BLACK WOMEN RADICALS AND THE AFRICAN FEMINIST FORUM:

AFRICAN FEMINIST ANCESTORS

“The Igbo Women’s War Of 1929” profile in the Black Women Radicals Database is in collaboration with and sourced from the African Feminist Forum’s “African Feminist Ancestors Project, which “is based on the commitment to ground our activism, movement-building and strategies on lessons and inspirations of how African women in the past have negotiated power, challenged patriarchal notions of womanhood and also women’s roles within society. In profiling these feminist ancestors, we hope to explore how these women have challenged power relations within African society, to make visible feminist participation in African anti-colonial struggles, in projects of national liberation, and to address the absence of literature on African women in advancing social justice.” For more information about the African Feminist Forum, please visit: http://www.africanfeministforum.com

An important act of women’s resistance in Nigeria’s history is the Igbo women’s ‘war’ of 1929, which centred around market women’s opposition to unfair taxation and indirect rule in southern Nigeria by the British colonial authorities.

Before the British colonized southern Nigeria in 1884, Yoruba and Igbo women in the region had powerful political, judicial, and religious roles within dual-sex systems of female and male authority. Power was shared between men and women in such a complementary manner to promote harmony and the well-being of the societies. In pre-colonial Igboland, social roles and responsibilities were the channels through which power diffused, and hierarchical relationships were determined by age, experience, ability, marital status and rites of initiation. Women exercised direct political power (though less than men) through all-female organizations, which included women’s courts, market authorities, secret societies and age-grade institutions. They wielded collective and individual power both as members and as heads of these organizations. However, the colonial period brought about the marginalization and even erosion of female political power and authority in the region.

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Source: The African Feminist Ancestors Project by the African Feminist Forum.

Footnote:

[1] Chuku, G. (2009). Igbo women and political participation in Nigeria, 1800s-2005. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 42 (1), 81-103.

[2] Anonymous (n.d.). Women’s movements – Autonomous and affiliated women’s movements in Nigeria – Family, development, organizations, and national. Retrieved from http://family.jrank.org/pages/1763/Women-s-Movements-Autonomous-Affiliated-Women-s-Movements-in-Nigeria.html#ixzz1h8X7Vgnb

[3] http://www.onwar.com/aced/nation/nap/nigeria/fwomens1929.htm

[4] http://www.revolutionprotestencyclopedia.com/fragr_image/media/IEO_Womens_War_of_1929

[5] Oriji, J. N. (2000). Igbo women from 1929-1960. West Africa Review, 2(1).

[6] Hanna, J. L. (1990). Dance, protest, and women’s “wars”: Cases from Nigeria and the United States. In G. West & R. L. Blumberg (Eds.), Women and social protest (333-345). New York: Oxford University Press