Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies (2001)
ISSN: 1530-5686
GENDER EQUALITY IN A DUAL-SEX SYSTEM: THE CASE OF ONITSHA
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Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies (2001) ISSN: 1530-5686 GENDER EQUALITY IN A DUAL-SEX SYSTEM: THE CASE OF ONITSHA |
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Nkiru Nzegwu
In republishing the following essay to bring it to a wider audience, I have tried to preserve the original version of the essay. Most of the editorial changes I made are quite minor and are designed to clarify certain sentences and issues that seemed obtuse. However, since the publication of the essay in 1994, I have radically revised it in light of on going discussions in the field, and to accentuate certain issues that were treated with brevity. Consequently, the essay has expanded into two full-blown chapters: one chapter is devoted to the docu-drama, with an expanded range of issues under discussion, and the second chapter, more extensively examines the dynamics of a equality as comparable worth. In the process of making these changes, I have subjected the concept of equality to radical critique with the aim of transcending the notion of equality as something individuals possess. In my view, the shift to social responsibilities and obligations allows a different, more responsible way of thinking about equality.
The next drastic change is seen in the idea of “gender” as an analytic category. Not only does the term fail to make it in any of the titles of the two chapters, it has been used in a qualified way. In fact, the two chapters have been re-written with an eye to recent critiques that have been made on the epistemological and metaphysical effects of the concept of gender. For different reasons, I share Ifi Amadiume’s concern, to articulate the cultural basis of female empowerment in indigenous societies, and to make them available of use by modern women. My more limited objective is to provide conceptual clarity to the social logic of Igbo culture, and to carry this though my analyses.
Lastly, in the newly revised chapters, I have retained the term “dual- sex” since, in my view, it best captures the descriptive sense of sex (female-male) differentiation without invoking the epistemological baggage of gender. Throughout the text, I consistently highlighted this fact to underscore the descriptive use of this expression, and to ward off the importation of specialised meanings from any discipline.
What is equality? How is it generally understood? What customs and norms produce its egalitarian features? What are its cultural and social markers?
Preoccupied with these questions I read . Theory of Justice.1 It was a brilliant book, very much like chess. It told me a lot about white men’s dreams and nothing about the life I know. My reality in North America tells me that equality “as autonomous and the same” is a dream only privileged white men can have. Not only are they the ones with the luxury to dream this myth, only they are “by nature free and equal” to do so. Moreover, only they can construe themselves as the “proprietor of (their) own person(s) and capacities owing nothing to society for them.”2 As all-powerful patriarchs, they have imperiously universalized their myth to conceal their social, political, legal, economic, military, educational, and professional privileges.
Life as an im/migrant worker, black, woman, and African tells me that equality is determined by power, class, identity and race. The social inequality I faced in Canada was inextricably tied to my powerless, im/migrant, worker, black, woman, and African identity. Despite the laudatory claims that “This is a democracy...Everyone is a Canadian...We are all equal.” The collective “we” on the side of marginality knows that everybody is not equal. We know that equality is not about sameness. The “equality” we constantly see from our devalued Visible Minority3 position is racist, sexist, classist, imperialist.
Who do white people think they are fooling? Why do they think equality necessarily begins with individual autonomy and in sameness? We begin life and form our relational identity in the nexus of a caring, sharing family and society. Yet, they insist our conception of equality must begin with antagonistic, solitary individuals who lack social and family histories. Why do white male thinkers privilege the mythical figure of the solitary individual? Why do they treat people as imaginary constructs? Do they think a solitary individual can be human? Why do they think humanity begins in alienation? Why do they want everyone to be isolated?
White theorists constantly amaze me with their logic. They escape into the wilderness or the original position to find themselves and then come out waving a social contract. How can they rationally begin their analysis from an implausible state of nature or original position? They say their notion of equality applies uniformly to all because it treats everybody the same. But what do they know about being black, female, and African in a white male world? They say my sex and racial difference are irrelevant, yet they vicariously hold them against me in their discriminatory application of the laws. So why do they want to pencil out my form and erase my blackness? Do they want me to forget other vistas of equality? Tell me, why do white men dream so much? Why are they so arrogant in their dreaming?
In this paper, I shall examine a conception of equality in a dual-sex system in which sex differences are factored into an understanding of human worth. The aim is to understand what counts as equality, when women and men are conceived as social complements, and social roles and responsibilities define gender identity.
The paper is divided into three major parts. In part one, a docu-drama is utilized to highlight the main grounds of difference between gender identity in a dual-sex system and in a mono-sex system. The dialogue is projected back in time to facilitate the recovery of a pre-colonial conception of equality and to contrast it with one that is explicated from a mono-sex system. The comparison aims to determine the socio- political condition of women under each system so as to ascertain which structure accords greater respect to women.
Part two does two things: it explores the historical roots of feminism to establish the cultural issues that shape the feminist understanding of equality; and it highlights the features of the mono-sex system that inform current discussions of equality. I argue that African feminist writers unwittingly invoke these features when they employ Western mono-sex categories of thought in investigating indigenous societies in all phases of their history. In part three, I shall consider areas of activity that are central to women’s lives as I examine the egalitarian character of equality in a dual-sex system. My objective is to determine how sex discrimination is avoided.
The dialogue is between Omu Nwagboka and Onyeamama, on the one hand, and Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer on the other. It is a slightly reconstructed version of the one I had in the 1980s with Veronica Uwechia and Chinyelugo Nneka Chugbo, two of the five advisors in the inner Cabinet of two Onye-isi-Ikporo- Onitsha,4 the late Omekwulu Odogwu, and the late Nwalie Egbuna.
I have chosen an intercultural discourse in which historically situated women raise pertinent issues about female identity. The format more effectively reveals the complex ways cultural perspectives and worldviews shape people’s conception of equality. Where abstract, philosophical analysis may obscure, a docu-drama on the subject directly exposes the tenaciously held assumptions about women, gender relations and equality.
I should also state that de Beauvoir and Greer are presented as complex cultural types. They represent an amalgam of ideas that many Africans perceive as typifying feminism. Although political gains have been made since the publication of de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex5 and Greer’s The Female Eunuch,6 still, the underlying masculinist impulse of the mono-sex system pervades much of the present day feminist strategies and writings.7
Omu Nwagboka and Onyeamama are also cultural types. They embody the female- centered consciousness of dual-sex organizations to which Omu Nwagboka stands as a symbol. Shortly before her death in 1886, Omu Nwagboka led Onitsha women in a socio- political boycott of their entire family and community duties. The main objective of the boycott was to remind the community that no society can function without the duties and tasks performed by its women, namely, their spiritual, agrarian, economic, and familial obligations. Begun as a response to a constitutional impasse with the male monarch, the boycott not only underscored a society’s dependence on its womenfolk, it revealed the exact nature of such dependence.
