User talk:Efreitas2/Gender Inequality in Nso' Community

"Article Evaluation" "Nso People" is an article retrieved from the book Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops. It is an ethnographic book written by Miriam Goheen. The article talked about the government and the religion of Nso people. In the government, the chief leader has the title of the Fon and he is surrounded by a group of men called the "Ngwerong" who helped him govern the people of Nso. The "Ngwerong" work is to establish a democracy because the Fon is not above the law. However, the government is hegemonic. According to Goheen, " Gramsci uses 'hegemony' to mean the ways in which a governing power wins consent from thise it subjugates; it is carried in cultural, political, and economic forms, in nondiscursive as well as in theoretical utterances" (Goheen 1996: 12). I think, the article should have As a religion, the Nso people practice a traditional religion which is based upon the worship of ancestors and their spirits. There are special men that are designated as priests to perform this religious task. Some of these men are part of the secret society of "Ngwerong." However, from my reading in the book, I discovered that besides their traditions, the Nso people also practice Christianity. Some of them are Catholics while others are Presbyterians. "They are participating, and often prominent, members of the Catholic or the Presbyterian church" (Goheen 1996: 159). In my opinion, the article should have included the Christianity part. In addition, the article should have included the extension of the works performed by the "Ngwerong" such as their generosity in the Nso community and the obligations required to earn the title of 'Ngwerong." Furthermore, I think the article is missing one of the important facts that contribute to the economy of the Nso people. In other words, I want to talk about the agriculture which is very important for the Nso's economy. Usually, when we talk about agriculture, we perceive it as a work done the men of the community. However, in this particular community, the Nso women are the strong hands behind their agriculture. "Women grew all the food and had control over the household food supply in ways which constantly demonstrated men's day-to-day dependence on their wives' work and nature and forced them to acknowledge women as the 'backbone of the country'" (Goheen 1996: 63). The women 's support gives their men the ability to trade and produce cash money which gives them access to title and a place in the palace.Efreitas2 (talk) 19:36, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Gender Roles

From our childhood, the society distinguishes the different roles of boys and girls. Whenever we go to a toy store, the girls' toys are Barbies toys brown or white, kitchen, and cooking ware. Whereas, the boys's toys are usually plane, toy guns, race cars, or motorbikes. I remember as a little girl in Togo, I was not allowed to play with my younger brothers or other boys in our community. I could only play with my girlfriends and we used to have special games designed just for girls. Besides, I remember helping my mother with the house chores such as cleaning, sweeping, doing the laundry, or helping in the kitchen. I never saw my brothers doing any house chores especially, cooking in the kitchen. They are more involved in playing soccer, cards, or other masculine games with their friends. In other words, we learn our different gender roles from our childhood regardless of the time and space. Therefore, in this article, I rely on the ethnographic book Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops by Miriam Goheen to elaborate on the gender inequality in Nso' community. This gender inequality is established by the ideology of hegemony among the Nso' people. According to Gramsci, "hegemony is the ways in which a governing power wins consent from those it subjugates; it is carried in cultural, political, and economic forms, in non-discursive as well as in theoretical utterances" (Goheen 1996:12). In other words, hegemony is a discourse established in the favor of the government or any given society to control their population. Therefore, the government or the leaders establish laws to back up with this ideology. In the case of the Nso' community, "Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops" was the law founded in Nso' society to control their women. Hence, it generated inequality among the Nso men and Nso' women. This gender inequality is defined by the the subjectivity of the women to their men regardless that the women are considered the "backbone of the country" (Goheen 1996: 63). Nso' is an agricultural society and most of their food subsistence comes from farming. Nso' women are called the "backbone of the country" because they are the farmers. However, these women do not have any power over what they produce on the farms except to feed their husbands and children with the food crops. In addition, these farmers women do not have any power over their farms because these farms could only be allocated to them by their men. Besides, the Nso' women think it is their responsibility to take care of the food supplies of their households and they find great pride and strength in doing it. Therefore, in Nso' community, any woman who is not a farmer is marginalized by the society especially, by the women group. Moreover, regardless of the women's power as farmers and the "backbone of the country," they are not allowed into the council the men. This distinction is made because the Nso' men considered their women as inadequate to reason. "Women, say the men, should always listen only to the man. They cannot reason correctly because their hearts get in the way" (Goheen 1996:71). Basically, the authority to give public opinions about their community's issues is not equally distributed. Only men are required to discuss public matters with the chief or other leaders at the council of men. Nso' community was not the only one with gender inequality. In "Sitting On A Man" by Judith Van Allen, we come across with the Igbo women from the precolonial to colonial period. They were also marginalized in the Igbo society because of their gender. Just as the Nso' women, They were not allowed in the men's council. Besides, only Igbo boys could attend school and receive the Western education and the girls only learned about how to be a good mother or wife (Allen 2009: 179). In other words, the Igbo society gave more privileges to boys than girls making the gender inequality effective in their society. To sum up, gender inequality is established in our communities through the division of gender roles since our childhood. It is reinforced by the system of hegemony as a law established by the society or the government. Efreitas2 (talk) 20:26, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Colonial Period

