African Women Culture

The feminist highlighting of the maleness of God took back seat but African women still saw through the power that men derived by associating masculinity with God. It was necessary to exhibit the feminine face of God and to distance God from the violence against women that has become endemic in man-woman relations in Africa. God had to be placed beyond gender. Contrary to what Daly says, Oduyoye insists "God is male does not make the male God" no human being has a right to play God in another's life except as agent of love, compassion justice and empowerment as demanded by God. Gender is a human, social construct and should not be made to apply to God. Men must not continue to co-opt God into this hierarchy of being by reading into the scripture an order of male over female as ordained by God. African women took refuge in the existence in versions of African Traditional Religion in which the creator is imaged as a woman.

The gendered nature of theology is exhibited not only in the male image of God but in the doctrine concerning the nature of the human being traditionally designated as "the doctrine of man" in English. Women have to sing "Stand up O men of God". Here too African languages assuaged the fears of women that they have become invisible as most African languages have words that mean humanity and no-gender specific pronouns. This however did not prevent the church from being operated as a gendered Institution with men as owners and women as the clients.

The Church's order and liturgy came under scrutiny and the issue of participation as in the Pauline theology of koinonia was lifted up by women. In the Bible study that convoked African women theologians in 1989 Teresa Okure comments on the healing of Jairus daughter as follows "Today, we are not to be satisfied simply with being healed. We are to join the discipled in being healers, proclaiming, the reign of God has come, that we have touched that reign, become part of it, and have been empowered by God to become its heralds (Oduyoye & Kanyoro 1990).

Musimbi Kanyoro the first co-ordinator of the Circle writing on "God calls to Ministry: An Inclusive Hospitably" used the Theological constructs of Koinonia, our common baptism and the Pentecost experience. (Kanyoro & Njoroge 1996). The two articles (Okure & Musimbi) were selected by Sr. Mary John Mananzan as presenting what African women theologians say on the subject of "To be fully human". The Circle followed Accra with studies on the reign of God and out of efforts in West Africa. Elizabeth Amoah edited the Circle book Where God Reigns.

In Talitha qumi (1990) one finds the gender constraint evident and critiqued in all the contributions. The introductory article "The search for a two-winged theology" sets the agenda and the tone of participated. Power is to be jointly utilized according to charisma and not directed by biological determinism. The Bible studies in this book demonstrate the need to pay attention to context and to culture as well as the need to become sensitive to gender when dealing with religion and culture and by extension to theological construction. The papers and the poems all highlight the role of gender in theology as traditionally curbing women's initiative. The women give indicators of how to find scriptural resources to resist this dehumanization of women.

Seven years later the Circle met in Nairobi as mentioned above. One of the books that came out of the papers delivered is Talitha Cum! Theologies of African Women edited by Naymbura J. Njoroge and Musa W. Dube (Cluster 2001), Again "Little Girl, Get Up" was used as introduction and Njoroge in the Preface writes "Together we will soil our hands in our efforts to achieve the goal of dignity, liberation and fullness of life in Africa". 

Nyambura highlights in addition to Talitha Cum! "Eph'phatha" "Be opened (Mark 7:31-35). Silence is no longer an option where women theologians are concerned. Women's 'silence' was not voiceless their lives spoke volumes but now their voices are heard and as Nyambura says "they are calling churches to listen and engage in conversation with African women. (It is interesting to note that neither Nyambura nor Dube were at Accra. Though the former was at Ibadan, they represent the widening of the Circle and study increase of women with doctorates in the theological field in its membership). Theology in Africa calls for acknowledging the role of gender in theology and for eliminating its debilitating effects so that the church might be the church. Between Talitha (1990) and Talitha (2001) several researches have highlighted issues of gendered theological reflections have been written on them, hospitality, violence, HIV/AIDS, spirituality of resistance and transformation and a deepening of the hermeneutics of culture as well as biblical hermeneutics. That women are absent from the pages of our tunes on the history of Christianity is evident. This denial of women's agency has to be corrected and a beginning has been made in Her Stories.

