John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series AFRICAN HABITATS : FOREST, GRASSLAND AND SLUM Studies of the Maasai, the Luhya, and Nairobi’s Urban Fringe |
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John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series AFRICAN HABITATS : FOREST, GRASSLAND AND SLUM Studies of the Maasai, the Luhya, and Nairobi’s Urban Fringe |
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Click for full-screen images
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| 124. Worldwide, in traditional societies, roles are usually well defined. Whether or not workloads ever were fairly balanced is a matter for debate: but with the reduced demands (in most societies) for warriors to battle daily to defend their homes, men usually have more leisure time than women. |
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| 125. Besides being responsible for virtually all domestic chores it is estimated that (according to The New Internationalist) although they may have no land rights, women do 70% of Africa's hoeing and weeding, 60% of harvesting work, 50% of the planting, 60% of marketing, 90% of food processing, and 80% of the work involved in transporting crops home and storing them. (Weeding peanuts) |
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| 126. Little corn is eaten fresh: most is shelled by hand (and beaten with a stick). |
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| 127. In the past the corn was processed at home using a grinding stone to produce the meal which was their staple foodstuff. This woman wanted to show me how it was done. |
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| 128. Today, of course, the women carry the grain to flour mills (frame 53) and carry home the flour. |
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| 129. Girls may get to spend some time in school but, in most cases, nowhere near as long as the boys: and, having fewer options open to them even today, many of them will be married off at an early age -- usually to men much older than themselves who already have older wives, who are unlikely to make them welcome. (Today this is less common, and illegal, at least in theory.) This young woman is her husband’s fifth wife. |
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| 130. And she will be expected to provide him with lots of children, to help with farm work. At that time he had 15 children but there were more on the way. In Kenya women are far outnumbered by men in both university enrollments and the paid labor force -- where most of them earn far less than men (though, again in theory, persons with similar qualifications are supposed to be paid the same today.) |
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| 131. Besides birthing, nursing babies and feeding the older children and their husbands, women in rural areas will carry the water required for cooking and washing. |
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| 132. They will wash the dishes, do the laundry, and iron clothes also ... including school uniforms. |
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| 133. If foodstuffs or craft items are to be moved to market, it is the women who carry them in most cases. |
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| 134. It will also be their job to sell them. |
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| 135. Few women here can avoid marriage. This reflects not only the prevailing belief that a woman is only fulfilled in child bearing, but also the tradition that she must be buried on her husband's land, not on her father's. In practice, among "career women" who do not marry, a significant number will buy a plot of their own and try for a son out of wedlock -- to ensure that their remains will not be disturbed. |
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| 136. The move for “women’s liberation” that brought great changes in the West has yet to have much impact here, though there was a group in Kakamega that met regularly and offered material assistance to women in difficulty. |
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| 137. Men marry several women if (a) they can afford the bride price and (b) are comfortable having a foot in each of two worlds ... old and new. This man was one of several I met who had five wives. (One was away on the day I took the photo and another was sick.) In addition to managing a profitable farming operation with the help of a large family, he was also pastor of an independent Pentecostal church. |
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| 138. One role that men have always had is building construction ... possibly because this was allied to defence in the past. They assemble the frame for the house, plaster the walls inside and out, and make the doors. (No windows were involved till recently.) |
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| 139. They were also expected to thatch the roofs of new houses and repair or replace the covering on old ones. |
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| 140. Their gardens were till recently worked by their wives, using hoes mostly: but the introduction of cash cropping led to changes in these domestic arrangements. |
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| 141. Traditionally men simply cleared the land. Women were responsible for cultivating the soil, for planting, weeding and harvesting: but now that money is at stake, men are involved in all phases of cultivation. |
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| 142. More men can now afford to buy or hire draught animals, using them not only for ploughing but also for hauling farm produce. |
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| 143. These same animals may also be used to drag out the firewood previously carried home by women. |
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