1
Emily Wirzba
David Gandolfo
3 May 2010
Educating African Women: Pathways to Alleviating Poverty
Poverty is universal. In nearly every environment there are people that do not have
enough food, clean water, shelter, clothing, land, or resources to provide for their dependents.
This lacking, or not having enough, is poverty. However, the gap between men and women
living in poverty, known as the feminization of poverty, has been widening. Women make up
seventy percent of the world’s 1.3 billion most impoverished who live on less than one dollar a
day.1 On average, women’s wages are 17% lower than men’s wages. Women also perform 66
percent of the world’s work and produce 50 percent of the food, but only earn ten percent of the
world’s income and own one percent of the property.2 Women have been given a much lower
status in our world today and, as a result, must struggle daily to provide for their families and
themselves.
Many of the world’s most impoverished women live in Africa, which is home to 33 of
the “least developed” countries identified by the UN.3 There are numerous reasons why women
in Africa are so destitute and worth so little in their society. The colonization of Africa reversed
traditional matriarchal societies and “replaced egalitarian gender arrangements by removing
women from the political decision-making spheres.”4 With European values imposed on African
society, women were forced to forfeit their power in the community and within the home. They
lost their legal rights and entitlement to resources.
Shawn Meghan Burn, Women Across Cultures: A Global Perspective (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005), 17.
United Nations Development Fund for Women, Facts and Figures on Women, Poverty, and Economics
http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/women_poverty_economics/facts_figures.php
3
Burn, 136.
4
Ibid., 137.
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2
2
External forces aren’t the only reason for women’s subordination in Africa, however.
Women struggle with men’s interpretations of religion. Men have used religion to claim
dominance over their wives, keeping them out of political and social arenas. For example, the
Sunnah and the Hadith, sources of Islam, have been interpreted by men to justify their
superiority over women.5 A third problem is that women are culturally expected to remain in the
home. They must work tirelessly to provide for their families and suppress any desire to get an
education or have economic freedom. Getting an education or a job would be looked down upon
in many African communities, because they would not be fulfilling their duties in the home.
Women are stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of poverty.
Faced with so many difficulties, I propose that the way to alleviate poverty and raise the
standard of living for families is to educate women. However, education is a very broad
expression. I define education as the knowledge necessary to improve one’s standard of living.
The three most important types of education needed for African women are basic primary
education, reproductive and birth control information, and economic or development skills.
Having a general, primary education is one of the most basic ways to improve one’s
standard of living, yet a majority of women in Africa do not attend school. Two-thirds of the
world’s illiterate are women.6 This is primarily due to the higher value males are allocated in
society. If a family can only afford to send a few children to school, they will choose to educate
their sons over their daughters. Many women prefer to keep their daughters around the home to
help with endless chores and food preparation, so there is no time for education. Educational
decisions are also heavily influenced by the myth of the male breadwinner: the belief that
families are supported solely by males. Why educate your daughters, when they will only go on
5
6
Ibid., 206.
Ibid., 138.
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to get married and raise a family? In reality, however, one third of all African households have a
female as the sole breadwinner.7
There are many stereotypes involving females and education. While males and females
do learn differently, girls are often “channeled into gender-stereotyped fields” and “silenced in
classrooms” in ways that reinforce a gender hierarchy.8 For example, boys may be allowed to
learn skills such as woodworking, but girls are forced to learn needle-working or sewing, skills
that provide little opportunity for upward mobility and do not earn much income. Boys are also
traditionally thought to be better in the fields of science and math, but often these disparities are
due to social constructions built into the curriculum, and are not an accurate depiction of
females’ mental capacity.9
The occupations that girls are educated for often have much lower salaries than their male
counterparts. As a result, parents are reluctant to spend valuable money on their daughter’s
education. In African societies, it is the son’s job to take care of his elderly parents. Therefore,
why waste money on a daughter, who will never generate enough money to care for her parents?
