the man has no character, because as Fashina had observed, “It is expected that it is a woman who should possess the character that would be attractive to a man, and that will bring out the best in him.”³⁴

Now, we cannot turn back the hand of the clock, so we do not know how far back this proverb dates, and whether indeed Yoruba women were expected to bear the burden of good character, back before colonialism and before the advent of the missionaries. However, Fafunwa, as we had earlier noted, said children, youths and individuals were expected to be of good character. Definitely, there is a motive for, or a benefit that will accrue to persons who insist that women bear the burden of good character in ‘consensual’ relationships. With respect to this oft-quoted proverb, the woman who is ‘cultured’ in a marriage is the one with beauty of character. If the cultured woman is the one that is deemed to have character, then character in this case is disempowering.

Given the aggregate of women’s description of their character in this study, it doesn’t appear that they think of themselves as cultured. Rather, it appears they think they possess beauty of character, and this is potentially empowering, as many women and men have pointed out when they supported women aspiring to political leadership, and this represents a possibility. The challenge, however, is that women concede to patriarchy. We cannot therefore assume that those women who described themselves as ‘good’, ‘well behaved’, ‘not troublesome’ have not done so, from the point of view of how cultured they thought they were. If this is the case, their ‘character’ is potentially disempowering.

The point is that the Christian and Islamic religions that many of the women in this study subscribe to, have been shown (by both male and female religious leaders) to prescribe subordination of women to men. When women accept this and mould their characters to suit the injunction, they cannot then, by any logic, desire to lead any group comprising male and female members. They cannot be Imams, they cannot be ordained priests of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, they cannot contest for political positions, and then the thought of becoming a State Governor or the President of the Country will be heresy. Even if the women were not interested in political offices, they will not also care to build parallel, powerful women’s organizations—the women’s movement—because they would not even see the need to build such organizations or movements.

Clearly also, a religion that preaches subordination of one human being to another cannot but be disempowering, given the greed/lust for power among human beings, especially among men, for it then becomes the basis for all manner of oppressions: gender, race, class, generational etc.

Is Formal Education Empowering?

To the question of who teaches what, and how: teachers, (through the disempowering and empowering lessons that they teach students); fellow students (mostly through negative lessons); and religious leaders (through their negative and confusing messages) teach women whom it is valuable to be. This is achieved through a system of rewards and punishment. This way, they construct and reconstruct women’s identities. The issue is that women and men who have formal school training, and who are themselves products of many influences, many of which convey and perpetuate unequal relations of power believe themselves to be capable of bestowing knowledge on those whom they consider to know nothing.³⁵ In addition, the hierarchical structure of relationships in formal schools ensures that particular subject matters are taught in particular ways, and some are not taught at all. In addition, students are unable to challenge particular views and beliefs that lecturers pass across in class because of the fear, in our environment that they may be deemed rude, for challenging an older person, or someone in a position of authority.

There is another source from which all women in this study, whether literate or semi-literate, could probably access education, both as learners and teachers. These are the informal and non-formal, structured and semi-structured women’s organizations, networks, friendships and associations, which are either secular or religious that constitute the women’s movement.³⁶ In this study, only one literate woman and a few female students gave clear indications that they were members of NGOs, one of the non-formal and informal sources of knowledge for women. Too many women were members of religious groups, and for obvious economic reasons, they were members of cooperative credit unions. At least two semi-literate women indicated that their husbands did not like them participating in activities of groups. One key reason for the low involvement of women in activities of groups other than religious groups is because too many men dread the educative influences of women’s groups, social clubs etc on women, so they discourage their spouses from becoming members of these groups.³⁷ Husbands and boyfriends prefer that their spouses belong to religious groups, which they are sure will ensure their spouses’ continuing flexibility and subordination to them. What women are being taught is to be “cultured”, that is, to imbibe and behave according to the norms and values that benefit most men and women.

