Railroad Strikes Effect on Gender Roles In God’s Bits of Wood, Sembene Ousmane wrote a fiction novel that detailed the experiences of the African strikers and their families during the railroad strike of 1947-1948. Prior to the 1947-1948, Senegal became a colony of the French. Under the colonization, the French built a railroad, the Dakar-Niger Railway. The railroad employed many of the Africans who lived near it. In 1947-1948, the worker of the Dakar-Niger Railway went on strike. This strike had a major effect on the men and women of Senegal. The strike brought around major social changes, especially effecting gender roles of women. Ousmane said it best, “One morning a woman rose and wrapped her cloth firmly around her waist, and said, ‘Today, …show more content…
The traditional women of Africa were “docile, submissive, and hard working.” During the strike, this changed dramatically. Ousmane illustrated this change through the two major confrontations that the women started with the police. The first confrontation was started after Ramatoulaye killed the ram. After the ram’s death, the police came to take Ramatoulaye and the ram meat. Ramatoulaye refused to let them take the ram meat from the children. She justified, “He ate our rice; I killed him. The children were hungry; Verndredi ate the children’s rice.” Although Ramatoulaye was willing to go with the police, the other women did not allow the police to take her. Instead, the women began arming themselves with clubs and bottles filled with sand. Then they attacked. The women’s response confused many, especially the men, because they were not used to women acting this way. Their response was not in line with the traditional gender roles of Africa. In its place, a new set of gender roles were emerging. Another example Ousmane provides was when the women started a fire in there village, in hope of scaring off the police and their
The Western and African culture believe that all women should be silent, they were not allowed to say what 's on their mind. Women’s opinions didn’t matter they were considered to be useless. They were accepted to be housegirls, where females had to cook, clean and nurture their children if they had any. Abina was a housegirl, and her daily routines were to do house chores, cook, get water and firewood. Sometimes she would go to the market to get vegetables. If she didn’t follow her master’s orders, she would get threatened. Many other women would be beaten and abuse if they didn’t follow the rules and regulations. In the book, Abina states, “ I had been sold, and I had no will of my own, and I could not look after my body and health”(Getz and Clarke 92). This quote seems to be saying that women during the 19th century were doing so many tasks for other people and they didn’t have the time to take care of themselves. If you don’t take care of yourself it can affect your health, you start to get weak, and catch all sorts of diseases. When you are low in energy, there is no way you can work. Your health always comes first no matter what the situation is. If you can’t take care of yourself what makes you think you can take care of other people. The Western and African culture apparently don’t care how women were being treated if they did woman like Abina wouldn’t
The first chapter of Assia Djebar’s novel, Children of the New World, is split into two parts. The first part is a background into the setting of the novel. The novel is based on the time period when the Algerians were at war with the French in the 1950’s in what is now called the Algerian War. The narrator first describes what it is like for women when neighboring villages were under attack. They try to stay safe by hiding in the backrooms of their house. There they try to hide what is going on outside from the children while at the same time watch what is happening. They would dream of a time when the war was over. The narrator quotes a woman whispering, “’The end,’ someone whispers, and then recites verses from the Koran to ward off bad luck. ‘That will be a marvelous awakening, a deliverance.’” They could be stuck there for days depending on how long the attack is. Even in their houses though, they were not safe. Occasionally, bomb fragments could end up on the terrace and destroy parts of their home. They also were not safe because if the attack was on their own village, the military would set every house on fire until the village was burnt to the ground and there was no way to find refugee from this.
The first part of the book gives an account of Immaculée’s family background. The love she experienced from her parents and her three brothers is illustrated. Her parents cared for everybody, particularly the poor. Because of the love with which she grew up, she never realised that she was living in a country where hatred against the Tutsi, her tribe, was rampant. It was not until she was asked to stand up in class by her teacher during an ethnic roll call that she realised that her neighbours were not what she thought them to be – good and friendly. After struggling to get into high school and university, not because she was not qualified but because of discrimination against her ethnic background, she worked hard to prove that if women are given opportunities to...
Throughout history women have slowly moved from the role of mother and housewife into the labor force. In the middle of this rise in stature is a relatively unknown set of events that helped women gain the self-respect and individual attitude needed to move up in the work force. Women's participation in strikes during the 1970's and 80's is relatively unknown in U.S. history. Although the women involved in these strikes made a big impact on the strike and its outcome, they go widely unrecognized and uncredited for their roles. This paper will focus on three strikes: the Brookside Coal Strike, the Phelps-Dodge Copper Strike, and the Pittston Coal Strike. Each of these strikes has its own individual history and story, but they have many things in common as well. Most importantly, each strike had women participants who greatly impacted the strike and did a small part to help women move towards a place in the labor force.
In Laboring Women by Jennifer Morgan, the author talks about the transformations African Women suffer as they become slaves in America. The author explains how their race, gender and even their reproduction of African women became very important in the sex/gender system. She explains the differences of European, African and Creole and how their role was fit and fix in the sex/gender system in regards of production, body and kinship. Morgan explains the correlation of race and reproduction as well as how this affected the Atlantic World. She also explains the differences between whites and blacks and how they experience reproduction differently. Morgan also elaborates on how sex is a sexual disclosure. This gave us the conclusion on how the ideologies of race and reproduction are central to the organization of slavery.