Unravelling the gender component of Christian theology began with studies of life situations and of 'story' telling it was, if you like a phenomenological approach. Lately the analyzing and theolozing from the stories have led to tentative steps towards theorizing an example is what Musimbi describe as "engendered communal theology". The dilemma posed by culture and religion, structures that are both positive and negative in their utilization of gender is an open field for study. Discussing "Gender as a concept in theological analysis" Musimbi has this to say, "Theological engagement with gender issues seeks to expose harm and injustices that are in society and are extended to scripture and the teachings and practices of church culture".

Gender in theology faces the web of oppression as noted above and is not limited to power relations between women and men. She highlights women's emphasis on anthropology with special reference to the establishment of the full humanity of women. Gender in theology critiques the dualistic thinking that opposes body to soul material to spiritual and assigns whatever in the pair is deemed inferior to be feminine. In African women's theology, theological analysis is linked to cultural hermeneutics. A concept that has come from the identification by African women of gender as operating in both culture and theology.

Satou Diallo and her daughters have already been traveling for more than an hour.  They have been on a bus, a subway train, and are about to board another bus near Washington to reach their destination a half hour away.  It is the final meeting with their lawyer to prepare for their asylum hearing.  Their journey began in the West African country of Guinea two years ago. But the momentum for their departure had begun to build about three decades ago when the parents of Isatou first approached her about an arranged marriage.

“During my youth I studied, but when I reached 13 or 14 years, the family wanted me to marry. But I was able to convince my parents to let me study, and when I got my degree I would accept their wishes,” says Ms Diallo.

In the meantime, she met someone special. “We went to school together. I was at the medical faculty and he was in accounting.  But my parents, despite all that I did – school they could accept – but they wouldn’t accept that I chose my husband myself,” says Ms Diallo.

In developing countries, arranged marriages are one way for families to ensure financial security for their daughters.  The man chosen for Isatou was considered a good catch – a wealthy diamond merchant who already had two wives.  Polygamy is widespread in Africa. Isatou refused the marriage, saying she wanted to continue her education. But there was no backing out.  The dowry had already been accepted, the ceremonial cola nuts broken to seal the matrimony.  However, one more thing needed to be done to prepare 17-year-old Ms Diallo for marriage.  She says she had to undergo female genital excision.

“The day that they did the excision they said, 'Come see your aunt.'  I entered and they made me go into a small room behind the toilet. When I entered, I didn’t see anyone, but they blindfolded me and four people came in and they held me to the ground. I cried and screamed. I cried and screamed.”  There was no anesthetic.  During the struggle, Ms Diallo says the cutting instrument slipped and sliced open the length of her inner thigh.

There are varying degrees of female genital excision. In its most common form, the clitoris is removed to prevent women from having sexual pleasure.  It is believed that this helps maintain a woman’s virginity prior to marriage and keeps her chaste.  The practice of excision began more than 2-thousand years ago. Contrary to popular African myth, it is not a tradition of Islam.

Eventually, Ms Diallo’s physical wounds healed, but she says she remained emotionally scarred by the ritual.  She married the man chosen by her family and got a job in a lab. She found pleasure in her children and friends.  As in much of Africa, her community was like an extended family.  That is partly why the tragedy of a neighbor hit Ms Diallo so hard.

“There was a woman and she had three children – only one of them was a daughter. They circumcised her. The girl hemorrhaged and died … She didn’t bear any more children. She was the only girl – a pretty girl. I said, me, I don’t want that to happen to my children,” says Ms Diallo.

So she took action. She says she became part of a women’s group, which she refers to as “the movement,” that went door to door to educate the local population about the dangers of female genital excision. They told villagers about the risk of infection and hemorrhage, as well as the risk of transmission of HIV / AIDS through the use of shared cutting instruments. The women also told them about gynecological problems that women who underwent excision could suffer for the rest of their lives.

“Some people accepted us, but when you go to some places in Fulani or Muslim families, they don’t have the time to receive us to listen to us. They say we make people rebel against their customs,” says Ms Diallo.  But the resistance that she faced on the village doorsteps at that time was nothing compared to what she was about to confront in her own home.