As a starting point, we look at the experiences of literate women that have been cited in this study. First, we have to note that literate women have experiences of sexism, discrimination and violence not only in the formal school system, but also in other spheres of life, such as family, given the experiences of Tiwa and Segun and, in public places, as represented by Rebecca’s experience (See following section). So, for women who have gone through formal education up to the tertiary level, the experiences of sexism, in school represent a part of the whole range of experiences of sexism that they are likely going to encounter in their life time.

We take Adedigba’s experience in primary school. She observed that boys’ names were listed before girls’ names in the class register in her primary school. It was an experience which left Adedigba feeling inferior to men, at least three decades before she recalled her experience. This was coupled with the fact that Adedigba and other girls went to cook and perform domestic chores for their teachers when they were supposed to be in school. This is clearly one form of the abuse of power that Bakare-Yusuf pointed out in the teacher-student relationship in Nigeria.³⁸ The teachers’ source of power is seniority (age and position of authority), but they make the girls and not the boys do domestic work because of the assumption that girls and women ought to do domestic work, an assumption that has its roots in the structure of our society, and which has been made worse by colonialism and the new religions. Unfortunately, the practice of listing boys’ names before girls’ still subsists till date, at least in primary schools in Ibadan, one of the two locations of this research. After I had gone through some of the questionnaires that I retrieved from respondents, and that included Adedigba’s questionnaire, in a discussion with a friend about some of the responses that I got from the field, my friend, the proprietress of a nursery/primary school, confirmed Adedigba’s observation that boys’ names were listed before girls’. My then 8-year old daughter, who had listened in on our conversation got excited and exasperated and she said: “Yes mummy, it is true, they call the boys’ names before our own even though girls are more than boys in my class.”

Women’s Experiences of Discrimination, Sexism and Violence

Literate Women in Formal Work

“When my step brother told me that I do not have a say in the family matter that I am just a woman and should not talk when they the men are talking.” — Tiwa

“One good example is the election of our Union president. The men folk said its only men that are capable of being a union president.” — Medupin

“An example was when I was made a fee collector and coordinator in my former school. Our male counterparts felt it was an all women affair and they thought they could do it better.” — Idiat

“Because my GPA is always above their own, they will now turn it to using abusive words.” — Atolagbe

“While in school, there was this boy who always felt I had done more to get my high grades.” — Aanwo

“When I was in primary school, some of the boys in my class would come around and threaten that it was no longer possible for a girl to lead them in examination. Some would go and barb their hair and come to show me that if I didn’t understand, they had taken the position from me. Most of the time I would just smile. Sometimes they would tamper with my books or seize an exercise book. Well, I led them always except in the final exam in primary school, I was beaten to the second position.” — Esther

“When I was in school boys always felt there were positions meant for boys and not for girls.” — Theresa

“When they don’t care to know ‘bout the level of your intelligence and by the constant phrase that what does a woman know and that our role is in the kitchen.” — Itunu

“In the front seat of a bus, men would rather seat at the edge and not women as one told me one day to come down from the edge for him to seat there.” — Rebecca

Female Students

“Yes those who are close to you i.e. husband or boyfriend act and speak in a domineering manner at times.” — Segun

“Male colleagues say what do you think you can do after school rather than become a full housewife. They do not see women as aspiring further than the first degree certificate qualification.” — Teniola

“One of my class mates is big and tall, he thinks whatever he says in the class is the final, he is so domineering. His voice is so loud and he does this at times when we have to do assignments, he likes intimidating everyone.” — Kehinde

“One particular lecturer seems to think we girls are in school simply to distract men from their studies and we make them unserious human beings e.g. a girl and a boy were talking in class, it was the guy he caught talking, he sent him out and asked the girl after a moment if she was the one distracting him even though it was the boy he caught. He sees all girls as dressing naked.” — Ajoke

“My math lecturer walked up to me on this day (I went to a vigil the night before, so I was stressed up) and said “You, you will fail this course, why are you frowning, can’t you pretend?” (I know he’s a womanizer).” — Debo

“In my practical group, I’m the only female among four guys, they hardly allow me to participate in the practical, they have the feeling that they will be more accurate in taking readings than me.” — Chigozie