One occupation that has traditionally been very stable for females is teaching, yet women tend to
only dominate in primary education. Secondary teachers tend to be males, taking the larger
paychecks. In education, as in other fields, “salary levels seem to reflect the extent to which
occupations are feminized.”10 Since the chances of finding a well-paying job are improbable for
females, families shy away from educating their daughters.
Females are also not educated because of several harmful practices forced upon them. For
example, in Ethiopia, the practices of genital mutilation, abduction, and early or forced marriages
Margaret C. Snyder and Mary Tadesse, African Women and Development: A History (London: Zed Books,
1995) 184.
8
Kathleen Staudt, Policy, Politics & Gender: Women Gaining Ground (Connecticut: Kumarian Press, 1998), 91.
9
Ibid., 92.
10
Ibid., 89.
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prevent girls from being educated or from having any predominance in the family.11 Many
families choose not to send their daughters away to be educated because they fear violence in the
schools. At St. Kizito secondary school in Kenya, acts of violence were committed and tolerated
against the female students. In 1991, the male students went wild, killing nineteen girls and
raping seventy more.12
Despite the tremendous barriers to teaching females, there are numerous benefits to
allowing them to have a basic, primary education. Even three or four years of schooling can
completely change the way an African family lives. Educated women are much more likely to
seek medical care, ensure that their children have received immunizations, know what foods are
more nutritious for their families and have better sanitation. This results in healthier children,
who will have more opportunities to succeed in the future. Education provides women with more
knowledge about health care options, birth control, family planning, and HIV/AIDS prevention.
This knowledge reduces maternal deaths, leaving fewer orphans to burden the community. An
educated woman is also much more likely to send her own daughters to school, breaking the
cycle of illiteracy for women.13
Educating females also gives them the opportunity to participate in the government and
the political arena. Studies have shown that women allocate resources more wisely than men.14
Males are much more likely to spend their paycheck on alcohol or technology (like watches and
radios), while females are more likely to spend their income on either education for their children
or food for their families.15 The maternal role that women hold typically makes them more
Bernd Sandhaas, “The Integrated Women’s Empowering Programme (IWEP) as an Example for Establishing
Basic Structures of a Nationwide Adult Education System in a Poor Country” Convergence 41 (2008): 103.
12
Staudt, 93.
13
Sandhaas, 108.
14
Hoon Eng Khoo, “Educate Girls, Eradicate Poverty: A Mutually Reinforcing Goal,” UN Chronicle (2010): 37.
15
David Bornstein, The Price of a Dream (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), 142.
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peaceful and compassionate than men; the large amount of women that participated in the
Rwandan government after the 1994 genocide helped propel the country towards reconciliation.
Africa is relaxing its traditional stances on gender, allowing women to become more intellectual
and take a more prominent role in the government. However, these societal changes are
meaningless if there are no educated women to fill the new roles created.16
Women will also have more influence in their own homes if they are educated. With a
larger skill set, a woman will have higher earning power, and will be able to make decisions
respecting her own body and wishes. If the educated woman is able to contribute more to her
household’s income, she will gain respect in her husband’s and community’s eyes. The
likelihood of domestic violence and abuse will decrease as the woman’s value increases. There is
also much documented research that shows that higher education rates coincide with lower
fertility rates.17
There is plenty of evidence for why African women should be educated. The question
that follows is harder to answer: how should we educate these women? It is vital that aid-workers
or school teachers avoid imposing traditional Western values on the African societies. If the only
education valued is strictly a Western one, educating women will prove to be another form of
neocolonialism. Africa deserves the chance to come up with its own economic strengths and
academic interests, without Western powers dictating its every move. Therefore, a combination
of traditional and modern technologies and methods must be used. The people themselves must
determine what knowledge is necessary to thrive in Africa. Perhaps calculus isn’t vital to being
successful and helpful in a small village in Mozambique. The rest of the developed world must
accept that there is still valuable information in many developing nations and different skills and
16
17
Khoo, 37.
Staudt, 86.
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occupations (for example, knowing how to farm a crop versus design a bridge) are equally
respectable and important.