Listen also to Cindy Shiner’s second reporting which we hear how Isatou Diallo fought to protect her daughters from the practice of female genital excision. You can read the series and learn more about African gender issues online at www.voanews.com. At the request of those interviewed for this story, the names have been changed.

africanwomenculture

Once this is admitted the question for women has been "what does it mean for the community of women and men in church and society?" First it calls for watching our language not only about God but before God. The demeaning, marginalizing and dismissive language about women or any "other" becomes unacceptable before the God who created us human as women and men in the same divine image.

It calls for what Musimbi designates as "prophetic engagement". This is what the WCC was seeking when it launched the Ecumenical Decade, Churches in solidarity with women. The operations of gender in the churches is illustrated in Oduyoye's "Who will Roll the Stone Away?" Recognizing gender in theology will help us deal with violence against women, which has some of its roots in biblical language and Christian culture.

Recognizing and becoming sensitive to gender in theology leads one to a theology that is liberative, one that does not remain theoretical but demands ethical choices that will empower the transformation of relationships that have been damaged by sexism and mysogynist attitudes. Bernadette Mbuyi Beya of DRC exemplifies this ethical imperative in her own life of making a home for orphans. The Circle in Ghana has done this in getting Trinity Theological Seminary to establish an Institute to undertake public education on Religion and Culture that will bring gender sensitivity into daily life and relationship.

Gender in theology forces our faith communities to face the issue of human sexuality and to move from the demonisation of women to a sober recognition of how presumed male entitlement to women's bodies make men irresponsible sexually and promotes the spread HIV/AIDS not to talk of all the marital violence on women. Recognizing gender in theology will enable men to acknowledge the need to set limits to their presumed right to exercise power over women and help them stop their inclination to play God in the lives of women.

Mainstreaming gender in theological reflection requires that we find resources to conscientise women and men alike on the sacredness of their bodies, their sexuality and their humanity. A theology that brings to the fore that fact that humanity has been endowed with free will that makes it incumbent on us to exercise choices, should be part of our repertoire. Women are human and have to make choices including what happens when it comes to their bodies. No man should call himself the owner of the body of a woman. Pauline household and marital ethics points to mutual ownership of bodies when it comes to married couples. Mutual submission of Ephesians 5 should result in mutual respect and dialogue rather than commands and demands.

Mainstreaming gender in theology requires that we transform the patriarchal reading of biblical texts that have become the pretext for violating the humanity of women. Culture as a pre-text has to be challenged if we are to mainstream gender in theology, for much of African culture like church culture bears the mark of the hegemony of male text. This has been dismantled and mainstreaming gender will help us do this.

The gender parameter in theology evokes the naming of evil. Gender sensitive theology is one that names concrete human right violations and avoids the generalized notion of oppression, repression, subordination and the like. It risks naming the agents of evil and is audacious enough to call people to become free enough to think critically about their heritage whether religious or social, traditional or cultural, western or Christian, Arabic or Islamic.

It takes seriously the religious slogans that people inscribe on their business premises and on their vehicles, the words of the songs they dance to, all other signs and symbols of religiosity can be gender coded and need to be examined. Where women are absent or invisible we have to ask why. Where women are present but totally ignored, we have to discover the message being communicated.

The Bible is now an open text in Africa because of its many local language translations, the increase of literacy and even more so the telling and retelling of biblical narratives, commandments and injunctions. The unwritten cultural text is being written into the Bible and thereby achieving validation of its sexism. This open Bible with its entrenched gender stereotype has to be appropriated with great sensitivity and wisdom (Sophia), she who is a companion of God, and we need to be guided by her when appropriating the word of God.

Africanwomenculture

My experience of gender as it functions in theology on the African continent is located in my intentional involvement with African women in theology dating back to the mid seventies and to the first conference of African Women theologians organized in 1980 by Daisy Obi, then director of the Institute of Church and Society of the Christian Council of Nigeria, Isabel Johnson, then secretary for women's department of the All African Conference of Churches and myself then on the faculty of the Religious studies department of the University of Ibadan.

From Ibadan the circle widened and relationships of trust grew, flowering into convocation of African women theologians in 1980 held in Accra. The fruit of all this is the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians with membership from more than twenty countries including Egypt, Ethiopia and Madagascar, Angola, Mozambique and Namibia. The women of the Circle are practitioners of African Traditional Religion, Christianity, Islam and Judaism may be others too. We do not ask for religious affiliations in the Circle, only that one should consciously live by a belief in God.