The part played by relational identity must be mentioned. Incisively understanding the relational nature of human identity, Omu Nwagboka and Ikporo Onitsha exploited the expectations of their male complements. They abruptly withdrew en- masse from their partnership roles leaving the men in a lurch. Women knew that no society, nor men for that matter, could handle the trauma and chaos entailed by women’s sudden withdrawal from social interaction. Having been socially conditioned to expect and value the emotional, administrative, and economic benefits accruing from gender relations, men, namely the sons, grandsons, husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins and nephews of these women, angrily pressured the male monarch, Obi Anazonwu to sue for peace.
By relationally positioning the Obi as the constitutional aggressor, the women portrayed themselves as the aggrieved. This afforded them the basis to effectively mobilize the whole community against the Obi. Though the women’s action targeted men, yet men’s lack of identification with the Obi in this matter is best explained by the fact they were accustomed to seeing women in leadership roles and positions. They saw women as nurturing, constructive forces in the community, and perceived the boycott as directed towards the good of the community, rather than at men per se. This woman affirming ideology was gradually eroded by the patriarchal values introduced and circulated by missionaries and colonialists in Onitsha and Igboland.
For the moment, I shall ignore the wide historical gap between Omu Nwagboka, and de Beauvoir who was born twenty-two years after the Omu’s death. This historical schism will later be addressed as I examine the works of some Nigerian women scholars.
Dressed in white to reflect the sanctity and spiritual state of her person, Omu Nwagboka sits on her dais in her palace surrounded by women councilors known as Otu Ogene. On her lap is an otinri, a long horsetail whisk that symbolizes ritual mourning. As a spiritual entity, who is aware of her own mortality, the Omu must mourn her death each day for the rest of her life. Nearby a little girl stands with mma abani the ceremonial sword, while the Omu’s azuzu (leather fan) rests on the gaily cloth covered ukpo (dais). Her throne is an elected one. Being the watchdog of women’s interests, she is not related to, nor accountable to the Obi, the male monarch. She rules by virtue of the spiritual purity of her vision and the respect she derives from women.
In audience is a feminist delegation that had arrived from Europe. In accordance with traditional rites, kola-nuts are presented. The visitors introduce their agenda after ritual prayers and the breaking of the kola-nuts. Discussions follow.
De Beauvoir: Omu, I have come to tell you that “throughout history (women) have always been subordinate to men. The reasons for this are numerous. Our studies show that women lack concrete means for organizing themselves into a unit which can stand face to face against the men. They have no past, no history, no religion of their own; and they have no such solidarity of works and interest as proletariat workers. They live dispersed among males attached through residence, housework, economic condition and social standing to certain men—fathers or husbands—more firmly than they are to other women. It is not clear to us what is the historical event or series of events that resulted in this subjugation of the weaker by the stronger. We know that today humanity is male and man defines woman, not in herself but as relative to him.”8 What is the case in Onitsha, and what are women doing to fight this?
Omu: Onye amuma, nno (The visionary one, welcome). You have a wonderful message and we thank you for it. But we believe you have come to the wrong place. Yes, we sometimes have problems with our men, but they are not of the variety you’ve just described. Our problem is that they don’t stand firm to their ideals. They are too easily swayed by logic, by emotion, and by the good life. They too easily forget themselves, their traditions, and heritage. They are always in a haste to explore new ideas.
De Beauvoir: But Omu, how can you say that women’s oppression is not part of your problems with your men. From our readings, we know that men and women are not equal. We have profound proof of sex discrimination in your society. Our son, Richard Henderson, a fine Yale-trained anthropologist studied your culture and this is what he wrote in The King in Every Man. I quote:
[a] husband normally has inviolable and exclusive rights of sexual access to his wife ... he may beat her .. [she] has no grounds for refusing her husband’s sexual overtures except when she is menstruating or performing child care.9
Here’s another:
[a] wife [is] under the authority of her husband ... [he] controls his wife’s spiritual condition, for he may declare her guilty of forbidden acts or abomination, and ... fine her for violating the rules of household life.10
And lastly while examining your marriage customs he discovered:
that the act of marriage is socially defined as “taking a wife” (inu nwunye), a process in which a man and his agnates negotiate with a woman’s parents and her other kinsmen while the woman herself plays a predominantly passive role as an object of value. A woman may refer to her own participation in these activities as “taking a husband” (inu di), but publicly the process is defined from the husband’s point of view.11
What do you have to say, Omu?
Onyeamama: Afuam alu! (I’ve seen evil.) (Hitting her chest and jumping to her feet in temper.) What did you call that son of yours the akili aki (the clerk, writer)? Henderson? Onulu asusu (does he understand our language and our culture)? Who did he talk to? Surely not to us women! ‘Welu’ (take) has now become ‘inu’ (marry)!
(Turning dramatically to the audience and walking back and forth.) Ikporo Onitsha- eh (women of Onitsha) take a look at this. Since when did we begin to say “inu iko” (marry a cup) for “welu iko” (take a cup)? (In rising tones.) Onitsha men have always married wives not taken wives-o! Women are members of a family-o, they are not “objects of value” to be haggled over or “taken.”
Omu: (To Onyeamama). Take it gently, Onowu.12 They are visitors, and they have much to learn. (Turning to the visitors.) Visionary ones, there are things you need to understand about our culture. In Onitsha, marriage is a union of two families. It is an insult to devalue any family by representing their daughter as an object “to be taken.” To pay tribute to the worth and industriousness of women we have constantly given as name, the proverb, nwanyi bu ife (women are of worth). Whoever says that women are not of worth, bring that person to us at ilo mgbeleme.13 so that we may see whether or not he or she is human.
By our custom, to call a woman an object, is to devalue not the woman but one- self, and to expose one’s lack of self-respect. I do not know of any Onitsha family or woman who will condone such unfit language and attitude. We say: “ogo onye bu chi e” which means, in-laws are (like) one’s guardian spirit. A discourteous and disrespectful man proves by his attitude that he lacks the maturity to be a husband.
Onyeamama: Omu...
Omu: Tell your son not to denigrate Onitsha women by disparaging our marriage practice. We object to his language of devaluation.
Onyeamama: Omu, I’m not taking the speech from you, but what did the akili aki call this book? The King in Every Man! There you are! There’s your answer (striding back and forth excitedly with hands apart). Their son was talking about a place where men are kings. This explains why he couldn’t see Onitsha women. He could only see us from the eyes of kings. Not our Onitsha obi, mind you; but their own kings whom, I hear, treat people like slaves.
Let me tell you, white women (pointing impolitely), don’t quote us anything from your lie-lie books again. If you want to know about our lives come and talk to us, the women. In Onitsha, our kings are spiritual entities, limited monarchs. As the custodian of norms and tradition, the Obi has to respect women because of our vital roles in the community and in the spiritual scheme of things. Let him not respect us and we will pluck him from his throne, put him on our backs and deposit him on the wrong side of the border. Or, we will stride into his palace in our nakedness and dethrone him by sitting on his throne. (Strutting around.) Ikporo Onitsha, is it not as I’ve said?