The German Explorer Dr Eugen Zintgraff made the first European contact with the Bafut in April 1889. However, it is important to point out that indirect contact took place in the fifteenth century when the Portuguese arrived at the northern coast of present day Cameroon. Account of the first contact between the Nso and the German leans heavily on information collected from elderly men of NSO, and some reports on the German side substantiating these a lot of these reports can be found at the National Archives in Yaounde. The first contact involved eight to ten Europeans of the expeditionary force of Lt Col Von Pavel in January 1901-1902.They marched from Babungo and on January 12 the camped at Sov where they received a gift of a ram from the Fon. It was noted by Lt Von Pavel that the first contact with the Nso people of Bansso was friendly. According to oral tradition it was suspected that the reason for later hostilities against the Nso by German forces is based on a long standing practice by the Nso warriors that involved keeping the skulls of their defeated war enemies as trophies. When the Germans were invited in the Nso manjong (warrior lodge), they saw many skulls hanging on rails and assumed that the Nso people were cannibals. It was archived that the hostilities began between October-March with the arrival of a new expedition that was well armed. It was reported that this new group severely beat a man and left him for dead, and also hit a lineage elderly with the butt of a gun. These aggressive actions prompted a retaliation by the Nso who attacked the expedition camp with about 1200 men. Having been warned of the planned attacked, they burnt down the palace and moved the camp. The early contact between Nso and the Europeans was marked by a succession of revolt and resistance that were ultimately all defeated by the Europeans and a new system of taxation and administration was imposed upon the people by the imperialists, first the Germans and then the British. The colonial tax system had undermined the Fon in his subchiefdoms. Tradionally, the subchiefdoms paid tribute directly to the fon, but with the new system they would collect taxes and keep a potion of the tax commission then turn it over to the Fon who collected it for the colonial administration. The Fon would also retain a commission. Mbokoum1 (talk) 15:05, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Precolonial Era

Women’s tasks in the precolonial period included producing both crops and children. This has been a linchpin of the male power and status in the whole of Africa. The book, Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops by Miriam Goheen clearly depicts the alignment of gender to the development of the nations, by keenly looking at the production and reproduction from back in time. The book discusses the struggle over power that existed in the Nso chiefdom and the state, between men and women since the women had now started to abandon traditional marriages. This book tracks the negotiations that existed between men and women, over ritual power, over administrative power and finally over economic power. Despite the fact that the Nso men obviously had taken the lead in the domination of the society that includes at the national level and at the local lever, women have been seen to have that belongs to them solely by the virtue that they are women. This is clearly indicated by the fact that the parcels of land may belong to the men but the women are the ones who control the crop yielding through the input of their labor. They traditionally decided what would happen with the crops after they are yielded and would typically subsistence farm. This is something that would change with the end of the precolonial era. Goheen clearly states that gender is at stake in the complex historical process especially in the tenure systems of land, external, internal politics, and marriage systems. While taking a look at the resistance of women to traditional patterns of marriage Goheen tosses a question on whether this changes the equilibrium of power between two sexes. It also questions whether this resistance may lead to a new class of elites as it is only the better-educated women from families with wealth that can change power and labor dynamics in a household. Wami1295 (talk) 15:09, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I think this writing was a great one, the writer I can see has a very good insight of what the article entails. but I feel like this article lacked structure, the points were scattered all around and it has a lot of grammatical errors. I like the fact that the writer actually went a long way to explain some stuff but that wasn't really done well. over this actually was good but could be better if the writer could correct those little mistake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Damsisland (talk • contribs) 06:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC)