Marjorie Keniston McIntosh. Yoruba Women, Work, and Social Change. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. xiv + 336 pp. $24.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-253-22054-7.

Reviewed by Cyrelene Amoah

Published on H-Women (April, 2009)

Commissioned by Holly S. Hurlburt (Southern Illinois University Carbondale)

Marjorie Keniston McIntosh’s study of the Yoruba Women, Work, and Social Change is lives of Yoruba women between 1820 and 1960 is organized into four parts. The frst section is an a welcome addition to the literature on gender, introduction and a discussion on sources of Yoru‐ power, and culture in West Africa. She challenges ba women’s history as well as a historiography of the stereotypes that continue to inform popular the major themes in the work, notably, gender perceptions of African women as subjugated to and patriarchy, women and colonialism, and fe‐ male power and authority, and relegated to the male agency. Part 2 lays out the framework of realms of marriage, motherhood, and domesticity. women’s lives. It touches on women in the domes‐ McIntosh examines Yoruba women in the precolo‐ tic context, the efects of salvation religions on nial and colonial eras who were involved in other traditional marriage, and British imperialism. aspects of community life, especially in the eco‐ Part 3 focuses on women’s economic functions. It nomic, religious, and political spheres. She argues considers landowning by women, the types of that adaptability and syncretism enabled women work women did in the household and public set‐ to increase their infuence amid external forces, ting, women’s contribution to agriculture, and such as international commercial capitalism, women's adaptation of Western skills into in‐ Christianity and Western education, and colonial‐ come-generating ventures. The fnal part de‐ ism. For instance, when women were prevented scribes the other avenues through which Yoruba from holding spiritual positions within main‐ women participated in their community. It looks stream religious organizations, like Christian at women’s roles in religious and cultural activi‐ churches and mosques, they extended their tradi‐ ties as well as in public authority. Through the tional associations into the religious realm or various sections of this work, McIntosh presents a joined independent churches, such as the Aladura holistic view of the lives of women in southwest‐ Church, which gave them greater authority. ern Nigeria who engaged in an array of roles from H-Net Reviews domestic and long distance traders, handicraft ry or label them as inferior in physical, emotional, producers, and titled chiefs, to politicians in the or moral terms. 1940s and 1950s. Through this broader investiga‐ One issue which the author raises that needs tion of the spheres of female infuence, this work further consideration is the nature and extent of expands female identity and enlarges the space female agency and how it changed over time. for Yoruba women in an era when the govern‐ McIntosh employs a functional measure of wom‐ ment of the Yoruba state during the nineteenth en’s agency, namely, the ability of Yoruba women century and the British colonial administration to make decisions. However, most of the agency were controlled by men. documented is personal agency. Within the house‐ One of the most compelling aspects of McIn‐ hold, women decided how domestic responsibili‐ tosh’s work is her discussion on gender and patri‐ ties should be performed and took control over archy. She explores the indigenous perceptions of their marriage with the aid of British marriage women and men and the impact British patriar‐ regulations. In the religious realm, women dis‐ chal ideology had on the conception of gender. In played their authority over ritual as priestesses the Yoruba context, the concept of gender difered that served as mediators between the living and from the Victorian notion of separate spheres for their deities. Nevertheless, women’s ability to women and men. Men were viewed as strong, ra‐ have authority over other people in the public tional, economic providers; and women were the realm was limited. Women’s individual choice weaker, emotive group with their primary re‐ could not infuence traditional or colonial policy sponsibilities as wives and homemakers. Yoruba‐ to ensure that their recommendations would be land lacked such gender distinctions with both implemented by any political authority. As such, sexes sharing labor roles outside the domestic set‐ Yoruba women never gained top leadership posi‐ ting in commerce, production, and the service in‐ tions in Nigeria’s political parties in the 1940s and dustry. For example, the Victorian gender expec‐ 1950s despite their socioeconomic autonomy. tation that Christian women would not have in‐ Yoruba Women, Work, and Social Change is come-generating activities was simply ignored by well researched and based on a vast array of the wife of Samuel Crowther, Yoruba missionary sources, such as missionary accounts, records of and future bishop, as she persisted in her trade, native courts, British colonial ofce documents, despite complaints to the Church Missionary Soci‐ newspapers, diaries, letters, and fnancial ac‐ ety (an arm of the Anglican Protestant Church of counts of Yoruba women as well as oral histories England) by European missionaries around 1860. and interviews. The work is nicely written, clearly Nonetheless, McIntosh also notes that though the discussing the author’s themes of gender and pa‐ Yoruba did not have an ideological conception of triarchy, women and colonialism, and female two genders, they did distinguish between male agency in Yorubaland. It is a welcome addition to and female roles at home. Women’s gender-specif‐ texts on gender history in Africa as well as West ic responsibilities included cooking meals for the African history. University instructors may fnd it family and child rearing while men were respon‐ appropriate as an assigned text in an undergradu‐ sible for obtaining the family’s farm land and ate seminar or graduate colloquium on West maintaining the compound. Clearly, although it African history. was okay for Yoruba women to earn an income, a woman’s domestic duties took precedence. In this that regard, male dominance was still present in the daily lives of women, even though their cultural st ideology did not defne them as a separate catego‐

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Citation: Cyrelene Amoah. Review of McIntosh, Marjorie Keniston. Yoruba Women, Work, and Social Change. H-Women, H-Net Reviews. April, 2009.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24499

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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