Gender ideology in Igbo religion: the changing religious role of women in Igboland

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Periodical article

Title:	Gender ideology in Igbo religion: the changing religious role of women in Igboland
Author:	Kalu, Ogbu U.
Year:	1991
Periodical:	Africa: rivista trimestrale di studi e documentazione
Volume:	46
Issue:	2
Pages:	184-202
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Nigeria
Subjects:	Christianity African religions Igbo women
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/40761902
Abstract:	This article examines the ambiguities, complexities and changing perceptions of women's religious roles among the Igbo of Nigeria. In the traditional Igbo setting, the centrality of women in reproduction, production, property and status inheritance was given cultural expression in a matrifocal ideology, but there was also a tendency to marginalize women. Igbo myths and proverbs reveal this hidden ambiguity. The article shows that this ambiguity also existed at the religious level. It further examines the extent to which Christianity transformed the image and role of Igbo women in the religious sphere. It argues that, although patriarchal in its general tendency, Christian ideology was also an attack on traditional bastions of male ascendancy, such as polygamy and secret societies. From the 1950s, women benefitted from various factors, including education, a demographic shift in favour of women, the rise of independent churches, and the spread of liberal protestantism. Despite these changes, male ascendancy in gender ideology has persisted at the religious level. App., bibliogr., ref., sum. in French and Italian.