Audience: Onyeamama! Onowu! Its as you’ve said. Say it louder!
Omu: Onyeamama...
Onyeamama: No, your son is wrong. Our tradition specifies respect for women, Henderson cannot be talking about our obi. (Stomping around.) He must be talking about those kings of yours.
Omu: (In a stem voice.) Onyeamama.
Onyeamama: Omu, I’ve repossessed my seat.
Omu: Onye amuma’m (my visionary one), coming back to your question on equality. What do you mean by the word, anyway? What do you understand “i ara nra anya” (to be equal) to mean?
Greer: It means having the same powers and rights as men in the society. It means not being relegated to menial jobs and positions because one is a woman. It means sharing the same, sets of attributes, not one set for women and another one for men. It means having the same social opportunities, the same social expectations. It means not being declared subordinate because one is a woman, or having ones rights and life options limited. It means not treating sex as a basis of systemic disadvantage. For instance, do Onitsha women have the same rights as men to participate in the governance of the community? Do their words count as much as men? Would a woman of the same age and maturity be considered a distinct individual? Would she command the same respect as a man?
Omu: (Pause.) Well, take a good look at me and the position I occupy: “female monarch of the community.” Do you think this is trivial post? Do you?
This your ‘equality’ ira n’ra nra anya is a strange thing. What exactly is it? It seems to want women to be men, Why does it have to take men as the yardstick? Why do you want to measure women against men? Do you want to be men? Are you ashamed of being women? Do you really believe men epitomize the best in life? I don’t understand you. Why do you see yourselves only as shadows of men?
Here in obodo Ony’cha (the land of Onitsha), women are different from men and men are different from women. The two are not the same even though we are similar. We do not instantiate each other’s sex. Sex is important to us. It is not as trivial as you think. I know you think it is just a matter of chromosomes as your visionless science advocates. There is more to life than your science sees. There are spiritual qualities, the manifestations of which elude your science.
You must understand that when we say sex is important we do not mean to condone any state of affairs that is oppressive to women. We derive from it the right to recognize and underscore the social importance of women’s needs. As women, sometimes we see the world differently from men. When we do, we want that perspective respected and factored into the smooth running of our community. Sometimes we see things the same with men since we are all human. But we don’t believe men should take our voices and speak for us. We are adults. We feel the pain, and know exactly where the thorn is thrust deep in our flesh. We don’t need anyone to articulate our pain for us. Is that what you do in your country?
Onyeamama: Yes, I know what you are thinking. You are wondering how our system can sexually differentiate, and yet we claim there is no sex inequality. Being a woman does not mean living a life of discrimination and being subordinate to men. We have no need to define equality in terms of being equal to men or yearning to be men or in eliminating the affirmative differences between us. Here women and men are social complements.
You worry about little things. Let me tell you, women are not disadvantaged because we do not participate in men’s organizations. What you need to understand is the power of our women organizations. We ascertain and evaluate our respective positions in society by our duties in the community.
De Beauvoir: So what are the duties? What are these roles and responsibilities?
Omu: There are a number of them. At the family kinship level, we are mothers, daughters, husbands, and wives. With the fathers, sons, and husbands, we hold the family together. We have diverse groups with political responsibilities to regulate different aspects of family life: umu agbo for unmarried girls, umu ada for daughters, inyemedi for wives, otu ogbo for age-grade, and ikporo Onitsha for all women. Every aspect of our lives is politicized and negotiated. We treat life as political, and organize ourselves accordingly. Our activities reflect this. For example, our “female” crops hold our families and the community together during the planting season, that of the men during the bountiful harvest period.
At the lineage level, we ritually cleanse and calm the land, and the home. As umu ada (daughters of the lineage) we embody and preserve the female principle in the families of our lineage. This is why Our Primary home is our natal home. We view ourselves as “strangers” in our marital home. We agreed to live with “strangers” to assist them in the miracle of continuity; of bringing new life to the lineage, and in nurturing the spirit entities that have chosen to incarnate in their family.
Our roles as daughters, wives, and mothers are vital to the continuity of the community. Our marital families know this and reciprocate by always being there for our natal families. We marry the entire extended family not just one individual male-member of the family. At the community level, women of Onitsha farm, trade, administer and keep the market open. We adjudicate cases affecting women. In matters affecting the community at large, we work with Obi and Council, Agbalanze (the titled men), Ogbonachiachi (ruling age-grade) Agbalaniregwu (adult citizenry). We propitiate the deities of the town, and in that role we are the spiritual channels through which the forces enter the community to heal it.
There are many roles that we play in the home, in the family, in the lineage, in the community. It is unintelligible to say that men have all the power, or that they make all the decision, and control everything. We women embody a multiplicity of roles and identities. We are conduits of the life force. We are there at the beginning of life, at its maturity, and at its cessation.
(De Beauvoir confers with Greer.)
De Beauvoir: Isn’t this a case of “relegat[ing] the black to the rank of shoeshine boy; and he concludes from this that the black is good for nothing but shining shoes.”14
Greer: Ah yes! Just as in Gilligan. Justify an oppressed reality when other avenues are closed and you can’t get something better. It never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which women would go to validate motherhood, sexuality and spirituality, the triple factors of women’s universal oppression.
I wonder what the monarch will say to the modem Nigerian women’s views that it is within marriage that women suffer the most oppression. Thanks to Omolara Ogundipe-Leslie, Buchi Emecheta and Tola Pearce, we know about the marital disenfranchisement of African women: first they lose status by being married, then they become possessions, voiceless and often rightless, and finally they lose most of their personal freedom.15
De Beauvoir: Well you know how people always present a rosy picture to strangers. As Cass Sunstein intimated, people will adapt their conduct and even their desires to what is presently available. In conditions such as this it becomes a case of the fox not wanting the grapes because he considers them to be sour, but we know that this belief is based on the fact that the grapes are unavailable.16 We are indeed fortunate to have alternative sources of information.
Greer: So, what strategy shall we adopt? Humor her, or make her see the error of preferences that limit women’s opportunities unjustly?
De Beauvoir: Omu, all the things you’ve just mentioned are the same things women the world over normally do and are still oppressed. Is it not possible that the roles you have described are inferior to those of men, that Onitsha women are really subordinate?
Omu: You must not have been listening.
De Beauvoir: What if women decided they want to plant men’s crops?
Omu: What about it? Some women who have “loan” of men’s services already do. Others don’t because men’s crops require an inordinate amount of labor. But why would they want to plant men’s crops when they have social avenues of obtaining the crops? What would they be proving? That they have the energy to plant yams? Are their heads correct? Are they mad? Why is it important to prove that they have the same energy as men?
