Photos of the Week #1 – Women at Work

Intro:

Inspired by a heap of letters from the EWB UBC Chapter, emails from recently departed volunteers: Jody and Nadia, and the imminent departure of my good friend Meghan, I have vowed to do a better job at updating this blog.

So, here is the first installment of the “Photos of the Week” posts.  As the name insinuates, I’ll do my best to make this a weekly endeavour.  Overall my goal is to paint a fair and honest picture of the beauty and challenges of living in Ghana.

Women at Work:

“Research on the gender division of labour in Africa reveals time and again that, within rural society, the work of women is thought of as subordinate to that of men, despite the tremendous - and often greater – contribution it makes to material provisioning and well-being…Women’s economic disablement derives from the uneven terms of resource access and control, limiting their rights to land, labour and livestock compared to men, while allowing men to make claims on female labour and output. So positioned, with few resources and little authority, women share a common status as an underclass.” – Brenda Chalfin from Shea Butter Republic

I see evidence of the aforementioned subordination every minute of every day but what I want to demonstrate with these photos is the complexity of the power divide.

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For instance, women have absolute power over the markets.  Women like Afisa (dressed in white and black) and Ruby (pouring peanut butter) run every stall and sell every item available.  Women decide what the price of their produce will be, who is allowed to sell at the market, who gets a table and who has to set up on the ground. They are the traders between the farmers and the market women who sell the produce. Commerce is completely in their hands.

Women also have complete control over the harvesting, processing and selling of so-called “women’s crops” like shea nuts and sesame seeds.  In the case of shea, women often turn their households into a little business and workshop where every female member of the family has a role in producing the shea butter that will earn the money to keep everyone fed through the lean dry months.

The gender roles are strictly defined and, while women have control over the market and the income from a few crops, they still know they’re getting a raw deal.

A man in our compound got married last Sunday.  After working all day Saturday on the preparations, the women got up at 3am on Sunday to cook rice, stew, and hard boiled eggs to serve to the 200 expected guests. I woke up at 9am, just in time to help peel the eggs. As we worked I heard the women grumbling about how “the men just get to show up; they expect us to do everything and don’t appreciate how much work it is!”

While I was inside helping the women with the meal, the ironing, tending to the children, and cleaning the compound, Troy was sitting with the men outside under a rented shelter enjoying the soft drinks that were served to them by the women. When questioned about the subordination of women, an influential, elderly man responded to Troy that “We men, we don’t want to change the rules.  The way it is, our women can’t take us to court. If they got more power, they could take us to court.” 

Troy insisted that the man seemed quite intelligent with the exception of that comment, but all I see is an old man admitting that men get away with doing things to women that should land them in jail. 

The last picture is of a farmer group I have been visiting the past few weeks as their Agricultural Extension Agent (AEA) helps them learn basic business skills through EWB’s Agriculture as a Business program.

They are the first women’s group I have worked with and I have seen how a little encouragement has given these uneducated and illiterate women a heap of confidence. But today I was disappointed. When asked how they will record their expenses, income, loans, etc. most of these women said they would use the records of their Secretary: a literate man who only occasionally shows up for meetings.

By contrast, illiterate men who have been asked the same question have come up with amazingly creative solutions to their illiteracy: everything from marks on the wall, to beans in a jar, to tying knots in rope.

The AEA told the women they should keep records for themselves incase the Secretary wasn’t around. To this a few women conceded they would get their children to write the records for them.

And that is the best I can ask for because while none of these women went to school, most of their children do. So, at the very least, future generations of mothers and daughters won’t have to rely on a man; they will be able to keep their own darn records.