Gender Politics

World bodies have defined gender equality as related to human rights, especially women's rights, and economic development.[2][3] UNICEF defines gender equality as "levelling the playing field for girls and women by ensuring that all children have equal opportunity to develop their talents."[4] The United Nations Population Fund declared gender equality "first and foremost, a human right."[5] "Gender equity" is one of the goals of the United Nations Millennium Project, to end world poverty by 2015; the project claims, "Every single Goal is directly related to women's rights, and societies where women are not afforded equal rights as men can never achieve development in a sustainable manner."[3] Thus, promoting gender equality is seen as an encouragement to greater economic prosperity.[2] For example, nations of the Arab world that deny equality of opportunity to women were warned in a 2008 United Nations-sponsored report that this disempowerment is a critical factor crippling these nations' return to the first rank of global leaders in commerce, learning and culture.[6] Fact Sheet The Role of Women in Contemporary Africa Contributor By Jason Chavis eHow Contributing Writer Article Rating: (0 Ratings) African women running a businessThe role of women in contemporary Africa is complicated as the continent continues to grow and develop. Since the end of colonialism, many of the nations have moved into a situation of greater equality than many other parts of the globe. However, these gains face challenges from militarism and the increased prevalence of AIDS. Email Print Article Add to Favorites Flag Article Significance According to The Guardian's 2005 article "Good Women in Africa," contemporary African women face a prime burden from the challenges of AIDS. Many women raise not only their own children, but the children of deceased relatives. Potential Many parliaments throughout the country have seen major representation from women's political parties such as the 50:50 group in Sierra Leone and the Women's Parliamentary Forum in Nigeria. Considerations One of the great challenges for the role of women in contemporary Africa is the issue of equality to men. According to a study of various nations' laws by the University of Swaziland, women's rights in much of the continent are considered second to men's in terms of marriage. Many times, marriages are arranged by relatives and require a payment to parents. Size Women in Africa are essential to the labor force, especially agriculture and trade. According to the World Bank, women account for as much as 49 percent of the workforce in some African countries. Effects Despite continued gains in equality, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization states that the education gap between women and men is apparent in enrollment levels through much of the continent. This creates a situation in which the role of women is limited because of a lack of opportunity

and education. Ads by Google Nth Africa Opportunities Browse investment projects in Egypt across IT, Trade, Petroleum & more! www.investment.gov.eg South African Singles Find Your Match Online Today. Find A Date or Your Soul Mate Here. www.AfricanLove.com Namibia for families Safaris, Horse riding, Roundtrips. Perfect for families with children www.kambaku.com Africa Volunteer Wanted Live and Work Abroad, 1-12 Weeks. Help the Community - Enroll Today! CrossCulturalSolutions.org/Africa References The Law and the Women in Contemporary African Legal Systems Overall Status of Women in Africa Good Women in Africa Article Resources African Study Center: Women's Issues Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Mark Knobil God's Bits of Wood From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations of additional sources. (April 2008) God's Bits of Wood Author Ousmane Semb�ne Original title 'Les bouts de bois de Dieu' Translator Francis Price Country France Language French Publisher Le Livre Contemporain Publication date 1960 Published in English 1962 God's Bits of Wood is a 1960 novel by the Senegalese author Ousmane Semb�ne that concerns a railroad strike in colonial Senegal of the 1940s. It was written in French under the title Les bouts de bois de Dieu. The book deals with several ways that the Senegalese and Malians responded to colonialism. There are elements that tend toward accommodation, collaboration, or even idealization of the French colonials. At the same time the story details the strikers who work against the mistreatment the Senegalese people.[1] The novel was translated in to English in 1962 and published by William Heinemann. [edit] Plot summary