Greer: So that we can tell there are no barriers in women’s path. All the things you’ve enumerated are the stereotypical things that women normally do: marriage, motherhood, procreation, reproduction, nurturing...same old things. We need to see if they can assume men’s roles to accept that there is sex equality. That is the only way we can ensure that their sex is not a barrier to them,
Omu: And why do you believe doing men’s tasks establishes equality? Because they are your standard? How is equality served or achieved by women doing things that disproportionately strains them more than it does men? How is equality served by putting women at a disadvantage? You say that we’ve listed all the stereotypical things that women do. That may very well be. But we are women just as other women and it is inevitable that there will be overlaps in certain aspects of our lives. The difference is that we assign value to what we do and we make sure that the whole community sees it as such.
Greer: We find it hard to believe that men do not make all the decisions in the town. Your society is patrilineal. We know men marry many wives and women cannot marry more than one husband. Men control the bodies and labors of these women who are their wives and daughters. Don’t you see that you are controlled by men, that your notions of liberty and female identity are still defined by men/patriarchs?
Onyeamama: (Muttering, as she taps her snuffbox, and pours out a pinch.) Here they come again all knowing, all wisdom. Always peddling lies as truth. (With her thumbnail, she deftly scoops up the tobacco, inserts it into each nostril, and momentarily pinches the nostrils shut. Inhaling sharply, and following with an audible sign of satisfaction, she intercepts a sneeze, wobbles her head to hold it, and successfully suppresses it with an audible “ah.” Glaring blankly through the tobacco daze, she mutters in disgust at the visitors.) Women who want to be men!
Omu: Onowu, Onyeamama, do you want to respond?
Onyeamama: Omu, no. I’m busy with important matters.
Omu: (Amused.) Ah yes, that profound task that nothing must disturb. You have knowledge of the ways of childmaking, now you seek to possess that of tobacco-snuffing.17
(Turning back again to the visitors.) We seem to be talking at cross- purposes. You talk as one whose spirits have been stolen from you. Why do you find it difficult to comprehend that women can be strong, being women? With all your knowledge, how come you do not understand that sex could be a systemic source of social advantage for women? Why do you assume any definition will necessarily be negative?
It seems that in your society, being a woman, or a daughter, or a mother, or a wife are negative and powerless things and so you are terribly obsessed with sameness. But they need not be. Here, those roles embody power and constitute the basis of important social responsibilities. You have to understand that this state of affairs is possible.
Onyeamama: Omu, ask them why don’t they understand that? Oyi’m, (My Friends) what did the men of your land give you to “turn” your head that you can no longer reason? What did they do that you are consumed by so much self-hate? That country of yours must be a “non- place.” Don’t you ever collectively call your men to task? Don’t you ask them to propitiate you and the land when they have transgressed and devalued you?
(Springing to her feet and sharply rapping her hips as she let out a derisive hiss- sound.) You call yourselves ‘women,’ but you do not even know what that means. (Impatiently.) How could you have allowed your men to trick you into subservience? They cannot survive on their own, and they know it. Men are weaklings! You must be fools not to know it too. Now, in your hurt, you want to irrationally define the world of women through your fractured lens. Your anger is irrational. It is the anger of onye mmuo (the living dead). It is unhealthy and abnormal. Go, we don’t feel it. We don’t share it. Ukumbu na aju aju, odaro ekwe ekwe. (The shoulder signs rejection never acceptance.)
Omu: (In amusement.) You white people say we are primitive! (Audience laughs.) Well, I’m sure there are some things we can teach you if you will bring down your spirit, and let go of your superior attitudes. Here we closely focus on the fact and live the precept aka nni kwe aka epe, aka epe ekwe aka nni (the right hand shakes the left hand and the left hand shakes the right). Men make some decisions, women make some, and sometimes we confer together to make others. The important thing is that we both know it. We both acknowledge and validate what we both bring to the good governance of our society. And so we aver: egbe belu ugo ebelu; nke si ibiya ebena, nku kwapu ya (let the hawk perch, let the eagle perch; whoever asserts that the other cannot perch, let its wing dislocate).
Greer: (Piqued.) Frankly, we didn’t come here to discuss which culture is more advanced than the other. That wouldn’t serve any purpose since we know what the verdict would be. We came to see how we could help you participate in the new women’s organization that we are building. Despite your attempt to paint a rosy picture of your society, it is clear when we take a good look at it that women haven’t achieved much. They are overworked; they fetch water for the entire family, they gather the firewood, they cook, they farm, and they still look after the children. Omu, your women are oppressed. Their life is miserable, their options are limited, worse still, and they don’t even know it.
Omu: Visionaries, you confuse material comfort and possession with emancipation. You shouldn’t utilize men’s life as a model of female identity for that perversely presupposes that women are nothing. If you want to state that, do so directly. But don’t go treating women as nothing, by characterizing their life and activities as irrelevant. Better still, ask yourself why you are so male-fixated.
Yes, Onitsha women cook. We cook for our husbands, we cook for our fathers, and for our mothers, and for our children, and for ourselves, and...
Greer:... but their husbands don’t cook.
Omu: No, they don’t; and they have no business around the hearth.
Greer: So you agree that men and women are not equal in your society, for if men and women are really equal then men would also cook and share in the house- work, and share everything equally.
Onyeamama: Ee wuu (a sound of pity), mmadu ka ekulu (These also are human beings)! Mm hu, nkita si na ndi nwelu ike amaro ano ani (The dog said that those who have behind don’t know how to sit-a metaphorical allusion that one is under- utilizing a specific attribute because one is unaware of its potentials.)
Omu: Visionaries, if you say that cooking is a measure of equality, then men are not equal to women. Is that the end of the matter? Is it? (Pause.) For the wise women who are our mothers, it is the beginning of another. You have to ask why, of all possible places, women keep the shrine to mothers by the hearth. If your “eyes” are clear, visionaries, you will know the answer.
In the debate between the two women cultural types, there is a strong cultural relativist construal of equality that makes the concept seem culturally dependent. This relativist tenor is troubling to those who desire a general, uniform definition of equality with compelling moral force and broad applicability. Uniformists cannot accept that there are varieties of equality since they fear the ethical chaos that they believe this entails. Primarily, they worry about adjudicating between right and wrong if opposing epistemic values are assigned to the same act. In horror they wonder: What if sex discrimination is construed as equality in some African nation? Or India? Or China? Or Japan? How would this be detected and corrected?18
The desire for a globally uniform valuational system has led Western theorists to strive for neutrality and to avoid culturally specific ideas in their formulation of equality. Notwithstanding this emphasis on neutrality, the emergent notion is typically over interpreted in a direction that elevates the sociopolitical relations and individualistic ideology of Western society to a position of preeminence. Theorists illegitimately ignore the complex ways in which equality presupposes cultural ideas about human capabilities, and is tied to specific social interests and gender structure. They presuppose an individualistic standpoint in which people are self-sufficient beings and are, as Macpherson said, the “natural proprietors of their own persons and capacities owing nothing to society for them.”19
Equality as equivalence obscures the fact that it is only at a minimum trivial level that everybody is equal. It misses too that what counts as equality depends on the character of the institutional structures and the value assigned to both sexes. Even by the West’s own equivalence standard, the features of its highly commodified society work against the principle of equality as equivalence and the assumption that people are the “natural proprietors of their own persons and capacities.” For example, the rights of the monied class regularly supercede those of the working poor politically, socially and even in judicial matters. As MacKinnon effectively portrayed in her analysis of the legal system, the rights of men structurally override the rights of women.
