Patriarchy and colonization: The "brooder house" for gender inequality in Nigeria

Abstract

The battle for women's suffrage to Parliament in 1866 in England marked the earliest recorded legal battle for equality between men and women. Since then the issue of gender equality has grown to become a global concern. While it is generally agreed that human rights apply to all human beings (men and women), women's fundamental rights and freedom have been limited by patriarchal practices and traditions. The situation is worse in many African societies where colonial legacies and patriarchal culture assigns superior roles to men and subordinate ones to women. In Nigeria, these practices had reduced the status of women to be lower and inferior to their male counterparts. This, in turn, makes it difficult for women to fully participate in as many social, political, and economic activities as men do. This has brought tremendous setbacks for women in Nigeria which is the focus of this paper. In addition, stereotyping and stratification of jobs, skills, political offices and businesses have become so deep-rooted in patriarchy because of the cultures and ideologies of the society. This began with the traditional gender roles in the precolonial era and was reinforced during the colonial era when women were forced out of commercial farming and trading to do food crop farming and petty trading which both bring less money. Presently this practice keeps women under glass ceilings and in low paying jobs which contributes largely to most women being in poverty, poor health and suffering various abuses due to the imbalance and inequality of social status with men. Therefore, this paper using hegemonic and Nigeria masculinity as the theoretical framework for analysis, critically discusses from historical perspective how colonial legacies and patriarchy are nurturing gender inequality in Nigeria.

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