Rather than using the new political rights and civil freedoms to better care for their families, women were swarming in the streets brandishing weapons at each other, meddling in political affairs, of which they had little knowledge and generally causing disorder (Landes 100). As a result, the Assembly felt that women had proven themselves as, “lacking in their physical as well as moral strength required to debate, deliberate and formulate resolution” declared Ander Amar (Wollstonecraft 87). Thus when, women broke out from their traditional sphere and used the newfound rights for purposes other than conversing with their men and educating children , they found themselves right where they had started, confined into the home and the suffocating embrace of their men.
her heavily.” (p. 29). Despite the beatings, Achebe shows that the Ibo women have valuable parts in the
In that time the women were expected to “act as peacemakers, using their influence to promote social consensus and conservative principles,” (Karen Fisher 247). This plays an interesting position to the treatment of women in Liberia. According to the Philadelphia’s Ladies ' Liberia School Association and the Rise and Decline of Northern Female Colonization Support article about how women in Liberia, “aimed to bring education to become a bigger social issue as they also stayed in domestic and private lifestyle. They set the idea of education being an important as a worldwide agreeance to be taught not only to both genders,” not only does this give women in Liberia a better opportunity but shakes the stereotype of having no political or social point unless they were backed by their husband (Karen Fisher 250). The sexism emplaced by centuries of patriarchy women had to hold behind their husbands as they were seen as submissive gave way when women begin finding ways to hold up the colonization of Liberia by supporting education. The sexism the women of Liberia faced began to shift in political and social positions as, “The Philadelphia Ladies’ Liberia School Association leaders pointed with pride to their impartiality regarding slavery and how their efforts fit unequivocally within the “separate spheres” ideology that defined a woman’s role as being domestic and private, separate from the public sphere”. (Karen Fisher 248). Women in the 19th century found it difficult to have a political stand point in society let alone to be colored, to which the need of teachers for schools in Liberia allowed women to find a foothold in bigger social issues. With the teachings of Christianity as a way
Historically, Black Women’s issues have been displaced by those of both white women and of the African American community as a whole. From the moment Africans set foot on the shores of the “New World,” the brutality they experienced was not just racialized, but gendered. Both African men and women were stripped naked, shaved, chained, branded, and inspected then sold and forced to work in the fields, plowing and picking cotton until their backs ached and their fingers bled. They also saw their family members sold away. However, their experiences diverged when it came to gender.
In the novel She and in the stories of The Arabian Nights, both Haggard and Haddawy explore the expanding gender roles of women within the nineteenth century. At a time that focused on the New Woman Question, traditional gender roles were shifted to produce greater rights and responsibilities for women. Both Ayesha, from Haggard’s novel She, and Shahrazad, from Haddawy’s translation of The Arabian Nights, transgress the traditional roles of women as they are being portrayed as strong and educated females, unwilling to yield to men’s commands. While She (Ayesha) takes her power to the extreme (i.e. embodying the femme fatale), Shahrazad offers a counterpart to She (i.e. she is strong yet selfless and concerned with the welfare of others). Thus, from the two characters emerge the idea of a woman who does not abide by the constraints of nineteenth century gender roles and, instead, symbolizes the New Woman.
Susan B Anthony, one of the first women to participate in the women 's right movement said “I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.”
As the strike progresses, the French management decides to "starve out" the striking workers by cutting off local access to water and applying pressure on local merchants to prevent those shop owners from selling food on credit to the striking families. The men who once acted as providers for their family, now rely on their wives to scrape together enough food in order to feed the families. The new, more obvious reliance on women as providers begins to embolden the women. Since the women now suffer along with their striking husbands, the wives soon see themselves as active strikers as The strategy of the French managers, or toubabs as the African workers call them, of using lack of food and water to pressure the strikers back to work, instead crystallizes for wor...
Thoughout history acts of violence have been committed against humanity, based on evidence read in this course, the most targetted has been women and even more women of African descent. An act of violence, it’s consider both, to prevent someone other than one self from meeting the basic needs and spectrums represented as a form of crime, in which the actions victimizes somebody; physically, emotinally and mentally. The rise of violence intensified when colonizers conquered a New World, the lack of acceptance of different people, allowed White supremacy mentality to become a tool of subordination that worked in cycles and affected, first indiginous people and then African slaves.
The novel God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane is an account of the strike Senegalese trainworkers underwent in pursuit of equal benefits and compensation from their French employers. In an effort to coerce the workers into returning to their jobs, the French cut off the water and food supply to the three villages wherein these events transpire: Thies, Dakar, and Bamako. Ousmane's novel explores the way in which these hardships evolve the worker's and their families till the strike is ultimately resolved. Arguably the most significant transformation that takes place is in the role of women within these societies. Prior to the strike, the women were expected to be subservient to their husband, with exclusively domestic roles consisting of cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children. As a result of the strike and the famine that accompanied it, the women were forced to alter their role to provide food for their families. The goals of the men in women differed in that the men were fighting for equality and better pay, whereas the women were fighting a battle for their own and their children's survival. So despite the fact that the declaration of strike and refusal to work until their demands were met was the campaign of the men, it was the women who ultimately forced the Frenchmen to see their resolve and succumb to their demands.
A feminist analysis on the other hand shows that Anowa is a woman who is struggling against the 1870’s African feminist identity (the identity of weakness). The drama surrounds the story of a young woman called Anowa who disobeys her parents by marrying Kofi Ako, a man who has a reputation for indolence and migrates with him to a far place. Childless after several years of marriage, Anowa realises that Kofi had sacrificed his manhood for wealth. Upon Anowa’s realisation, Kofi in disgrace shoots himself while Anowa too drowns herself. In a postcolonial analysis of “Anowa”, we can see some evidence of colonialism.