Another way to lift women from poverty is to educate them about birth control and their
reproductive rights. In Africa, one in 19 women will die due to maternal causes. Because women
have so many children in close succession, their bodies do not have ample time to heal,
increasing their risks for birthing complications and disease. In Uganda, women have on average
seven children, and in Somalia, the number increases to 7.3.18 Women have so many children for
several reasons. The infant mortality rate in Africa is very high, so many of the young do not
survive childhood. Parents want numerous children to ensure that enough of them will last until
adulthood. Couples often will keep reproducing until they have a son to take care of them when
they are elderly. Having a large family is also a sign of a father’s masculinity and power, and can
sometimes give women a higher status in their communities.
Despite these reasons for having a large family, women often have many children against
their will. Many men forbid the use of contraception by their wives, fearing that its use will lead
to sexual promiscuity. If a woman is using birth control, her husband fears that she could be
cheating on him, without the worry of getting pregnant. African culture also demands that
women are virgins at marriage, and that they should have no knowledge about sex at all. This
mentality fosters female genital mutilation (FGM), proving fatal for many women. If women do
have knowledge about sex, they are deemed “bad.” The problem with this ignorance is that many
females are unable to protect themselves against rape, STDs, and AIDS. They do not know what
is natural for their bodies, and their inexperience renders them vulnerable. In a survey of 17 SubSaharan countries, over half of all teenage girls could not name a method of protection against
18
Burn, 50, 351, 355.
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HIV transmission.19 This is astounding to think about! Many poor women rely only on
government family planning programs for their knowledge and reproductive supplies. Some
women live for years without having any knowledge of what birth control is, especially if they
live in remote locations.
International trends also affect African women’s access to birth control. In 2002, George
W. Bush withheld $34 million going to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for family
planning programs. This money could have prevented two million unwanted pregnancies, 4,700
maternal deaths, 60,000 cases of maternal illnesses and 77,000 cases of infant and child death. In
2001 Bush also restricted the amount of money that NGOs could spend in 56 countries providing
legal abortion services and family planning advice.20 The implications of these two decisions
have proven catastrophic for many in developing nations.
Finally, women’s access to birth control is restricted because of religion.
Fundamentalists, (who view women’s solitary role as being mothers in the home), if in control of
the government, often restrict access to contraception and abortion. Politically active
fundamentalists in developed nations also campaign to reduce foreign aid that advocates family
planning. This ends up hurting many developing nations that count on the aid they receive from
the international community. Catholicism also plays a large role in hindering reproductive
advances. The Catholic Church is officially against birth control, and the only allowed form of
contraception is the “rhythm” or calendar method.21
It is vital for the reduction of poverty that women are educated and allowed access to
birth control methods. If women are able to choose the number of children they want, they will
be better able to care for their families. The standard of living will increase dramatically for the
19
20
21
Ibid., 57-60.
Ibid., 59.
Ibid., 63.
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family, and the children will become less of a burden suppressing the family. Children will be
better nourished and more likely to thrive. It is also vital for women to be educated about the
methods of contraception available so they won’t be tricked or forced into sterilization, a process
known as coercive antinatalism. Governments will often compel women to use methods of birth
control that, while usually the most effective, are also unfortunately the most dangerous.
Governments use false promises of money to lure women into irreversible operations that cause
either pain or regret. Allowing access to birth control also will decrease the number of abortions.
High abortion rates are tied closely to areas with no contraceptive information or availability.
While the topic of abortion is a controversial one, few people would object to lowering the
amount of abortions.
Enabling women to have access to birth control will also halt the AIDS epidemic that is
crippling many regions in Africa. AIDS is now one of the leading causes of death in sub-Saharan
Africa for women between the ages of 20 and 40.22 When parents become infected with AIDS,
they become too sick to work. Not only does the family lose precious income, but the remaining
money usually goes to caring for the infected (leaving little money for food or supplies for the
children). When the parents die, they leave thousands of orphans to roam the streets, begging
every day to survive. While organizations like ZOE Ministry, a Christian group that provides
education, food, training, and support in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya and Rwanda, attempt to
integrate the orphans back into society, it is very difficult to help them overcome their
situation.23 Having to either care for younger siblings or try to find work, there is no time for
education, reinforcing the cycle of poverty.
