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Still I Rise Women of the World STILL I RISE [Tracing Womanhood in World Cultures] by Dr. Padmore Enyonam Agbemabiese Drum Publishing, USA Columbus, USA 2 © Padmore Agbemabiese 1999 Title: Still I Rise: Tracing Womanhood in World Cultures Cataloguing in Publication data for this book is available from the National Library of America Copyright © Padmore Agbemabiese 1999 Cover and internal design by UNICREATIONS INC Printed in the United States by Drum Publishing, USA Copying for educational purposes The American Copyright Act allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is greater, to be copied by any educational institution for its educational purposes, provided that the educational institution (or the body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to copyright agency under the Act. Copying for other purposes Except as permitted under the Act, for example fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author and publisher. 3 FORWARD These essays are a potful of gratitude offered lovingly to women scattered all over the world—born and yet unborn. Through their blood women have created the world, made history and through the rites that mark their biological experiences coupled with their feminine traditions they have ventured into a space and integrated, for the world, what we call our body, mind, and spirit—thus, women have become the fountain of human culture. Everywhere in the human society myths surrounding creation are constructed and narrated with emphasis on motherhood. Rituals associated with the female body and other traditions connected with women also tell the story of the beginning of culture. Oral narratives further tell us women developed pottery, weaving, farming, and a protectiveness toward animals and nature. In African cosmogony, attributes to God as the creator of the world are feminine oriented. God is often referred to as Mother-Earth [Asase Yaa], who creates, like earth from her womb, sustenance, hence God is likened to a woman figure. Dating back to ancient times in Egypt where society depended on craftsmen, irrigation, agriculture, herding, and horticulture, earth-protective traditions, rituals and menarchal rites were the center of human mind and spirit. In fact, during this period, society is said to have achieved peaceful farming civilization. What, in later years, inspired Hindu custom of suttee to burn alive a widow on her husband‘s funeral pyre? Why was the popular belief natured, in certain cultures, that women are “by nature so lascivious that chastity is inordinately difficult for them” thus, clitoridectomy [female circumcision] is recommended to protect their reputation for chastity? Is cultural devaluation the answer? Over the decade scholars have unearthed, in almost every culture of the world, the sustained resistance of women to their victimization within interlocking systems of race, gender, and class oppression. The resistance is still on as they continue to use alternative ways of producing and validating knowledge of themselves. These essays are not means to an end in feminist studies in Africa. They aim at re- articulating the contributions and the breaking grounds made on the study of the ‘cult of womanhood’ in world cultures, and in cultures of Africa in particular. It is an exploration than being theoretically based. In fact, it seeks to delve into history to unearth whether theories of 4 social stratification, where gender differences in power and privilege, are basically theological or God centered as we are made to believe. I must be the first to admit that writing about a topic of this nature is a Herculean task and carries a lot of responsibilities and discomforts. At the time of organizing ideas for this book, I got to know of how limited I am in the diversity, differences, and outlines of women issues and the approach to bringing them forward. The experience of being disadvantaged may not be common to many men and women. But I believe that sometimes materials produced by people with little previous knowledge of the culture of the subject under discussion best bring out better comparative ideas. Over the years, I have come to believe that human beings can be miserable and vulnerable without being oppressed. And so it is easy for some people to signal their docility by denying the existence of stresses and frustration of persons in the presence of liberty and freedom. Let us remind ourselves that oppression of persons is hard to see and recognize especially when unwritten customs and traditions governing social relationships sustain the institutions that compose its elements and the machinery which crafts its structure. The inability, of women to cry loud on the streets about their plight must not lead many to assume women do not suffer or that are not vulnerable because there are laws that punish abuses and oppression of women within the society. I gratefully acknowledge the support, skill, and help of many people. I extend special thanks to many, very close to me, who inspired this work. I remember the first time a female professor raised the topic in a literature class and it seemed, when looking into my eyes, she was “accusing me, indirectly, for the restrictions, oppression, and discrimination” women have to suffer just because they are women living in patriarchal societies like Africa. I know she was not accusing me and so I acknowledge the inspiration she gave me. I am grateful for the spiritual and the mental support I enjoy from my Grandmother and the understanding and enthusiasm I always experience from her. I would like to place on record the skilful and generous contribution of many friends in the making of this book. A friend, who wants to remain anonymous spent nights helping to review the collection and offered friendship and support needed to carry out the project. I need to remember my wife, Dr. Yawa Agbemabiese for the unfailingly encouragement she always gives me when it comes to writings of this nature. 5 I also want to acknowledge other works, invaluable resources on the topic: Womanhood by Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1999; Gender and Society by Arlene Tigar McLaren; Blood, Bread, and Roses by Judy Grahn; Feminist Frontiers III by Laurel Richardson and V. Taylor. I owe my daughter, Senam, special thanks for in my bid to be protective of her future I am plunged into hating the social organization of gender in societies. Padmore Enyonam Agbemabiese 6 INTRODUCTION STILL I RISE You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like the dust I’ll rise Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Into a daybreak that wondrously clear I rise …… I rise I rise [Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”] The above poem, by Maya Angelou, may be employed in various aesthetic senses and here it is used to designate the conduct of one of such senses, the history of womanhood. When talking about the history of women issues two groups of people surface, the optimists and the pessimists. Whereas pessimists bemoan the loss of female Golden age, optimists boldly point out the legal changes, economic improvements, and sexual emancipation of women to be a gain for womanhood. Optimists refer to suffrage amendments in constitutions of the world, the right to divorce, choice of family size and the increase in educational opportunities as a gain to women’s freedom. Technology, optimists further argue, freed women to work outside the home. No matter where we stand we can debate the claim of whether citizenship offered women much political power, appointment to high positions or gained for them the desired equal rights. 7 Pessimists on one hand believe the status of women have declined with the inception of market or wage economy. The concern of pessimists is realized in the idea of mothers leaving home as well as abandoning their beloved children, under the care of nannies or older women, in order to travel elsewhere to work. This is quoted as making it impossible for women to combine their traditional role with modern employment. It is even argued by pessimists that advancement in science has seen women’s control and power over childbirth appropriated by men. And so the debate ranges on between these two groups of people, agreeing and sometimes disagreeing on the definition or concept of womanhood and the varied degrees of their status and role in past and present historical contexts. What is left to argue about concerns who actually controls resources in the community, what is male-sex role, and what is society’s norms about sex roles and sex-ascribed behavior. On my balance sheet the world women have lost and what they have gained leans heavily on the evidence of both the optimists and the pessimists. The argument could be amplified that in preliterate societies, men and women worked together on the field but it is also true that their activities were largely determined by sexes or were divided by sexes. However, it is also a fact that segregation of sexes is not peculiar to pre-industrial society alone. In industrialized societies each sex took on its separate daily task and they moved correspondingly through the world in distinct ways as male and female. There are in the society those who discuss with scholarship vigor the cyclical theory of family and sex-roles in the zeal to replace it with linear models.
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