Online Reporter
Alice Tagwira
Beyond the Boundaries
To understand the current state of gender dynamics in Africa, one must first perform an archaeological dig through the layers of Victorian morality and colonial legislation that were forcibly laid over the continent’s indigenous structures.
The popular narrative — often a by-product of colonial education — suggests that gender equality is a “Western import” brought to save African women from “primitive” patriarchy.
The historical reality is exactly the inverse: in many parts of pre-colonial Africa, women held political, economic and spiritual authority that European women of the same era could scarcely imagine.
The colonial project did not simply steal land and minerals; it performed a systematic “gender lobotomy” on African societies, replacing fluid, dual-sex political systems with the rigid, male-dominated hierarchy of the European metropole.
In many pre-colonial African societies, the concept of a “family name” followed the mother’s bloodline. This was not a mere sentimental gesture; it was a foundational legal and economic reality.
Among the Ashanti of Ghana, the Bijagós of Guinea-Bissau, and the Bemba of Zambia, lineage (abusua) was determined exclusively through the womb.
In these systems, a child did not belong to the father’s house, but to the mother’s.
Consequently, property, land rights and political titles were transmitted through the female line. A man’s primary heirs were not his own biological children, but his sister’s children.
This “avunculate” system ensured that women remained the permanent anchors of the family’s wealth and identity. Their names were not “erased” upon marriage; rather, the man often moved into the woman’s village (matrilocality), and his presence there was conditional upon his contribution to her lineage.
The colonisers viewed this with absolute horror. Victorian administrators, steeped in the belief that a man must be the “head” of the house, viewed matrilineal inheritance as “unnatural” and “confusing.” Colonial courts began to forcibly shift inheritance laws to favour sons over sisters, effectively disinheriting generations of women and stripping them of their ancestral land rights.
Pre-colonial African governance was often a “dual-sex” system, a concept coined by the renowned Nigerian sociologist Ife Amadiume in her seminal work, “Male Daughters, Female Husbands.” Unlike the European “winner-takes-all” male model, many African polities operated with parallel tracks of authority.
The Omu of Anioma: In Igboland, the Omu (Queen) was not the King’s wife; she was a monarch in her own right, governing the marketplace and overseeing the spiritual welfare of the community. She had her own cabinet and her own jurisdiction.
The Kandake of Kush: The Nubian “Candaces” were warrior-queens who commanded armies and led their nation’s diplomacy.
The Queen Mothers of the Asante: To this day, an Asante King (Asantehene) cannot be crowned without the approval of the Queen Mother (Asantehemaa). She is the “king-maker” because she is the keeper of the royal bloodline.
When the British and French arrived, they refused to negotiate with women. In their patriarchal worldview, a leader was, by definition, male.
Colonial officials looked for “chiefs” to act as tax collectors and administrative lackeys. Even in societies where women held the primary authority, the colonisers appointed men to “Warrant Chief” positions, effectively inventing a male-dominated hierarchy where none had existed.
The economic destruction of African womanhood was achieved through the introduction of a cash-crop economy and the European concept of the “breadwinner.”
Before colonialism, African women were the primary farmers and traders. They controlled the markets—the literal heart of African economic life.
However, colonial agricultural “experts” only taught modern farming techniques to men, providing them with credit and tools while relegating women’s farming to “subsistence” labour.
Furthermore, the introduction of European law (such as the Married Women’s Property Acts) initially treated African women as legal minors under the guardianship of their husbands or fathers. The colonisers successfully transformed the African woman from an autonomous economic agent and spiritual leader into a “dependent” whose only valid contribution was domestic labor and biological reproduction.
The Igbo Women’s War (1929): Often mislabelled by the British as a “riot,” this was a sophisticated, cross-ethnic political uprising by thousands of women.
They were protesting the colonial government’s attempt to tax women—an act that threatened their economic independence. They used traditional methods of “sitting on a man” (public shaming and singing) to challenge colonial authority.
Genderless Language: In many African languages, such as Yoruba, there were no gender-specific pronouns (no “he” or “she”) and no gendered words for “son” or “daughter” before colonial contact.
Power was determined by seniority and lineage, not by the presence or absence of a Y-chromosome.
The Dahomey Amazons (Mino): The kingdom of Dahomey (modern-day Benin) possessed an all-female military regiment. They weren’t just a ceremonial guard; they were the elite frontline troops. The French soldiers who eventually faced them in the 1890s were shocked by their ferocity and tactical brilliance.
The patriarchy we see in Africa today is, in many ways, a “colonial hangover.” It is the result of a deliberate, centuries-long project to domesticate the African woman and silence the Matriarch. To reclaim African gender equality is not to copy the West; it is to remember the South.
It is to remember that before the border lines were drawn in Berlin in 1884, African women were already the architects of their own civilisations, the owners of their own land, and the keepers of the names that held the world together