“For instance, some male students believe that they are better than you are and if you score more than them, they thought you are being given extra marks.” — Folarin

“During our last field trip, the males in my group protected the ladies from excavating when the trench is going deeper. The males excavate while the ladies sieve and sort out finds.” — Aramide

“For example all the department in school, it is only male student that are been voted for as the president we can contest for any one, if not that they are claiming superiority.” — Tundun

“Several times my course mates (male) say women can’t compete with them academically. As the best student in my class, they make me assume it will end in the kitchen, I never gave in.” — Rolake

“When you perform better than them, they look at you with contempt as if you have used your body not your brain.” — Ngozi

“In the area of choosing or electing the class captain, they feel that women or ladies are not competent enough to oversee the affairs of the whole class.” — Olaore

Women said their male counterparts tried to get them to believe that women’s success in education does not matter as it will be deployed to use only in the kitchen. Look at Teniola and Rolake’s responses. Kehinde, Ajoke and Debo, reported their experiences of different types of intimidation by male students and lecturers in the classroom. Medupin, Chigozie, Temitope, Aramide, Tundun and Olaore reported discrimination relating to political and classroom leadership, and marginalization in carrying out academic assignments. Atolagbe and Esther’s experiences show up their male counterparts as being unable to cope with women’s academic success. Allied to this is Theresa’s experience of men setting boundaries for women’s achievement in school. Aanwo, Folarin and Ngozi’s experiences appear quite painful because men who assume that women are objects of desire believe that women’s academic achievements are suspect.

In an interview with Mr. S., who is a lecturer at the Kogi State Polytechnic in Lokoja, he enthused about being a father to all students, and how he tries to be objective in his interactions with them. He said although he is a Muslim, his values do not influence his teaching. However, he told us about how, while teaching the structure of formal organizations, which is hierarchical, he would usually use the class as a good example. He said:

He then added that he encourages students by telling all of them that irrespective of their sex, they all have the capacity to acquire knowledge. Notwithstanding his other example about Jesus and how he encourages all to acquire knowledge, Mr S’s example of hierarchy to his class is a good example of how the hidden curriculum works.

In our observation of Mrs. H's English class at the Kogi State Polytechnic in Lokoja, we noted that no woman participated in the simulated argument that was held. She taught argumentative essays (and other types of essays). There were 19 male and 17 female students in the class. Throughout the class that lasted one hour, the female students did not voluntarily reply to the lecturer’s questions. In the interview that was held with Mrs. H after the class, she was asked about the obvious silence of the female students in her class. She said it was atypical of them not to talk in class, and that perhaps they were reacting to our presence in the class. We sat at the back seats and were not introduced to the class until after the lecture, so we asked Mrs H why it was the women who were responding to our presence and not the men?

Clearly, the experiences of women, as cited by women, the testimony of the teacher, the silence of the female students in the English class and the implicit and explicit lessons that women are supposed to draw from their experiences, and that can, or may have resulted in negative or positive learning for the women are obvious. The formal school then, mirrors the larger society, as it denies women access to leadership at particular levels, as unequal relations of power get exhibited in teacher-student relationship and what is taught, and as women are told that success is foreign to women (who are sexual objects) and if they are successful, they will end up in the kitchen anyway. This reveals the disempowering nature of formal education; it shows how identities are constructed and how some women internalize the constructed identity.

This is even more so when we recollect the responses of literate and semi-literate women to questions around women’s civic-political participation, the roles of women in the private and public spheres, and women’s identities. There were no real differences in the responses of the two groups of women to these issues. As a matter of fact, more semi-literate women than literate women made the point about being breadwinners or co-breadwinners, as a way of challenging male superiority. In addition, while some of the literate women in formal work defined themselves through their husbands and children, semi-literate women have found psychological freedom in rejecting the notions of husbands and accepting the notion of “Baba omo,” father of children. It appears literate women want to be seen to be “cultured” and they also want to show that their academic successes have not gone into their heads, so, to avoid the scathing criticism that is explicit in being referred to as a member of “Egbe Ki L’oko Ose,”³⁹ they eulogize their relationships with their husbands and their love for their homes. This is not to say of course that some women do not enjoy good relationships with their spouses, neither does it imply that women have not found fulfillment in marriage.