The action takes place in several locations�primarily in Bamako, Thi�s, and Dakar. The map at the beginning shows the locations and suggests that the story is about a whole country and all of its people. There is a large cast of characters associated with each place. Some are featured players�Fa Keita, Tiemoko, Maimouna, Ramatoulaye, Penda, Deune, N'Deye, Dejean, and Bakayoko. Others part of the populace. The fundamental conflict is captured in two people, Dejean (the French manager and colonialist) and Bakayoko (the soul and spirit of the strike). In another sense, however, the main characters of the novel are the people as a collective, the places they inhabit, and the railroad. The evolution of the strike causes an evolution in the self-perceptions of the Africans themselves, one that is most noticeable in the women of Bamako, Thi�s, and Dakar. These women go from seemingly standing behind the men in their lives, to walking alongside them and eventually marching ahead of them. When the men are able to work the jobs that the train factory provides them, the women are responsible for running the markets, preparing the food, and rearing the children. But the onset of the strike gives the role of bread-winner�or perhaps more precisely bread scavenger�to the women. Women go from supporting the strike to participating in the strike. Eventually it is the women that march on foot, over four days from Thi�s to Dakar. Many of the men originally oppose this women's march, but it is precisely this show of determination from those (the wives marching) that the French had dismissed as "concubines" that makes clear the strikers' relentlessness. The women's march causes the French to understand the nature of the willpower that they are facing, and shortly after the French agree to the demands of the strikers. The book also highlights the oppression faced by women in the precolonial era. They were deprived of their ability to speak on matters including the society as a whole. Ousmane, however, tries to raise women to a higher spectrum by considering them as equally important. [edit] Historical Significance The book came out in 1960, the year that Senegal achieved independence. The theme of unity is significant for the building of the newly-freed nation. [edit] References ^ God's Bits of Wood - Les bouts de bois de Dieu This article about a 1960s novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v � d � e Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Bits_of_Wood" Categories: 1960 novels | Senegalese novels | French West Africa | Labor literature | 1960s novel stubs Hidden categories: Articles lacking reliable references from April 2008 | All articles lacking sources ViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History Personal toolsTry Beta Log in / create account This page was last modified on 6 October 2009 at 14:02. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details. Wikipedia� is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization.Contact us Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers The Politics of Gender Book Review: Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance, by Steven Goldberg, Ph.D. (1993, Open Court).

"It is terribly self-destructive," Steven Goldberg tells us, "to refuse to accept one's own nature, and the joys and powers it invests." In this scholarly and meticulous essay, Dr. Goldberg, Chairman of the Sociology Department at City University of New York, analyzes the distortions of gender studies, which have become a "sacred cow" of academia. Thus it is no surprise that over a period of ten years, his first work on this subject (The Inevitability of Patriarchy) was turned down 69 times by 55 publishers, earning him recognition in The Guinness Book of World Records for the most rejections of a manuscript before final acceptance. "We live in a time when many academics like to believe that the variations of human behavior and social institutions are virtually unlimited," Dr. Goldberg says. But society must, to a certain extent, conform itself to psychophysiological reality. "In real life, most parents want to prepare their children for the real world, and are unwilling to sacrifice them to the demands of ideology--which is what they do when they grossly misrepresent the world..." An analysis of sex-related differences is important to sexual-reorientation therapists, because it opens discussion of an essential question: Is there a human nature to which man must conform? Or are gender and sexual orientation infinitely malleable? Socialization "does not consist primarily of parents telling little boys to be 'aggressive' and little girls to be 'nurturant'--these tendencies exist without socialization--but of developing the skills and attitudes that make best use of such tendencies as already exist." He adds, "To believe that males should not have a stronger dominance tendency...is to hope for the impossible." It is the idea of male dominance which most annoys feminists, Dr. Goldberg says, but, "It does not matter whether the reader enjoys the idea that the male dominates and protects the female, or detests it"--it is simply, he says, a fact. "Every society recognizes a particular emotional difference between men and women...the male strength and dominance, and the female gentleness and endurance portrayed in our novels and movies mirror not merely our society's view of the emotional natures of men and women, but the views of every society that has ever existed..." Science reveals empirical realities which we must recognize. However, "empirical analyses alone cannot find the answers to moral-political questions." Science speaks only of what is, while social-moral philosophy tells us what should be. For example, a recent study found some evidence that promiscuity is in a man's genes. If this study is correct, then it is "normal and natural" for a man to be tempted to adultery; but we do not build a social-moral philosophy around the idea that faithful marriage is therefore impossible. In fact, recognizing that stable families are vital to society, we might use our knowledge that "promiscuity is in the genes" to strengthen social sanctions against adultery, thus making unfaithfulness less likely. Valuing of Male Attributes Distorts Feminist Reasoning Feminism was once dominated by the idea that sex-related tendencies are purely cultural in origin. Today, he says, most feminists now recognize that

