African Women 
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| Title: | Women in Action: A Socioeconomic Survey of Women as Seen by Black Francophone Women Writers |
| Author: | Muthoni, Wanjira G. |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Periodical: | Journal of Eastern African Research and Development |
| Volume: | 19 |
| Pages: | 172-186 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | French-speaking Africa Subsaharan Africa Africa |
| Subjects: | social inequality women writers women literature French language Health, Nutrition, and Medicine Labor and Employment economics Status of Women |
| Abstract: | This is a survey of black women writers' perceptions of the social and economic status of black women in Francophone Africa and the Caribbean islands. The first part, focusing on women as economic participants, shows that women are not yet participating fully in the economic life of their countries. Often illiterate or semi-illiterate, they belong to the exploited classes in society. Work at this level is a form of servitude. Only educated women can think of the liberating nature of work, but here again the African advantaged woman appears to be overworked because of the sociocultural system that encourages large families and obliges women to still play their traditional role of mistress of the house. Part two, on sociocultural issues, discusses the way in which women lost their traditionally active role in medicine as a result of colonization. This destroys colonial myths claiming that colonization liberated black women from traditional enslavement. Years of colonial oppression relegated them to an inferior position from which they are now fighting to liberate themselves through participation in modern medicine. Black Francophone women writers have made a great contribution to this advancement of women. Bibliogr., notes, sum. |