African Women 
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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | Women's Movements and Challenges to Neopatrimonial Rule: Preliminary Observations from Africa |
| Author: | Tripp, Aili Mari |
| Year: | 2001 |
| Periodical: | Development and Change |
| Volume: | 32 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Period: | January |
| Pages: | 33-54 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Subsaharan Africa Africa |
| Subjects: | gender relations patronage political systems women's organizations Women's Issues Politics and Government organizations |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7660.00195 |
| Abstract: | Women's movements in Africa represent one of the key societal forces challenging State clientelistic practices, the politicization of communal differences and personalized rule. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed not only the demise of patronage-based women's wings that were tied to ruling parties, but also the concurrent growth of independent women's organizations with more far-reaching agendas. The aggressive campaigns to increase the numbers of women as leaders in countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Uganda implicitly challenge the association of fathers/men with political leadership on a continent where men have dominated political positions. The emergence of autonomous organizations has been a consequence of the loss of State legitimacy, the opening-up of political space, economic crisis and the shrinking of State resources. This paper shows why African independent women's organizations have often been well situated to challenge clientelistic practices tied to the State. Gendered divisions of labour, gendered organizational modes and the general exclusion of women from both formal and informal political arenas have defined women's relationship to the State, to power and to patronage. These characteristics have put women's movements in a position to challenge various State-linked patronage practices. The paper explores some of the implications of these challenges. Bibliogr., ref., sum. |
