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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
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| Title: | Patriarchy, Capitalism, and the Colonial State in Zimbabwe |
| Author: | Schmidt, Elizabeth |
| Year: | 1991 |
| Periodical: | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society |
| Volume: | 16 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Period: | Summer |
| Pages: | 732-756 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Zimbabwe Great Britain |
| Subjects: | colonialism women History and Exploration Women's Issues Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Economics and Trade Historical/Biographical Cultural Roles economics |
| Abstract: | This article argues that African women's subordination in Zimbabwe is not solely the result of policies imposed by foreign capital and the colonial State. Rather, indigenous and European structures of patriarchal control reinforced and transformed one another, evolving into new structures and forms of domination. The control of women's and children's labour by older African men was central to the establishment and consolidation of colonial rule in Southern Rhodesia. The creation of 'native reserves' not only served the interests of capital, by forcing women and children to subsidize the wages of male migrant labourers through agricultural production. It also served the interests of older African men by facilitating their control over women and children. By forcing African women to submit to male authority, the colonial regime both advanced its own project and mollified a potentially powerful opposition force, namely, African men. The article explores the motivations behind the collaboration of African chiefs and other older men with the colonial State, the forms that such collusion took, the resistance of African women to economic and gender oppression, and the dynamics of the struggles that ensued. Notes, ref. |