However, from the position that accords importance to the individualistic notion of autonomy and sameness, the Omu’s resistance to de Beauvoir’s and Greer’s views on gender equality appears misguided. Against the massive body of disparaging ethnographical literature on Africa, the Omu and Onyeamama’s response that Onitsha women are not discriminated against, but rather, are social equals of men, sound like a rationalization. Equally too, the main points of their critique, namely, that the concepts and categories of the mono-sex institutional structure are inherently sexist, and that sex inequality is being passed off as sex equality in the West, are missed.
In view of this, it is important to articulate clearly the major basis of the disagreement. In a dual-sex context where individuals are valued for the skills they bring to community building, and the role they play developing the culture, gender identity is differently constructed. Identity is not abstractly constructed in terms of sameness, but concretely defined in terms of the worth of social duties and responsibilities. Because gender equality implies comparable worth, women and men are complements, whose duties, though different, are socially comparable.
From the Omu’s perspective, subjugation rather than sex equality results when men are privileged on the basis of their sex, and only their views define reality, as is the case in the West. Such a condition, Omu and Onyeamama point out, completely devalues women as a group, first by treating them as irrelevant; and second by refusing to extend to them as a group the privileges of equivalence. Most of the political, legal, economic, and educational institutions of Western society were established on the patriarchal ground that women were lesser than men and lacked autonomy. In this social relationship of non-equivalence, women as a group lack the same privileges and rights as men have.
As Onyeamama sees it, it is foolhardy to preach equality when one is unaware of the full ramifications of the structural inequities and the discriminatory elements of an asymmetrical system. As the Omu sees it, it is futile for white women to seek equality as individuals in spaces and with concepts that were created with the devaluation of women in mind. For one thing, white women are not the “natural proprietor of their persons,” and secondly they are not perceived as equal within the mono-sex system. What white women seem to miss is that their prevailing conception of equality as sameness is a sexist notion of equality that is already stacked against them.20 In fact, white women’s urge to seek inclusion into the very alienating spaces that problematize their lives signals, to Omu and Onyeamama, the depth of the psychological dysfunction brought on by the structural inequities of the Western system. They see this desire as evidence of a lopsided gender distribution of powers. If de Beauvoir and Greer want to be in contexts that retard the development of female-identified consciousness, then they are really severely disadvantaged and lack power.
It is against this background that we must understand Onyeamama’s comment, “Women who want to be men.” Where, initially, the Omu and Onyeamama’s responses portrayed them as historical anachronisms, a different reading obtains when the point of their objections are understood. Greer and de Beauvoir’s constant appeal to men as the requisite reference frame and normative standard comes across as a subjugated condition. Why else would mature, reasonably competent women seek inclusion in contexts that disparage them and further men’s interests?
The Omu’s resistance to the Western notion of equality is a deep-seated response to the inherent gender inequality of the asymmetrical political structure. Since the system is essentially male-oriented, the masculinist political consciousness shaping the notion of equality as equivalence stacks the odds against women. The problem with the sex-neutrality of the Western socio-political system is that it is false neutrality. As a mono-sex system, its asymmetrical male-privileging relations subsume women under men. The Omu’s critique of the Western notion of equality as equivalence turns on the fact that since women are undervalued by the asymmetry and assumptions of the socio-political structure, equality cannot be established simply by extending to women the “privileges” of the male-privileging notion of equality. A radical restructuring of all of the ground rules of the socio-political system is required if the structural inadequacies that treat women as immature and less than equal are to be corrected. The Omu’s position is that Greer and de Beauvoir should challenge men’s right to define power, society, and reality, rather than meekly accepting the status quo. To do that, they should insist on a structure that extends equality to men and women, and treats the gender groups as equivalent. Only then can Western women participate as social complements and as equals.
A short review of the historical context in which Western feminism developed and thrived is essential to understanding the patriarchal nature and the masculinist limitations of the feminist notion of equality. The objective is to provide a deeper insight into the Omu’s rejection of the mono-sex system and its conception of equality.21
Mary Wollstonecraft’s . Vindication of the Rights of Women22 is usually taken to mark the formal beginning of the white women’s movement. Since the publication of the book in 1792, and the emergence of the suffragist movement, a systematic rise was noted in white women’s advocacy for equality. Successive groups of upper middle class and middle class women emerged, and challenged the patriarchal gender ideology that had shaped their lives.
Structurally, patriarchy had defined an asymmetrical world in which human activity was divided into public and private spheres; and women were construed as subordinate. As the sole actors in this sexist domain, men occupied the dominant spaces in both spheres. Stripped of their adult status and assigned the identity of minors and handmaidens, women were marginalized to the subordinate space of the home. Since economic, political, and judicial powers were all concentrated in the hands of men, women were completely dependent on their men for support.
Patriarchy installed an ideology of domination that was legitimized by perversely reading it back into nature. As a “natural” condition, white men were “properly” depicted as superior, while white women were “properly” viewed as inferior. The psychological restructuring of the human psyche that resulted repressed and stifled white women’s initiative and independence. Patriarchal ideology tightly bound white women to white male authority, by promoting passivity and docility as feminine ideals. These qualities were represented as the natural complement of the masculine qualities of autonomy, assertiveness, and intelligence.23 By conditioning white male virility to blossom in contexts of docility, exploitation became a constitutive part of white male identity, just as obsequiousness became an integral part of white female identity.
Feminism, as the emerging political struggle came to be known, set as its agenda the overthrow of this oppressive condition which had stymied women’s psychological development. The white upper middle and middle class women who spearheaded the “emancipatory struggles” focused their energies on the public/private dichotomy that had obstructed their access to the powers and privileges enjoyed by their men. More preoccupied with their own elitist aspirations than with the actual lives of women they claimed to speak for, they framed the emancipatory struggle in terms of their needs. They assumed, as all subjugated people tend to, that access into conventional arenas of power would correct the structural gender inequities of the mono- sex system.