physiological differences play at least some part in sex-related behaviors. But many feminists clearly value masculine qualities more highly than feminine ones-thus, there has been a long effort to establish the idea that women have been less prominent in professions like mathematics, philosophy, and music composition simply because society has socialized them not to compete in these areas. A recent study of the top 4,000 executives at the Fortune 500 companies found that men outnumbered women 3,993 to 19. "The higher the status--the more competitive the position--the lower will be the percentage of women," he says. But many feminists claim that it is simply bias and discrimination that has prevented equal representation. However, Dr. Goldberg disagrees. Males occupy more high-status roles because they are motivated more strongly to achieve that high status. He gives many examples of what appear to be rolereversals in other societies--where women do the usual men's work, and men do the "women's work"--but invariably, he says, the apparent "man's work" the woman is doing is lower-status in that particular society, and is therefore less soughtafter by the male. "Males occupy higher-level roles because high status motivates the male more strongly." He does not argue that either sex is uniquely associated with competence. But he does say that few women would devote the lifelong expenditure of energy necessary to achieve such positions, and any increase of women in these positions will be slight. "In the future, America may well have a female leader, but we shall never see a time when males fail to attain the overwhelming percentage of top hierarchical positions." When Females Supervise Males "Even if the male's greater dominance tendency were over-ridden and large numbers of women placed in positions of authority, it is unlikely that stability could be maintained. Even in our present male bureaucracies, problems arise when a subordinate is more 'aggressive' than his superior and, if the more 'aggressive' executive is not allowed to rise in the bureaucracy, delicate psychological adjustments must be made. Such adjustments are also necessary when a male bureaucrat has a female superior...It seems likely...that if women shared equally [with men] in power at each level of the bureaucracy, chaos would result..." In every society, women are responsible for the care and rearing of the young, "the single most important function served in any society, or in nature itself." The Universality of Patriarchy An idea that undergirds much of feminist thinking is that patriarchy, matriarchy and "equiarchy" are all equally possible, and that there is no natural order which decrees that men will rule in every society. Accordingly, feminists tend to say that our expectations of men and women are culturally determined, and therefore infinitely malleable. Many feminist writers "camouflage their intellectual inadequacy behind a facade of scholarship...and...a profusion of footnotes...One would be hard put to find another group that talked so much about science, without doing any science." "In science," Dr. Goldberg says, "...truth is the perfect defense, and nature will give you a lift only if you're going her way." Our physiology imposes limitations on social possibility, he warns us, and society must not expect its institutions to ignore these limitations. Of all social institutions, there is probably none whose universality is granted

so unanimously by anthropologists as patriarchy. "There is not, nor has there ever been, any society that even remotely failed to associate authority and leadership in suprafamilial areas with the male. There are no borderline cases." He says there has never been a matriarchy. "If the reader insists on maintaining a belief in a once-existent matriarchal society, all we can do is demand evidence more convincing than his desire that there should have been one." Misinformation has a long life. Dr. Goldberg studied 32 introductory sociology textbooks, and discovered that all but two begin their chapters on sex roles with the claim that anthropologist Margaret Mead said the Tchambuli of New Guinea reversed male-female sex roles. Dr. Mead had, in fact, had been denying this claim for fifty years. In a review of Dr. Goldberg's book, she acknowledged that "It is true, as Professor Goldberg points out, that all the claims so gliby made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed...men have always been the leaders in public affairs, and the final authorities at home." "More than sloppiness is at work here," says Dr. Goldberg. "Some of the authors of current texts have admitted to me in private that they know the Tchambuli are not an exception." He adds, "We used to call this 'lying.'" Cognitive Differences Between the Sexes Men are more dominant and driven toward high-status positions, and this explains some of their preeminence in social heirarchies. But there is another factor-there are also cognitive differences between men and women. Feminists, he says, often assume that women, if not for social conditioning, would be just as capable as men of a career in nuclear physics. In fact, a simple and accurate descriptive statement--such as "women are not as good at math as men"-often evokes antagonism. "Rejections of descriptions because one does not like them are hardly justified," he says. "We know that men and women think and behave differently, whatever the cause...The social is given its limits and direction by the physiological...Falsity of assumption cannot be balanced by a doubling of emotional investment." "There exists in our culture," he says, "a powerful hunger to believe that gender differences in cognitive aptitudes are exclusively cultural." Men surpass women in dealing with high-level logic and abstraction, which leads them to excel in math, composing, chess, philosophy, and so forth--fields in which, he says, there is no woman of genius. Women equal or surpass men on all cognitive tests not related to mathematical reasoning or associated aptitudes, although neither sex is more intelligent than the other, he says, when we speak of intelligence in a broader sense--in all its different forms. He stresses that none of this information justifies discrimination against the woman who happens to be as qualified as a man in a male-dominated field--but she must be aware, realistically, that "she can never hope to live in a society that does not attach feminine expectations to women." Patriarchy, Male Dominance, and Male Attainment Three factors are universal throughout all known cultures: patriarchy, male dominance and male attainment. He argues that these tendencies are manifestations of neuro-endocrinological differences between men and women, and that male dominance serves obvious survival functions.