When women were asked to indicate the changes they would like effected in tertiary education, there were only two clear references to sexual harassment as an area where change is required. We note that the women did not speak to the put-downs, their marginalization in politics/leadership and academic assignments, the humiliating remarks and the intimidations that they experienced as students, as areas in which change is required. The questions that have come to mind then are: can this be because the women assume that those are issues that cannot be changed? Could it be that women think these are problems that women have to deal with at a personal level rather than collectively and institutionally? Or, are these literate women in formal work assuming (implicitly), like some of the young women in tertiary institutions and semi-literate women did in their responses to some of the questions asked, that those are “the way things are”?

Given the preceding observations, it is not surprising that the social status of women who have gone through tertiary education in Nigeria is still low when compared with that of men. This is because formal education perpetuates unequal relations of power, and it constructs women’s identities to benefit those in positions of power—many men and a few women.

However, it also appears that the fact that women have had the experience of tertiary education, and the fact of the barrage of potentially disempowering experiences that the women have had in the institutions, have led them to attempting to resist and they are resisting oppression especially in terms of questioning taken for granted positions, through reflection, which is an important component of praxis.⁴⁰ Aanwo in Ibadan and Hauwa in Lokoja used education to deconstruct male superiority. Aanwo said,

Actually, Aanwo had indicated that a woman’s role at home is that of “partner to the husband, mother to the children, co-breadwinner to the family”. Hauwa said,

We also note the way Esther and Rolake handled men who couldn’t cope with women’s success. Esther, in spite of all the harassment, said she would smile, and she excelled always, except in the final year. Her smile was definitely a knowing smile, a smile that belied her determination and mocks her harassers. Rolake simply said: “I never gave up.” The reactions of Esther and Rolake are forms of resistances, one in which they refused to accept that they should be less successful than men. Another example of critical questioning and resistance is the one cited by Dr A of the Sociology Department of the University of Ibadan, who told us that he once invited two of his undergraduate male students who would usually put in extra work and assignments in his course to attend his postgraduate class. He said the next day in class, he called the two to talk to their course mates about what they had learned from the postgraduate class, and they did. He said some of the young women in the class challenged him immediately, and asked why he had invited two men and no woman. He said he had to admit to the class that it was an oversight, and that it was the men who were on his mind then. He said he also had to let the class know that there was a woman who would also usually put in extra effort like the two men that he had invited to the postgraduate class, but she was not on his radar then. He then added that he thought the impact of the feminist movement was beginning to be felt among female students. He said in about two or three departments in his Faculty, of the 10 students who had Second Class Honours, Upper Division, seven were women.

These resistances, that is, the critical questioning and the determination to further succeed, no doubt gave the women psychological freedom and, as such, they were confident individuals.⁴¹ This accords with Foucault’s position that resistance to power is found right at the point where power relations are exercised.⁴²

Hopes and Possibilities

Female students who were participants in a Focused Group Discussion spoke about their strengths and assets, and some of the successes that they have achieved as members of groups. They identified their assets as possession of entrepreneurial, organizational and counseling skills. Other assets were teaching, singing, playing musical instruments and choreographing. They had dreams of becoming leaders in economic circles as entrepreneurs known around the world; political circles as the president of the country, and in academic circles. They wanted to be spiritual leaders and they dreamt about Nigerian women overcoming their feelings of inferiority to men, and also dreamt of the future as a time when gender inequalities will be no more.

The female students in question are therefore not hopeless women. They know they have assets that they had appropriately channeled in the past, and they have dreams. They envision a better future for themselves and other Nigerian women, even though at times the dreams appeared like dreams about dominating men who have hitherto been dominating women.

In the rest of the paragraphs in this section, we look at some of the efforts and the attitudes of female and male lecturers, and their potentials for empowering women.

