Women and the Crisis in Commonwealth Africa
| DOI | 10.1177/019251218500600303 |
| Author | Rhoda E. Howard |
| Published date | 01 July 1985 |
| Date | 01 July 1985 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
~~
WOMEN AND
THE
CRISIS IN
COMMONWEALTH AFRICA
RHODA
E.
HOWARD
The consequences
of
the contemporary crisis for women in Commonwealth Africa
are that their economic opportunities in both the rural and the urban sectors
are
de-
clining, and that they are increasingly scapegoated as the causes of economic disintegra-
tion. Politically, the entrenchment of corporatist one-party states and military regimes
means that what little participation was opened
to
women
at
independence is being
eroded.
As
the economic crisis deepens in the
198Os,
Africans may respond by retreating
into low-level subsistence agriculture, in which the bulk
of
the work is done by women.
If
corporatism develops into fascism, the scapegoating of economically independent
women will intensify. The meaning of the crisis
of
the
1980s
for women in Com-
monwealth Africa is less political representation and fewer economic resources, more
political repression and more work.
Sub-Saharan Africa is in a deep economic crisis. At the beginning
of this decade, the World Bank (1981:
4)
predicted that its best growth
rate for the 1980s would be
0.0%
per annum; but
a
more likely figure
would be
tninirs
1.0%
per annum for the poorest countries. Subse-
quent assessments (North-South Institute, 1983) have borne out this
prediction; indeed, the economic crisis in black Africa in the
mid-1980s seems even worse than predicted five years ago. The
political result
of
the crisis has been the entrenchment of autocratic
rulers and tightly controlled one-party states, the defeat of the re-
cent experiment in multi-party politics in Nigeria, and
a
new round
of attempted or successful military coups.
This article will examine how the contemporary economic and
poIitical crisis affects women in a select group
of
countries in Com-
monwealth Africa-namely, Gambia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and
Nigeria in West Africa; and Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and
AUTHOR’S
NOTE
This
article
is
based on my forthcoming
Human
Rights
and
Elite
Rule
in
Commonwealth
Africa
(Totowa,
NJ:
Rowman and Allanheld). Readers are re-
ferred
to
thc larger
work
for
more
detailed documentation and elaboration
of
my
arguments.
International Political Science
Review,
Vol.
6
No.
3,
1985 287-296
0
1985
International Political ScicnE Association
281
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