In attempting to wrest control of their lives from men, these middle class leaders of the suffragist and later women’s movements proceeded by using men’s lives as models. From their marginalized position, they saw whatever men did as representing power, and sought inclusion as the only viable option. Deeply resentful of her past history, the “new woman” devalued activities that were too strongly reminiscent of past lives, such as motherhood. With freedom framed in terms of the privileges of the erstwhile male patriarchs,24 de Beauvoir and Greer’s new woman reached for the very things they had lacked. Equality meant access in the domain of men.25 So if Jack was assertive, Jill was assertive; if Jack hung around bars, Jill hung around bars; if Jack theorized in unreal terms, Jill theorized in unreal terms; if Jack bore arms and killed, Jill too had to bear arms and kill.26
Feminism as a political and social movement emerged out of a specific sociohistorical condition that had prescribed a subordinate position for women. Western society’s mono-sex system had played a pivotal role in validating men and repressing women. Given that the system is vastly different from the dual symmetry that obtains in Onitsha and some other societies in West Africa, how are African feminist scholars responding to this difference in evaluating the position of women in indigenous societies and in formulating their conception of sex equality?
Reviewing the emerging literature on women by modem African women, one notes that the first wave of writings by Igbo women scholars employed an archaeological approach. Published mostly in the 1970s, these works recovered women’s history through the lives and accomplishments of specific women. The works of Felicia Ekejiuba on Omu Okwei27 and of Kamene Okonjo on the Omu of Obamkpa28 belong to this genre. History intimately unfolds through the perspective of the subjects, and changes are accounted for in a concrete, accessible way.
Okonjo and Ekejiuba did not specifically examine the notion of equality in the societies of reference. However, their descriptions of the dual-sex structure in Osomari and Obamkpa have provided the relevant conceptual framework within which sex equality can be articulated and understood. Their accounts reveal that social roles and responsibilities are the channels through which power was diffused in the two communities. The interdependent nature of the political structures in Obamkpa and Osomari yielded a notion of gender equality as comparable worth.
Since the mid-1980s, a major ideological shift occurred. Following the lead of sociologists, international development planners and economists interested in gender issues, a new group of African women scholars emerged and concentrated their research on the status of women in the economic sphere, and on their role in the mode of production in the continent. Post independence sociological investigations29 had exposed immense gender disparities in the educational and economic arena of many African nations. Feminist concepts were freely deployed to isolate the root cause of the structural imbalance. Since the dominant focus was on family and kinship structures, sex discrimination understood as cultural sexual differentiation, easily emerged as the central cause of inequity in economic production.
In the rush to characterize indigenous societies as implicitly patriarchal, the question of the legitimacy of patriarchy as a valid transcultural category of analysis was never raised. Nevertheless, many African women writers invoked it to portray the sexual division of labor in Igboland and Yorubaland as incontrovertibly sexist. This portrayal continued even though the rise of sexism and women’s subordination in many African societies have increasingly been traced to the images of women as inferior circulated by missionaries, and to the policies of the male-privileging colonial administration.
Writers such as Ogundipe-Leslie, Afonja, Pearce and Amadiume have characterized indigenous cultures as patriarchal and portrayed their indigenous dual- symmetrical structures as oppressive to women. They privilege the social relation of the mono-sex system because they fail to see its male-privileging aspects.
Though her 1985 discussion on the problems and realities of women in Nigeria is directed toward to the life of middle class women, Ogundipe- Leslie30 also characterizes indigenous societies through her comments on the structure of marriage. According to her, it is in “the traditional system of marriage which is at the base of society” that women lose status (124). In her view, this system compels them to become clients or possession, voiceless and often rightless, and whatever rights accrue to them, does so through their children. As she argues, the loss of women’s personal freedom can minimally be recouped if they acquiesce to the domination of their husbands and admit other wives or publicly acknowledged girlfriends (124).
In her publication on gender stratification in West Africa, Simi Afonja31 belittles the idea that Yoruba women had political and economic independence. Declaring this “autonomy thesis” as issuing from a “beclouded” vision, she characterizes gender oppressiveness as a feature of African societies. Deploying theoretical arguments gathered from a number of positions, Marxist, structuralist and feminist, Afonja reconstructs Yoruba culture as implicitly patriarchal. She utilizes the equivalence model of equality to establish gender inequality in Yorubaland, all without recovering the “forgotten” history of Yoruba women.
Tola Pearce follows the same track as she echoes similar views in her work on the impact of new reproductive technologies on “women’s bodies” in Nigeria.32 Her analysis of Yoruba family relies primarily on present Christianized, Islamized and westernized Yoruba family structure. She unproblematically reconstructs the typical Yoruba household as “consist[ing] of a patriarch, his wives, his sons and their wives and children”(5). Continuing, she declares unequivocally that “[a]mong the Yoruba and throughout most of Nigeria, patriarchal rule within the family is more blatant than in the West”(7). Her view is that “gender hierarchy dictates a lower status for women” and “[w]ithin groups, the emphasis is on hierarchical bonds and networks rather than egalitarian relationships”(8). Without considering the impact of western patriarchal values on indigenous life, she argues that [c]ontrol over the female body traditionally existed in Yoruba society in the form of rules on virginity, female genital mutilation, prescriptions for terminal abstinence, the appropriation of babies and so forth (14).
Writing specifically on Igbo women, Ifi Amadiume33 similarly portrays Igbo society as patriarchal, even as she claims to challenge the patriarchal values that were imposed during colonialism and christianization. Employing a problematic proprietal language of ownership, she recovers Nnobi society into a framework that portrays women as objects and property rather than as subjects. Her ethnographical account presents a powerful picture of the subordinate, second-class status of Nnobi women. To illustrate her point, she states that men pay money to acquire a wife, and when women do the same the act is described as ‘buying a slave’ (46). From her, we learn that Nnobi men have rights to yam, the prestige crop, which they use to assert their authority over women (37); that “[c]apital comprised land, wives and children;” and that “movable property consisted of ... human labour, especially women’s productive and reproductive powers including their sexual services.”34
Amadiume’s depiction of Nnobi is of a place where women’s sexual and reproductive capacities are transformed into property and exploited by men. Her construal of precolonial nineteenth century Nnobi life not only reveals innumerable evidences of gender inequality, in fact, it depicts the society as implicitly exploitative and sexist.
Afonja, Pearce, Ogundipe-Leslie and Amadiume’s readings of indigenous societies raise foundational problems for the idea that the dual-sex system provides a female-affirming notion of equality. If, indeed, the dual-sex system is sexist, as has been indicated by them, what is the point of seeking equality within its structures?
The question needs to be rephrased. Properly framed it reads, how accurate are the interpretations of Afonja, Pearce and Amadiume? What perspective have they used in evaluating Yoruba and Igbo societies? What assumptions and presuppositions underpin their positions?