Mrs. J., a lecturer at the Kogi State Polytechnic Lokoja, who will not encourage any student (male or female) in her department (the Department of Science Laboratory Technology) to participate in students’ union politics because they hardly have the time to do so, said she would rather that women excel first in a chosen career before they marry. She draws from her own experience as an undergraduate who gave birth to, and reared children while still in the university. She said she drums this into the ears of her female students and her female children, and that two of her female children promised they would follow her counsel. One had already broken the promise.

Mrs. H. of the Kogi State Polytechnic Lokoja believes that inequalities in the socialization of children is unjustifiable, and so she actively discourages sex-role socialization at home, and she has been labelled ‘Thatcher’ by her children. She indicated that although her view is incompatible with her religion, Islam, she still has peace with her creator. She believes that women should extend what they do at home—being mothers to children—outside. That is, being mothers in society. During our observation of her teaching, we found out that she practices her belief. Good enough, Mrs. H’s Head of Department had described her as diligent behind her back, when we were trying to book an appointment to watch her class and interview her. What this means then is that Mrs. H imbues hard work and effective performance of her duty with care and nurturing. It appears this is what persons who demand that women do things differently from men want. She also believes that women should participate actively in politics, because Aishat (the Prophet’s wife) was a politician.

Mr. B. of the Kogi State Polytechnic Lokoja, is the lecturer who said he led a few other lecturers to raise the matter of a case of sexual harassment at a departmental meeting. He said he does not believe in sex-role socialization, because his own childhood was devoid of that. He said he grew up with his uncle in Lagos (the commercial capital of Nigeria) and had to do all household chores, which he now finds beneficial. We pointed out that perhaps he just had to do those chores because of his position then. He answered in the affirmative, but added that it’s now a part of him, and he finds it positive. He told us that his wife is an accountant, and she plays equal roles in the decision-making process in their home. He said that he has three daughters whom he loves, and he cannot see why anyone would discriminate against them. He added that he is of the view that if women were given the chance to rule Nigeria, they would rule the country better than men, and cited the example of Deborah in the Bible, who was a housewife, a prophetess and a judge.

Professor W, the daughter of an Anglican Bishop, who retired from the University of Ibadan as a Professor of Environmental Archaeology a month after our interview with her, and who is one of the women that the Anglican Church in Nigeria has refused to ordain, is a gender activist. She was a member of Women in Nigeria (WIN). In this work, one of her female students had indicated that the Professor had changed her own perspective of women’s roles in public. Apart from the student’s testimony, in informal conversations with some Faculty members at the University of Ibadan, they gave indications that Professor W carried out an overhaul of the General Studies Programme of the University of Ibadan as the Chairperson of the University Senate Committee on the General Studies Programme.

In the interview that we held with the Professor, she had indicated that when she assumed headship of her Department, the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology in 1986, she decided to take immediate steps to rectify the gender imbalance in the chart depicting the presumed stages in human evolution. The chart, conspicuously displayed in the corridor of the Department for several years, showed only male figures, indicating the evolution of the masculine gender (only male figures are traditionally represented in texts on human evolution). She said she promptly asked that one of the Departmental graphic artists draw female figures beside the male ones, since both women and men are human and both evolved together! The artist, in his ingenuity, which was very much appreciated by Prof. W, depicted one of the female figures as pregnant.

Till date, the exhibition hall of the Department carries the diagram of the evolution of man and woman (See Appendix 1). The implications of Prof. W’s action are numerous. One important one, among several, is that of making women visible in the academia, particularly in a Department that deals with the sources of all creations. Her action will no doubt contribute to the process of deconstructing the invisibility of women in the academia. The point about pregnancy is also extremely important, for persons in the academia have in the past shown some reticence about discussing pregnancy, a natural process, in the public sphere—the universities.⁴³

In conclusion, the barrage of discriminatory practices, abuse and violence against women not withstanding, there is hope that education will become empowering for women. There is hope because: women have assets and strengths that they are aware of; they have dreams and visions of the future; they have been putting up resistances against oppression; and there are female (and male) lecturers who are challenging relations of power and who are urging women to exercise their individual agency and power with other women to end domination.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In this work I have attempted to show how religion, the hidden curriculum and tertiary education interface to construct women’s identity, and how the construction engenders and presents undemocratic and flawed gender relations which lack rational justification. However, the potential for challenging and reordering the status quo exist in the women who perceive themselves as different from whom men would rather they are. Given these, the following recommendations are made.

