#2: Flip the patriarchy!

Thinking back to blog #1 and the ways in which I aim to examine and unpack certain stereotypes depicted of Africa throughout my series, though I do want to break these down, I must not mask the realities some groups face. Whilst the tribe I come from, the Ashanti tribe, do follow predominantly matrilineal cultural norms, this is not a common theme throughout Africa. Just miles north of the majority Ashanti tribe regions, are the Dagomba tribe who are heavily patrilineal and hierarchal (patriarchal norms). Although matrilineal cultural norms enable societies to empower women more, it's important not to misconstrue the meanings of matrilineal and matriarchal, as Farra (1997) emphasises. Matrilineality refers to family kinship passing down the maternal line, whereas matriarchal relates to women being in the dominant positioning of society. Therefore, as well as matrilineality, there are more factors that come into play.

Time Poverty
As with a majority of countries globally, African countries predominantly follow patriarchal cultural norms, consequently feeding into inequalities such as time poverty. Time poverty, 'gender-differentiated time use' (Blackden and Wodon 2006), leads to women in Africa carrying out the reproductive (household) chores including water collection. UNICEF found time poverty related to lack of water access leads to women collectively spending over 200 million hours every day fetching water, limiting women’s abilities to gain from alternative activities such as education and income generation (Khosla and Pearl 2003; Jansz and Wilbur 2013). 

The Maasai Tribe
The Maasai tribe of South Kenya straddle the border between Kenya and Tanzania, shown below, over East Africa’s arid Great Rift Valley. To once again emphasise Africa's immense scale, Kenya is some 4,100 miles east from Ghana - this is equivalent to 20 trips from London to Manchester!

Thinking of whose voices I am amplifying, this week’s blog was influenced by a study led by women researchers, including women of East African heritage, focussing on water and gender inequality in Kenya’s pastoral communities, including the Maasai and Samburu tribes.

Maps showing the Maasai's land occupation in Africa.

The Maasai tribe’s population of almost 2 million are perhaps one of the most globally recognised tribes of Kenya, known as fearsome warriors and for their Adamu ('jumping dance') shown below, of which I was fortunate to see when I visited Kenya as a child, it was *very* impressive though does appear seemingly easy until you try it yourself...

Nevertheless, the Maasai tribe are heavily patriarchal, My Chosen Vessels (MVC) found:

• Maasai women are given all the reproductive chores on top of feeding and cleaning livestock (though not harvesting), causing them to spend 70% of their time searching for water let alone collecting it.
• Time poverty due to lack of water access is exacerbated as the Maasai are being forced from their original lands due to conservation measures (safari creation) and tourism hunting grounds implementation.
• Maasai girls who do attend school, of which only 5% go to secondary school, miss school during severe droughts as they have to travel further - climate change intensifies this.

In protesting to stop hunters trespassing on traditional Maasailand in 2013, this Maasai woman holds up a sign saying ‘we will fight for our land until the end'

Effective Water Access = Empowerment and Development
Coming back to women collectively spending 200 million hours fetching water daily, if safe water was more easily accessible through SDG 6, this colossal time spent could instead be allocated towards women gaining an education. This time, combined with more effective water access, could allow women to grow and sell their own produce locally to make an income. Such initiative enabled Kurikuri Maasai women to make an income through growing and selling vegetables locally when MVC dug a borehole within a closer distance to their community.

This opportunity could be especially beneficial for women beyond the state-financed education age to gain more autonomy and breakdown the patriarchal society, giving women more time to access to the productive (market) sector, aiding SDG 5. 

Increasing one's water security (SDG 6), as explained above, enables women to get an education, stay in school for longer, and lead entrepreneurial activities (SDG 5). This greatly assists in the breaking down of the patriarchal structures that disempower and under-develop women.

Flip the patriarchy!