The Role of Women in the Ibo Culture
The culture in which 'Things Fall Apart' is centered
around is one where patriarchal testosterone is supreme and
oppresses all females into a nothingness. They are to be
seen and not heard, farming, caring for animals, raising
children, carrying foo-foo, pots of water, and kola.
The role of women in the Ibo culture was mostly
domestic. The men saw them as material possessions and
thought of them as a source of children and as cooks. As a
man made his way in life by farming yams, he needed a
strong workforce. This workforce included his wives and
children. A man would have many wives. The more wives and
children a man had, the more honor and respect he received.
If a man had dishonored himself in the eyes of the other
men belonging to the tribe by acting in a cowardly way or
by being lazy, they called him a woman for insult.
A man was to rule the household with a heavy hand.
Okonkwo's wives and children lived in fear of his quick
temper (13). When his youngest wife was not home in time
to cook him lunch one...
Most of the Igbo people try to have the most domains that they can get so they will beat people to show their domains to the other that live in the Igbo society.“Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not even for fear of at god”(Achebe,1994,p.30). Okonkwo beats his wife to show that he is the dominants between his other wives and the others of the tribe. But the point of the beating that Okonkwo did was to enforce his hierarchy and importance in his society and to the elder’s.Next the village in the Igbo society thing that masculinity is important, but that leads to unfairness in the government system.
For example, one way gender roles rules the Igbo culture is shown in this quote, “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper” (Page 16). This shows that, in the Igbo culture, men are the dominant sex and they rule over their families. Women are appointed to submissive and unresisting position, where they often live in fear of their husbands. However, Okonkwo’s quick temper with his family is never portrayed as commentable, it is clear that he unquestionably has the right to be aggressive and hostile at home. This also shows moral development because it explains how the Igbo culture allows for men to treat women. Another example can be shown by the Ibo’s use of the hierarchical system, “He could neither marry nor be married by the free-born. He was in fact an outcast...Wherever he went he carried with him the mark of his forbidden caste – long, tangled and dirty hair. A razor was taboo to him. An osu could not attend an assembly of the free-born, and they, in turn, could not shelter under his roof. He could not take any of the four titles of the clan, and when he died he was buried by his kind in the Evil Forest” (Page 146). This shows that the Igbo culture has clear hierarchal system between the titles/successful men of the clan and the titleless/unsuccessful men of the clan. This shows the moral development of the Igbo culture because it defines how the higher class treats and acts toward the lower
The Mbuti people are known as foragers because their main source of survival lies on hunting and gathering as they move from one place to another. They originated from a region in Africa called Congo. The Mbuti people even with their fairly decent population prefer to be grouped into smaller groups or bands which are mostly made up of close relatives. They live in the rainforests of central Africa, where they have lived popularly for more than 6000 years now.
The novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, reveals the dynamics of the Ibo tribe that eventually led to Okonkwo’s demise. Okonkwo was taught the values and ways of the tribe which prepared him for failure in a more modern society. The family structure that existed caused many struggles with his father and even his sons. Also, the Ibo tribe valued strength and status. Such ideals opened the door for conflict with the missionaries who are trying to enforce laws and civility. Altogether, Okonkwo was mislead and unwilling to learn another way of life. Although many things contributed to Okonkwo’s downfall, one must explore each reason separately in order to understand. Starting with Okonkwo's father.
Gender is social construct used as a method of distinction among both living and non-living things. In many societies, gender is used metaphorically to categorize and explain all facets of human culture the phenomena of nature. This essay will examine the imagery of the male “creator” and the female “vessel” in both contemporary and ancient African culture as a method of understanding nature, technology, and religion. First the binary of creator and vessel will be examined in ancient Egyptian religious ideology on human creation as well as the Egyptian’s connection to the fertility and rebirth of Nile River’s flooding. Next this essay will look at contemporary African culture and the continued use of the vessel/creator binary in the practice of iron ore smelting technology.
During post colonial times men and women in the Igbo society had several different roles in the household, the tribe, and in the fields. The male and female roles in the Igbo tribe are determined by many different things throughout the tribe. Genders help determine what that person will be doing. Men and women both have very important roles in the household, tribe, and fields. The women in the Igbo tribe are more in charge of the children, the cooking and the cleaning and the males are in charge of the fields and taking care of the family. The males are the more incharge gender within the tribe and the women must obey everything that the male wants.