Women in higher education should, as a matter of urgency, encourage more female oriented Community Based Organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations to become very active in higher institutions. This should take the wind off the activities of the religious organizations in the institutions. If they approach their activities from potentially empowering frameworks, they can assist the young and older women in those institutions in a transformational learning process which may result in the transformation of their identities and prepare them for leadership positions in the public sphere from a redefined identity.⁴⁴ There are women’s organizations in Nigeria that are active in this respect. Some are: Women Against Rape, Sexual Harassment and Sexual Exploitation (WARSHE), headquartered in Ile-Ife;⁴⁵ Female Leadership Forum (FLF), with headquarters in Lagos; and BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, also headquartered in Lagos. The challenge is to have more of these organizations work with students all over the country, and to have the existing ones and the ones yet to come on board constantly checking their frameworks and strategies.

More gender activists (who do not concede to patriarchy at both the cognitive and practical aspects of their lives) should intervene decisively in the activities of religious organizations, especially in tertiary institutions, and in the discourse of religion and women in the larger society.

Presently in Nigeria, religion empowers, disempowers and confounds women.⁴⁶ Given the multiple faces of religion, religious leaders should be encouraged to privilege the transformative aspects of religion that promote democratic gender relations.

One recommendation that is easy to implement is that the names of pupils in class registers in primary schools should be arranged in alphabetical order, and this should be done speedily. The argument that the names of boys are separated from those of girls because officials want disaggregated data falls flat, and smirks of laziness.

There is an urgent need for tertiary institutions to set in motion the process of formulating and adopting anti-discrimination/anti-sexist and sexual harassment policies and procedures. As yet, only cases of harassment (usually badly handled) are resolved at the whims of the leadership of the institutions, at times using the institutions’ code of conduct, when it is available.

The entire educational system, especially tertiary education in Nigeria, needs to be overhauled to make the institutions centres of excellence for the production of knowledge and for setting the agenda for change for the country, for the continent and for the black race.

Acknowledgements

This essay is part of the report of a research work that was supported by the 2003 Advanced Research Fellowship Programme of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). I thank the Scientific Committee of the 2003 Advanced Research Fellowship Programme of CODESRIA, and the Executive Committee of CODESRIA for their approval of, and support for this research.

I am grateful to Grace Itanyin in Lokoja and Jumoke Odeyemi in Ibadan for their skilful assistance with the fieldwork. To all the women and men who made time to supply the data needed for this work, I say thank you. Much gratitude to Olufemi Taiwo for our discussions on some of the results of fieldwork, and Adeolu Ademoyo for his critical comments on initial drafts of this essay.

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Notes and References

1 See L. Denzer 1989, cited in Mama (1996: 14).

2 See S. Afonja and B. Aina (1995: 23).

3 See United Nations Development Programme (2005: 301).

4 See C. Berggren and L. Bergrren (1975: 6).

5 See International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (2000: 3).

6 A. Akiyode-Afolabi and L. Arogundade (2003:96) and UNDP ( 2005: 318).

7 T. Fashina (2001: 112).

8 S. Garrett (1987: 81).

9 P. Freire (1970, Rpt 2002: 72).

10 See O.M. Dipo-Salami (2002).

11 See A. Ogunrin (2004).

12 See O. Irinoye and C. Idika-Ogunye (2003).

13 See J. Stacey (1998: 497).

14 Dipo-Salami op. cit., p.19

15 See S. B. Merriam and R. Cafarella (1999: 359).

16 See C. M. Shrewsbury (1998: 167).

17 See N. Shvedova (1998) and Akiyode-Afolabi and Arogundade op. cit.

18 S. H. Longwe (2000: 24).

19 See J. Ibrahim (2004: 1).

20 Longwe op. cit., and J. Ibrahim and A. Salihu (2004).

21 M.C. Clark and A.L.Wilson (1991).

22 Denzer, cited in Mama op. cit.

23 0. Fashina (1998).