To evaluate the legitimacy of their assessment of indigenous society as sexist, it is important to identify some of the underpinning social and religious biases that shape knowledge production in African societies. First, most middle-class women writers are either Christians or Muslims. Their elitist, religious biases often determine what they think is either positive or negative about indigenous societies. Secondly, many are alienated from their cultural history and are not necessarily versed in its norms and complexities. Thirdly and most importantly, their writings reveal that they are conceptually wedded to the Western social ideal, hence they view the indigenous cultures as primitive and somewhat defective.
In a different but closely related context, Janice Haaken35 shows how researchers’ perspectives and biases both shape and frame the outcome of scholarly investigation. She convincingly argues that such problems occur when theorists ignore the presence of biases, particularly those that conform to societal expectations, and unwittingly inject these into the basic assumptions of their research. The example that Haaken explores in psychology is the way negative assumptions about women framed and shaped James Witkin’s research on field dependence theory.
In the case at hand, one finds that research by middle class African women, on African women in their indigenous settings, tends to be framed with the mono-sex system concepts and values of the West. These middle-class women scholars typically idolize a Western value scheme, and typically employ its individualist, asymmetrical model of equality as the standard by which to evaluate the benefits of the non- individualistic dual symmetrical model.36 Haaken explains that the problem with this procedure is that it illicitly dissociates the phenomenon, in this case, Igbo (and Yoruba)37 women’s lives from the matrix of Igbo (or Yoruba) social relations.
The problem of evaluating Igbo and Yoruba cultures on the bases and categories of their cultural other (the West) is that African societies are misrepresented without first presenting their positions. Specifically, when the asymmetrical relation of the mono-sex model is granted epistemic pre-eminence, the normative differentiation of sexes that occurs in a dual-sex system is interpreted as sex segregation; polygamy is equated with patriarchy;38 patrilinearity evidences patriarchy; and women’s refusal to seek inclusion in male associations and structures reflects subordination.39
As can easily be seen, the error in this interpretation is that such evaluations assume the same mono-sex socio-historical experience for Westerners, as for Igbos in particular, and Africans in general. In doing so, the evaluations illegitimately impose an inapplicable gender ideology on Onitsha in particular, and Igbo society in general. By establishing ahead of time what counts as sex inequality, and the ways in which women must be unequal and subordinate, the imposition invalidates and misrepresents the values, concepts, and categories of Onitsha’s dual-sex system.
Consider Amadiume’s description of Akueshiudu’s relationship with her husband, Anozie.40 In the Nnobi dual-sex context, the ground rules of a harmonious domestic relationship requires a man to provide his wife with items for his main meal of the day. If he fails, as Anozie did on the evening featured in the example, it is perceived by the mate as a breakdown of marital obligation and he does not get his evening meal. Although tacit, the rule establishes that having a cooked meal is not a husband’s prerogative, but a politically negotiated act that is tied to the satisfaction of certain obligations. Anozie’s quiet acceptance of the situation indicates his awareness of this rule, and shows that Akueshiudu was operating within her rights in not providing any dinner for Anozie.
However, following the lead of her male informant, Amadiume interpreted this incident as indicative of Akueshiudu’s laziness and lack of resourcefulness. The interpretation raises profound questions about her understanding of Nnobi culture and her critical awareness of women’s place within it. As well, it calls attention to the sexist nature of her investigative lens and challenges her characterization of Nnobi culture as patriarchal and sexist.
Amadiume’s lack of acknowledgment of the political nature of the marital relationship in Igboland means that she is willing to indict a woman for laziness when, in fact, the woman is appropriately and assertively reacting to a husband’s shortcoming. We should note that the confusion begins first with her reliance on male voices to recover women’s histories, and secondly, on her tacit dependence on Christian gender values that prescribes a passive, servile role for women. These two factors automatically invoke the asymmetrical structure that valorizes men. On the activated structure, Akueshiudu is expected to produce an evening meal for her mate regardless of his personal shortcoming and violation of the marital rule.
Severed from the woman-affirming aspect of Igbo society, Nnobi women become ahistorical constructs. In this new de-culturalized state, the recognition of that society’s conception of equality is precluded because research findings are interpreted in a direction that is consistent with the underlying assumptions of Igbo societies as patriarchal.
A similar sort of distortion occurs in Ogundipe-Leslie’s overly negative characterization of the marriage structure. On the one hand, she rightly recognizes that women as daughters or sisters have greater status and rights in her own lineage, but the other hand, she undermines this insight by presenting a scenario in which the affinal identity of women supplant their natal identity. Unfortunately, this construction ignores the multiple fundamental nature of Yoruba and Igbo women’s identities. Additionally, it ignores the fact that marriage does not obliterate the nonaffinal identities and dimensions of a woman’s being. The persisting nature of this natal identity acts as a check against the construal of wives as objects or possessions. In fact, the idea that marriage reduces women to mere possessions goes against the constitutive way in which individuals are socially and relationally defined in terms of families and lineages. The assertion that wives are rightless amounts to a falsification of the indigenous institution of marriage, given that marriage was never perceived by families as a chattel- creating institution. Women retained their right to self-expression, to self- development through trade or work, and to the income they generate through these means. Also, they retained the right to become mothers even if their spouses are impotent, and they have spousal rights of access to sex. These rights, and many more, that accrued to wives were publicly defined and publicly known, in fact, they constitute the ground for the dissolution of marriage should they be violated.
The vast difference in the writings of Ekejiuba and Okonjo on the one hand, and Ogundipe-Leslie, Afonja, Pearce and Amadiume on the other reflects their divergent foundational assumptions, starting points as well as their respective attitudes to the indigenous societies. While Okonjo and Ekejiuba represent Igbo sociocultural values from the indigenous perspective, Ogundipe-Leslie, Afonja, Pearce and Amadiume describe women’s status in Yoruba and Igbo societies from the privileged external scheme of Western society. Thus, unlike Ekejiuba and Okonjo’s internal reading, Afonja, Pearce, and Amadiume’s externalist lens perceives oppression in the structure of male-female relationships in Africa. Unlike Ekejiuba and Okonjo, who rely on the society’s own categories, Ogundipe-Leslie, Afonja, Pearce and Amadiume rely on the assumptions about human capabilities embedded in Western theories of culture.41
It is unclear that these researchers understand what gender inequality would be in the sexually differentiated dual-sex system. Within their frame of reference, Igbo and Yoruba women are subordinate because they are not engaged in the same activities as men. But what does it mean for men and women to be equal in a dual-sex system? What does it mean to say that sex should count in conceptualizing equality? How could men and women be equal yet be treated differently?
Given a social context in which power is polymorphously diffused along sexual lines, how is equality defined? How must it be understood? What are the strengths of this notion? How does it bypass problems of sex discrimination? How do we determine what counts as comparable worth? What does it really mean to speak of equality as equivalence?