As with most primitive societies, the Igbo was ruled by a few elite, all of which were male. Those able to obtain power in the village are male,
Women in Indigenous cultures have always been uniquely shaped by European culture as well as their own. Indigenous women have had plenty of resistance techniques to help them cope with European culture. One technique, used near the beginning of the encounter of Europeans, was for women to lock themselves in their homes at night so the European men would not force themselves on to the women. The men, who came to Canada at the beginning of the encounter, often came by themselves and were lonely, which meant the women of the Indigenous culture were often prayed upon to satisfy the men. The other factor with this is women who were enslaved by the Indigenous cultures were sent to prostitute themselves to the men who arrived in the new world. (Canada
Aboriginal women are currently facing many challenges and working towards reclaiming their lives, rights and roles lost. Historically, Aboriginal women played a large role in their communities including caregivers, producers of food and protectors of land as well they held many leadership roles (Shepard, O’Neill and Guenette, 2006, p. 228). The affects of colonization and residential schools have torn some of these roles from Aboriginal women, as a patriarchy system was pushed on them (Shepard et al., 2006, p. 230). Presently, women all over the world are fighting for gender equality. However, although we share a common goal it cannot be over looked that each woman is facing different challenges on the road to gender equality. Gerber (2014) argues that to this day Aboriginal women “are disadvantaged first as Aboriginals (race), second as Indians (ethnicity and third as women (gender)” (p.122). Therefore, Aboriginal women are facing their own unique set of challenges.
The status of men and women in the Dogon tribe of Mali is that the women role is less than the men. Because of the god Amma who is there God. Amma look at both male and female, but men have more power than women but they don’t look down on women. Because they need women role to make their babies and rising them. But this is just like other tribe like Egyptian, Mayan, and Tsalagi cultures, it is sated that “women are the culture bearers and caretakers; those who are responsible for teaching tradition and oral history to the next generation.” A woman in these tribe women roles is too passed down the cultural and their history to their child’s and grand
Before the arrival of the Europeans, Achebe did a excellent job portraying how the life of Igbo was before they were forced to oppose their own culture. To support this theme, Achebe included detailed descriptions of social rituals within each family, the justice system, religious practices and consequences, preparation and indulgence of food, the marriage process and the distributing of power within the men. Achebe shows how every man has an opportunity to prove himself worthy to achieve a title on the highest level, based merely on his own efforts. One may argue that the novel was written with the main focus on the study of Okonkwo’s character and how he deteriorates, but without the theme that define the Igbo culture itself, we would never know the universe qualities of the society that shaped Okonkwo’s life. The lives of the Igbo people was no different to the actual lives of the Ibos people back in the early days of Africa. Just like in Things Fall Apart, in actual African tribes there was never a ruler. “Very interesting thing about these villages is that there is no single ruler or king that controls the population. Decisions are made by including almost everyone in the village” (AfricaGuide). Using the theme, Achebe educated readers on by mirroring real African life in her
In Umofia, manliness is associated with strength and womanliness with weakness (Okhamafe 127). There is no such thing as a strong woman, and all men should disdain weakness. In Umofia, “all men are males, but not all males are men” (Okhamafe 126). Only the strong men who hold titles deserve to be called “men”. The Igbo word “agbala” is an alternate work for “woman” and for a man who had no title. Women in Igbo society are expected to act a certain way. Okonkwo scolds his daughter, Ezinma, when she does not “sit like a woman” (Achebe 44). He will not let Ezinma bring his chair to the wrestling match because it is a “boy’s job” (Achebe 44). Eve...
If viewed on the surface the story line of Things Fall Apart is a tragedy, but when viewed in a wider perspective it is a story of deeper conflict. The main issue is that the British have come to establish a mission and receive converts. Less evident is the conflict this intrusion inserts between the Ibo and British. The underlying issue is masculinity versus femininity. By this I mean to say that the Ibo are an agrarian people who are a patriarchal and see any sign of weakness as being less than desirable. The protagonist in the story, Okonkwo, is the champion of this thought. As what would happen to him seems to happen to the Ibo. When Okonkwo disagrees he is usually correct and the tribe would suffer the same fate and vice versa.
To start with, the advantages of the Igbo social structure included a balanced society, equality, distribution of labor, a surplus of food, separate huts, a collective society, and some form of government. A centralized society was achieved through the Igbo social structure. This structure served the purpose to impose the same religion upon the people to enforce a common belief. By organizing the society, the people could follow the idea of “unity” to prevent any conflicts or disagreements within the community. Along with a unified society, some kind of equal status came as a result of the social structure that has been established within the clan. Although the social hierarchy did not promote equal status between men and women, it did, to some extent, promote equality within the division of labor among the people. It relieved the pressure of stress, which may have been bestowed up...
]k Adegbite O. came to a similar conclusion about Okonkwo’s views on masculinity and femininity when he makes the remark in his essay that, “Okonkwo is of the opinion that traditional men have lost their place in society and cannot be termed ‘worthy’ anymore as Western culture has softened their resolve; men have been turned to weaklings by colonisation and the white man’s religion” (Tobalase, “Masculinity and Cultural Conflict in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart”).