African Women 
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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | Perceiving Women as Catalysts |
| Author: | Ekechi, Felix K. |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Periodical: | Africa Today |
| Volume: | 43 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Pages: | 235-249 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Ethiopia Nigeria Kenya Africa |
| Subjects: | protest women Women's Issues Development and Technology Historical/Biographical Politics and Government Cultural Roles Sex Roles Status of Women |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/4187107 |
| Abstract: | African women have long been perceived as docile, 'bound to home and hearth', submissive to male authority and even politically inert or passive. This paper argues that under certain circumstances women in Africa have forcefully 'challenged not only male but also colonial authority, sometimes successfully'. Women are perceived as catalysts in the sense that their actions have resulted in far-reaching social and political change. The argument is illustrated with examples from three African countries. The case of Ethiopia focuses on the activities of Empress Taytu (Taitou), the wife of Emperor Menelik (1844-1913). Historical accounts acknowledge her pivotal role in influencing the outcome of the 1895-1896 Ethiopian-Italian crisis. The case of Kenya concerns Kikuyu women's collective action against the British colonial establishment during the 1922 Harry Thuku incident. The exploitation of women through the colonial forced labour policy was offensive to Thuku, a Kenyan nationalist. On 16 March 1922 Kikuyu women attempted to rescue him from incarceration. Perhaps the most celebrated illustration of a successful protest movement by women is the 1929 Women's War in eastern Nigeria, which was essentially triggered by the introduction of direct taxation in the region by the British colonial administration in 1928. Ref. |