This make up the Africa that I speak about until recently theology by African men was not gender sensitive. It was meant to be objective and generic and consequently subsumed women into man. This paper therefore deals mainly with the theological output of women, with the significant exceptions of a handful of men like John Pobee and Tinyiko Maluleke and Gerald West who begun to consciously examine the gender parameters in African theology, I now do hear Christian preachers saying "and women" where the Bible or a collect omits them, it will repay study to read the recent writings of the "fathers" of African Christian Theology with an eye for their sensitivity to gender. This, I have not done. But I know that in the academic world, what counts as theology has been defined by men. This definition - makers we are going to have to acknowledge that both hermeneutics and ways of accessing knowledge are constantly changing. The power of definition of what is theology has to be exercised by the community of women and men in theology.

The academic world remains uncertain as to how to assess the alternative epistemologies and methodologies that women claim mainstreaming gender in theology demands. But like it or not the concern for gender has opened up a new academic field, and this has to be acknowledged and appropriated to make the academy responsible and responsive to the world out there. The same goes for the ecclessia. The presumed right of church and bishops to determine what is to be believed, stands in the ways of mainstreaming gender in theology as long as leadership in the ecclesia remains male.

The first annual International African Culture and Wellness Festival, to be held in Ghana this year was launched at Elmina in the Central Region on Wednesday.

The four-day festival which is scheduled to take place from August 9 to 12, 2012 at Elmina is on the theme: “Building a global community of wellness for the African family,” and targeted at the public as well as Africans in the Diaspora.

The Festival is also aimed at appreciating and preserving the culture and wellness of the global African family as well as bring diverse communities together for dialogue, learning, economic development and unity.

Dr Yazid Sharita, a ‘Holistic’ life Consultant, who is the Event Coordinator of the festival, said it seeks to provide a platform for African wellness products, services and organisations on an international scale.

She noted that globally, Africans were dying prematurely due to diseases such as diabetes, cancer and various heart-related diseases, adding that the Festival would teach people how to lead healthy lives, since one’s health was his or her number one asset and should therefore be well-taken care of.

Dr. Sharita urged the public to turn up in their numbers and experience the nation’s rich culture through dance as well as learn how to enjoy being healthy.

The festival is being sponsored by New Body Products, One Africa Health Resort, Queen Afua Wellness Institute and African Renaissance Foundation among others.

Activities lined up for the event include wellness workshops on nutrition, emotional healing, life management, beauty without chemicals; African drum and dance workshops, exhibitions, tours as well as a concert to climax the festival.**

Source: ghanaweb.com

VSO is proud to announce that we will be attending a special event in Dublin this weekend to mark Africa Day 2012. Africa Day is celebrated around the world every year on May 25th. Its aim is to celebrate African diversity and to highlight the cultural and economic potential that exists on the African continent.

To join the celebrations, international development charity VSO will be attending the Dublin Africa Day public event which takes place in CHQ Building and Georges Dock, Custom House Quay on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th May.

The event, supported by Irish Aid, is free to members of the public, and is aimed at increasing the public’s understanding of Ireland’s development programme in Africa, as well as broadening public understanding of African culture. Running from 12.00pm to 7.00pm on both days, the event will showcase live music, drumming, dancing and ethnic food, while also displaying traditional costumes, art, crafts and photography.

The theme for Africa Day 2012 is ‘trade’. Speaking about the event today, VSO Director Malcolm Quigley expressed hope that the event would highlight the potential that exists across the continent.

‘’In 2010, Africa´s average rate of growth amounted to 4.9%, up from 3.1% in 2009.  It is a continent bursting with potential.

VSO’s innovative business partnerships in countries like Ghana and Uganda help companies find value in Africa, while helping rural workers trade and support themselves.

Accenture, Cadbury’s and Ben and Jerry’s are just some of VSO’s business partners who wish to bring shared value to the communities they work in by partnering with NGOs like VSO.”

VSO recruits experienced and professional volunteers to fight poverty and places them in the following African countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. As a development charity that brings people together to fight poverty, the VSO stand at Africa Day 2012 is designed to educate people about our work in livelihoods.