22
23
Ibid., 138.
ZOE Ministry: Giving Hope to Orphans in Africa, http://www.zoeministry.org/.
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When educating women about their contraceptive options, the main concern has to be
about women’s health, not just reducing the population growth rate. Attitudes that are only
concerned with numbers can result in policies similar to those taken in China, where strict legal
punishment is prescribed for having too many children. When passing out information, it is
important that families have several different options and places to obtain family planning
advice. When only one sector of society, say the government, is allowed a monopoly on
reproductive information, families may not connect with the information that they need. By
working through the government, banks, and religious organizations, women are much more
likely to come into contact with adequate help. Fathers also need to learn to be content with
having daughters. Without imposing Western culture on African communities, girls must be
valued and allowed the opportunity to thrive and obtain an education. Perhaps once this is done,
men will not feel the need to continually reproduce until they have a number of sons.
The final way that women can rise out of poverty is by being educated about their
economic opportunities and given development advice. One of the biggest hindrances to women
advancing economically is that they are not counted as part of the official labor force. Work has
traditionally been viewed “in terms of participation in the paid labor force.”24 Women do most of
their labor within the household, and as a result, they are not targeted for development assistance.
In 1990, multi-lateral banks allocated $5.8 billion for rural credit to developing nations. Only
five percent of this reached rural women.25 Historically, gender equality has not been considered
by most development programs; they focus on men’s labor. These programs assume that men are
the breadwinners of the family. As a result, economic growth doesn’t necessarily mean that
women are improving their status; the poverty gap widens. When women are offered
24
25
Ibid., 140.
Staudt, 118.
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development assistance, they are forced into gender-stereotyped occupations, such as needlework
or sewing. These projects usually fail, or are not viable options for the long-term.26
Since females are not usually educated about economic matters, widowed or divorced
women become extremely vulnerable to poverty. With no way of providing for them, they
become a burden on the community and must beg for a living. This problem is aggravated by the
fact that women do not own usually own land.27 No one is more insecure than a landless woman.
They are subject to the authority of the state, their religion, their families, and their husbands. 28
Women make up a huge part of the agricultural sector (comprising 60-80%). However, in most
agricultural institutions, women and their role in agricultural production are not studied. Women
aren’t focused on in research, and do not make up a large portion of the staff or management.
Policies either under-estimate or are oblivious to the amount of female labor that occurs daily
(including unpaid work and subsistence farming). Women’s lack of control over the land, their
training programs, and the amount of subsidies that they can obtain limit the fairness of the
prices they receive. They have little to no negotiating power.29
There are several other obstacles to women being able to work. By continually having
children, women do not have the time, ability, or strength to focus on economic projects or
working outside the home (the use of birth control could free some of their time). Women have
to be subject to their husbands’ wishes. If men do not deem it appropriate to be in the work force,
women have no choice but to listen. Perceived dangers at the workplace, as well as many
26
27
28
29
Burn, 135-145.
Ibid, 149.
Bornstein, 139.
Staudt, 107-109.
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discriminatory obstacles, prevent them from obtaining employment. Education gaps keep women
from being qualified, and guards often prevent them from entering places of employment.30
Despite the many hardships women face when seeking employment and economic
opportunity, it is crucial that women are given development education. Like previously stated,
women are more directly invested in the needs of their children than men. Women spend a
higher percentage of their incomes on their children and the household than men, since they deal
with poverty on a daily basis. When women contribute more to the family income, their status is
raised and they feel a sense of empowerment. Women will experience increasing negotiating
ability within the home, able to make important decisions jointly with their spouses.31 This
increase in respect often will provide safer environments for them, decreasing the likelihood of
abuse, violence, and discrimination.