He defines patriarchy as the occupation, by males, of the overwhelming percentage of upper heirarchical positions in political and other heirarchies. Male attainment is defined as acquisition by males of the high-status roles-whatever these may be, in any given society. Male dominance is indicated when both sexes believe that dominance in male-female relationships resides with the male, and that social expectations and authority systems reflect this balance of power. Wherever there is a hierarchy, high-status role, or member of the opposite sex present, he says, the male more readily and more strongly responds with-Competitiveness (the impulse for attainment and dominance); Relative suppression of other emotions and needs, and a sacrifice of rewards (health, family, relaxation and so forth) that conflict with the need for attainment and dominance; Whatever actions are required for attainment of the aforementioned position, status and dominance. (Society, he says, conforms to nature by recognizing and institutionalizing this male ambition.) If patriarchy, male dominance and male attainment are indeed a function of human physiology (as he believes they are), then "the emotional, behavioral, and-ultimately--social-institutional manifestations...may be inevitable..." The theory does not imply that males perform better than females in their positions, but that they are more strongly motivated to attain these high-status positions. He also says, "I am in no way implying that there is some law of nature which requires that the males of a species should dominate...No scientific analysis of empirical relationships can ever entail a social policy (what is cannot entail what should be)." The Physiological Roots of Male Dominance "There is an enormous amount of evidence," he says, "which demonstrates beyond doubt that that the testicularly-generated fetal hormonalization of the male central nervous system promotes earlier and more extensive maturation of the brain structures that mediate between male hormones and dominance behavior; this makes the male hypersensitive to the presence, later on, of the hormones which energize dominance emotions and behavior, and result in his stronger tendency to respond to the environment with dominance behavior." He mentions the cases where a boy was raised as a female through removal of the external male genitalia, and socialization as a girl; but the experiment was unsuccessful because fetal hormonal masculinization had already occurred. "As the evidence demonstrates conclusively," he says, "dominance tendency is primarily a result of hormonal development and not primarily of anatomy, gender identity, or the socialization that reflects anatomy and gender identity." In his discussion, Dr. Goldberg reminds of us some important principles of logical argumentation. The fact that some women are more dominant than some men does not invalidate the statistical fact that men are, on average, more dominant than women. Furthermore, when he says that women will "never" form a majority in the upper levels of corporate hierarchies, he reminds us that science speaks in the language of probability. For psychotherapists, Why Men Rule should lead in a useful direction. An acknowledgment of physiologically-based sex differences could help explain the particular problems common to same-sex love relationships (jealousy, competition, violence, instability) which some clinicians believe to be inherent to any same-

sex coupling. While gay advocates see the supposed "equality" of same-sex coupling to be an advantage, reparative therapists often theorize that sexual sameness actually fosters inherent competitiveness. (For example, dog trainers know that two female dogs, or two males dogs, never live together as equals; whereas malefemale pairs live in relative harmony, because they do not compete within the same dominance heirarchy.) Why Men Rule represents one step toward honest inquiry into the vast, unexplored, and compelling area of physiologically-based sex differences.

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