Contradictory as it may sound, the diffusion of power along sex lines proceeds by treating biological sex rather than autonomous individuals as the basis for equivalence. Women and men are equivalent, namely equal, in terms of what they do in the maintenance and survival of the community. This introduction of complementarity as the principle of sex differentiation accords comparable value to the duties, roles and responsibilities of men and women in society. Even though they perform different tasks and function in different roles, men and women are perceived, or have to be perceived, as equal given their respective value to the community.
At a given historical time, prior to the introduction of Western individualistic values, the Onitsha political system was structured along gender lines that can legitimately be characterized as dual-sex. Women and men had their own Governing Councils to address their specific needs and to guide the nation’s development. In Onitsha, like in Osomari and Obamkpa, the Omu (presently Onye-isi Ikporo-Onicha) was the female monarch, while the Obi was the male monarch. No conjugal or familial relationship existed between the Omu, as the female principle, and the Obi as the male principle. In fact any such relationship would disqualify a prospective candidate,
As evidence of the comparable worth of their royal statuses, both lived in separate palaces and possessed the Onitsha insignia of royalty. They both underwent similar purification rites prior to installation. At installation, the final rite was performed by the opposing sex. In the case of the Obi, his hair was shaved by the patrilineage priestess of Obio (one of the village wards of Onitsha); while the Omu’s last dedication rite was performed by a non-indigene priest from Nri.
The Omu and the Obi performed their annual rededication ceremony or ofala at designated times of the year. They were both perceived to embody spiritual powers, and were each responsible for maintaining social harmony in their specific domains, and the society at large. They had their own cabinet: Otu Ogene for the Omu and Ndichie for the Obi. With her Council of Otu Ogene, the Omu represented the interests of Onitsha women in economic, political, social and spiritual domains, while the Obi did the same with the Ndichie in the male domain.
Since the political structure defined a parallel symmetrical relationship, the female and male principles coexisted in an interdependent relationship. Each gender group was viewed as a vital cog in the socio-political wheel and was dependent on the other. For example, and as Okonjo described for Obamkpa, matters relating to trade, market rules regulations, and price-fixing were under the jurisdiction of the Omu. Women had their crops, farm animals and economic trees; they acted as priestesses to the deities of the community, they were responsible for the propitiation of the communal deities; and certain judicial, social and political matters of the community fell under the jurisdiction of women. Keeping the trade routes open, labor intensive agriculture, and certain judicial, social and political affairs fell under the jurisdiction of the Obi and the men.
Under this dual symmetrical arrangement, gender relations were conceptualized in ways that gave women a comparable measure of autonomy and independence, and did not subsume them under the authority of men. The extension of equality as equivalence to gender groups rather than to undifferentiated individuals rested on the idea that this was the most effective way to equitably distribute social roles and duties. No one gender was privileged nor devalued. This enabled men and women to protect their rights and to respect what each brought to community development and progress. Equality as gender equivalence defined an interdependent gender relationship. Political interaction between the sexes and between the Omu and the Obi was mediated by a conscious awareness of their respective offices as embodiments of spiritual powers. The decision of the other was respected. As the signature of the Omu on historical records attest, the women’s authority in commerce and trade was very much respected and upheld.
In a context where industriousness, assertiveness and independence were valued attributes, no one gender had a monopoly on either the positive or negative attributes. What accorded power and respect were such positive attributes as moral probity, leadership, oratory, and intellectual acumen. Even though biological sex constituted the basis of political differentiation, women’s sexual and reproductive capacities did not translate into a source of second class status. Recognizing the enormity of women’s power, men were generally reluctant to tangle with Ikporo Onitsha, the formal political organization within which Onitsha women exercised power in the community.
At its basic primary level, the Onitsha dual-sex political system is underpinned by egalitarian ideas on which citizenship rests. Nwa onye Onitsha adaro aka ibe ya (No Onitsha person is greater than another) enunciates the community’s position that every man and woman is equal. However, even as equality is granted, social inequality is openly acknowledged as a consequence of hierarchical formations. Rights accrue to one depending on age, experience, marital status, and rites of initiation. The aphorism, mkpisi aka araro n’nranya, (fingers are not all of uniform sizes) is used to account for social hierarchies that occur as a result of these human- oriented factors.
Although the dual-sex system embodies a hierarchical relationship, the social divisions are neither rigid nor do they obstruct social mobility. Nwata kwocha aka osolu okenye/ogalanye lie nni (a child who properly washes his or her hands eats with elders/the wealthy) establishes the flexible, permeable nature of social divisions. One attains social importance by virtue of one’s accomplishments.
One important social mechanism for protecting social and gender equality is the inalienable right of free speech that is equally available to both men and women. Aga awo nwa onye Onitsha nni mana ama awo ya okwu (An Onitsha person may be denied food, but one cannot withhold the power of speech). This basic right to speak and to choose the topic, the subject matter, and manner of speech enables the society to mitigate, and to avoid any oppressive elements that may attend a hierarchical power relationship. Iru malu mma adiro mma itu mmbo (the beautiful face should not want to be defaced) is a subtle warning to those in positions of authority to comport themselves with the required dignity of their post or risk a humiliating reprimand.
Individuals are socially encouraged to assertively protect rights, protest their curtailment, and to call for their full restitution when violated or infringed upon. Where none is forthcoming, social norms of engagement permit the aggrieved to publicly rebuke the aggressor. It is not uncommon to hear an elder (male or female) being rebuked by a younger person when the former has overstepped his or her bounds. Since it is a basic right, the mechanism could be used by anyone, and across gender lines.
Equality as comparable worth is also polymorphously defined with regard to the roles and powers, which both sexes wield in socially, designated areas of life. This structure enables gender identity to be tied to administrative efficiency and to communal good. When political power is neither glued to, nor the exclusive preserve of, a specific sex, a more equitable distribution of civic duties, privileges, influence and political power results. Women can focus on their personal and community needs and communally enhance their visibility and respect.
Although today, the dual-sex system of Onitsha has been extensively modified, the social experiences it once historically offered showed that factoring gender difference into political relations does not necessarily result in sex inequality. This is especially true if the context is structured to equally, though differently, affirm the sexes. Once comparable worth is inscribed in the context and forms of relationships, women and men will be equally valued in term of their social roles.
Although feminism has made important contributions towards redefining gender relations, its individualistic notion of equality in which sex difference is viewed as inconsequential is problematic. Its emphasis on individualism obscures the in- built power imbalance between men and women, and allows gender inequity to be preserved and reinforced. Presented as “emancipatory,” the individualistic conception of equality as equivalence is a non-liberatory concept.
[First published in Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, vol. 7, no.1 (January 1994): 73-95.]
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Copyright 2001 Africa Resource Center, Inc.
Citation Format
Nzegwu, Nkiru (2001). GENDER EQUALITY IN A DUAL-SEX SYSTEM: THE CASE OF ONITSHA. Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies: 1, 1.