24 See M. Rogers (1998: 366).

25 See Calhoun (1994: 20).

26 See Rogers op.cit., p.372.

27 See O.Mejiuni (2005: 296).

28 See Rogers op. cit., p. 374

29 Ibrahim and Salihu op. cit

30 P. Freire (1969, Rpt 2002: 44).

31 O. Mejiuni and O. Obilade (2006).

32 Fafunwa (1974: 21).

33 Y. K. Yusuf (1995: 210).

34 T. Fashina op cit., p. 99

35 See note 9 above.

36 O. Obilade and O. Mejiuni “The Women’s Movement and Access to Education”

37 Obilade and Mejiuni op. cit.

38 B. Bakare-Yusuf (2003).

39 “Egbe ki l’oko Ose” is a Yoruba expression that can translate either to: the ignore-your-husband group or what does a husband have to offer group. See note [36] above.

40 P. Freire (1970, Rpt 2002: 87).

41 See hooks (1984: 90).

42 M. Foucault (1980: 142).

43 O. M. Fashina (2000: 125-6).

44 See O. Mejiuni and O. Obilade (2004: 240-5).

45 See reference in note 44 above for a critical analysis of some of the educational programmes of WARSHE.

46 O. Mejiuni (2006).

Olutoyin Mejiuni. ““Women Are Flexible And Better Managers”: The Paradox 0f Women's Identities, Their Educational Attainment And Political Power” JENDA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies: Issue 9, 2006.

	A Yes	A No	B Yes	B No	C Yes	C No	D Yes	D No	E Yes	E No
Literate Women In Formal Work (42)	32 (76.2%)	10 (23.8 %)	30 (71.4 %)	10 (23.8 %)	32 (76.2 %)	9 (21.4 %)	14 (33.3 %)	28 66.7 %)	35 (83.2 %)	2 (4.7 %)
Female Students (46)			28 (61.0 %)	17 (37.0 %)			12 (26.1 %)	32 (69.6 %)	39 (84.7 %)	4 (8.7 %)
Semi-Literate Women In Informal Economy (56)	43 (76.8 %)	13 (23.2 %)			15 (26.8 %)	33 (58.9 %)	11 (19.6 %)	45 (80.4 %)	52 (92.9 %)	3 (5.4 %)
Female Apprentices (39)	21 (53.9 %)	17 (43.6 %)			6 (15.4 %)	32 (82.1 %)	5 (12.8 %)	33 (84.6 %)	34 (87.2 %)	5 (12.8 %)

	Women In Formal Work	Percent	Female Students	Percent	Women In Informal Economy	Percent	Female Apprentices	Percent
Ethnic	4	3.9	2	1.7	3	2.9	1	1.9
Religious	13	12.6	12	10.1	11	10.5	3	5.6
Gender	21	20.4	26	21.8	25	23.8	16	29.6
Character	18	17.5	23	19.3	38	36.2	25	46.3
Physical	2	1.9	13	10.9	5	4.8	4	7.4
Professional/ Vocational	9	8.7	13	10.9	3	2.9	0	0
“Feminine”	7	6.8	16	13.5	7	6.7	2	3.7
“Masculine”	2	1.9	1	0.8	0	0	0	0
Marital	8	7.8	2	1.7	4	3.8	0	0
Deconstructed Identities	5	4.9	3	2.5	0	0	0	0
Age	3	2.9	3	2.5	1	0.95	0	0
Mother/Natal	9	8.7	0	0	3	2.9	1	1.9
Activist	2	1.9	1	0.8	0	0	0	0
Co-Curricular/ Other Interests	0	0	1	0.8	0	0	0	0
Human/Person	0	0	0	0	5	4.8	2	3.7
Total	103		119		105		54