One way women should get more involved in the economy is by joining micro-finance
organizations. These credit programs allow women to take out small loans to start projects of
their own design. It is vital that women are in charge of creating their own development projects,
because when women come up with the ideas themselves, they are much more likely to follow
the project through, succeed, and eventually take out other loans. Women have micro-loan
repayment rates of 90%, and many of these loan projects have been extremely successful. When
women participate in these credit programs, more contraception is used and family diets become
more nutritious. This is due to women’s increased empowerment and autonomy after providing
income for the family.32 The projects that women focus on need to provide opportunities for
upward mobility, and should include resources that women are already knowledgeable about.
30
31
32
Ibid., 102.
Ibid., 124.
Burn, 148-149.
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These projects could include anything from growing sunflowers and raising cows33 to selling
soap, furniture, and shoes.34
Africa should strive to set up micro-finance projects like the Grameen Bank in
Bangladesh. This bank works almost entirely with women, giving them small loans and holding
the members accountable for the money by placing them in peer accountability groups. The
strongest pressure to repay loans comes not from the bank itself, but from social pressure. The
bank runs by the “bubble-up” theory: “rather than injecting capital into the economy at the
altitude of corporate investors... it was injected at ground level, as loans to the poor.”35 With this
approach, the poorest begin to gain purchasing power, and a ripple of fiscal success moves up the
economic ladder instead of down.
When training programs are attached to these micro-enterprise projects, women can
simultaneously learn about birth control, health issues, and be trained in managing/technical
skills. There is currently a desperate need for women in management, organizational roles, and
marketing. If girls can break through the stereotypes and be educated in math and science as
well, there would be a fairly high demand for their labor source. However, it is vital that women
are trained and given practical skills. Jobs cannot be guaranteed in all academic fields. 36
Economic training programs are often successful in raising women’s economic power
and improving their home lives. Etetu Zewdie, an Ethiopian woman who completed a carpet
weaving training program (and now works for the training center, called Bethlehem), ended up
being sent to school. She now has several marketable skills, being able to make floor carpet,
tapestries, and wall hangings. As a result, she has enough money to provide for her two children
33
34
35
36
Snyder, 185.
Ibid., 67.
Bornstein, 24.
Snyder, 67, 183.
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and husband. Programs like Bethlehem, that train women in job skills, provide education, and
give general advice, are very successful because they take an interdisciplinary approach to
raising a woman’s standard of living.37
A continent with so many economic, gender, and health problems, Africa needs to find a
way out of its cycle of poverty. The best way to do this is by educating women, giving them a
general, primary education, information about birth control, and economic and development
skills. One organization that works to improve women’s lives is Heifer International. Heifer
International provides families with animals to raise, use, and sell, allowing them to earn extra
income to send their children to school, get more nutritious food, and learn marketing skills.
Organizations like Heifer International help meet Africans’ needs without imposing an outsider’s
view on what should be done.38
At the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, Hillary Clinton said
“What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families
will flourish... If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society,
their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well.”39
For Africa to truly flourish, we need to come together as an international community, providing
support for women’s education.
37
38
39
Ibid., 108.
Heifer International, http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.183217/.
Khoo, 39.
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Works Cited
Bornstein, D. (1996). The Price of a Dream. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Burn, M. S. (2005). Women Across Cultures: A Global Perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Heifer International. http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.183217/.
Khoo, H. E. (2010). Educate girls, eradicate poverty: a mutually reinforcing goal. UN Chronicle
1, 37-39.
Sandhaas, B. (2008). The integrated women’s empowering programme (IWEP) as an example
for establishing basic structures of a nationwide adult education system in a poor country.
Convergence, 41(2-3), 99-132.
Snyder, M. C., & Tadesse, M. (1995). African Women and Development: A History. London:
Emily Zed Books.
Staudt, K. (1998) Policy, Politics & Gender: Women Gaining Ground. Connecticut: Kumarian
Press.
United Nations Development Fund for Women (n.d.). Facts and Figures on Women, Poverty,
space sand Economics. Retrieved from http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/
women_poverty_economics/facts_figures.php.
ZOE Ministry. Giving hope to orphans in Africa. http://www.zoeministry.org/.