Yoruba: Gender in Their Culture (2023) (2023)

Yoruba: gender in their culture

There are three main ethnic groups in Nigeria: Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo. I am going to talk about the Yoruba people and their culture, who make up twenty-one percent of the population of Nigeria (Ember 1624). Some quick facts about this ethnic group include that their spoken language is Yoruba, they live in the southeastern region of Nigeria called Yorubaland, and are also based in Togo and Benin (Ember 1624). While all these facts are interesting and good to know, I will focus on gender in Yoruba culture. I believe that exposure to the western world influenced gender roles in Yoruba culture. I will cover Yoruba gender roles compared to other countries, gender roles in marriage, the influence of religion in the construction of gender roles, gender in government, and the gender perspective on children.

Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí argues that gender is a Western idea introduced to the Yoruba people and that the Yoruba people had no concept of gender before. One of his arguments is that there are no specific words related to gender. Other scholars, such as Olajubu, disagree, saying that the Yoruba people have allowed gender to play an important role in religion and traditions. She says that sex is a natural thing and gender is a constructed classification term. I think this ties into the nature vs. nurture argument that while human nature is learned through teaching and observation, something can be natural and we are born with it. One argument that brings a new perspective to this two-sided debate is that gender does matter, but not in the way our society sees it, that is, as male or female. So which is the truth: have the Yoruba people always allowed gender to play a role in their culture, or were they taught to do so by Westerners?

To get this answer, I started reading about the differences in gender normality in different countries. I found that people in more than 16 countries believe that men have the first right to work, that they believe that men are better suited for political office, and that women should have children to feel fulfilled (Weziak-Bialowolska). With the Yoruba, I found that gender roles among the Yoruba were changing more and more as time changed and more outside influences came into contact with the Yoruba. I don't think they negatively affected women. I think they gave women more opportunities to have the careers they wanted. According to McIntosh in his bookYoruba women, work and social changeShe summarizes that women played independent roles in agriculture and commerce until colonial notions of "women's jobs" changed women's career paths (McIntosh). In a review of McIntosh's book, another scholar, Insa Nolte, concluded that "Yoruba women adapted their skills to support more widespread cultural beliefs while continuing their domestic roles" (Nolte).

Speaking of domestic roles, an interesting place to study is marriages and the traditions of the Yoruba culture regarding gender roles. In Yoruba, both sexes are expected to marry at the age considered appropriate by society, women in their twenties and men in their thirties. A woman's place in society was once based on being the daughter of her father and one of them

Wives in the lineage of her husband (Denzer). A woman was considered the property of the family she married and passed to a brother when her husband died, or the family was entitled to any children she had (Johnson). One thing that seems to have changed is that in pre-colonial times divorce was not common and today a man has the privilege of divorcing his wife (Johnson). According to Johnson, the Yoruba traditionally lived monogamously and polygamy was reserved for the wealthy. This is no longer the case today. A good example of the expression of polygamy is the Ooni of Ife. The leader of the Yoruba people, King Ojaja, has three wives and a recent divorce would have made his fourth wife (Oonirisa.org). Obviously there has been an increase in polygamous marriages and I think this is due to the encounter with new religions during colonialism.

Let's explore the impact religion has on gender roles. Fifty percent of the residents of Nigeria are Muslims, forty percent are Christians, and ten percent practice refined religions (Ember). The greatest finds of Muslim and Christian followers can be found in the Yoruba ethnic group. It is interesting that in the Yoruba religion, women are usually the most respected traditional priests (embers). In Africa, specifically the Yoruba, we must understand that the Yoruba people worship many gods that have not been assigned a gender (peel). The influence of other religions began to help differentiate and define gender. Christian herders and Muslim babalawo were predominantly men. One consequence of this primary gender being the head of the religion is that the Yoruba people began to establish a hierarchy in religion based on gender (peel). At a certain point in history, a woman had to pray to her husband.When aand find their spiritual destiny through their husbands (Peel). Based on this, she would say that religion has influenced gender roles in Yoruba culture simply by making people aware of gender and its hierarchy in certain religions.

Finally, what role does gender play in the governance of your society? To answer that question, we first need to know what kind of government they have."Yoruba history and politics in Nigeria are more dynamic than static."This is how the author Falola, who deals with African affairs, described the Yoruba government (Yoruba identity). How is this possible, you ask? There are three types of litigation courts in Yoruba. The first court systems were the usual local level courts. Men were expected to sit on one side and women on the other, each voting on public issues (Yoruba legal systems). This court deals primarily with family and property matters. The second and next level is the District Court, which is based on the British system where higher legal matters were dealt with and linked to the state system of government and hierarchy (Mary M. Johnson). The last and third level of the system of government of her is based on the Islamic legal system instead of an active position, since there is no predominantly Muslim community (Yoruba legal systems). So we can see that women, at least in their government and courts, have equal attendance and voting rights and the influence of the British and Islamic legal systems does not alter this fact.

Do your beliefs or lack of beliefs about gender affect the way your children are raised or treated? Men show a superiority over their female counterparts, who are often relegated to the background. Therefore, women are at a great disadvantage in social, political, economic and religious terms, since decisions are predominantly made by women rather than men. (Ubrure). Scholar and author Olabode, who wrote about the birthrights of girls in Africa, is quoted as saying:

Once a child is born, the question that will be asked will focus on gender and not on the health of the mother. If the baby is female, the mother will be scolded and treated as an idle and useless woman. On the other hand, if the child is a boy, the mother is praised without taking into account that biology has shown that it is the father who determines the sex of an offspring (Olabode).

I think this is a great example of how women are disadvantaged from birth and seen as "less than" male children who are celebrated and praised. A mythological story from their culture describes the Yoruba belief that women are inferior to the cunning and overwhelming man. "She had a whip in her hand. She changed her voice to aBoneget dressed. when odu saw thatBonein the new form he was afraid. This is how men skillfully subdued women.” (Olajubu). I also understand that men may have feared the power of women and felt threatened enough to try to control them. I believe that the balance of power between the genders is a global problem and this is an example of it in the Yoruba culture.

In closing, I would like to reiterate that I believe that Western influence has changed gender roles in Yoruba culture. I can't say if there were slight gender limitations before the Western influence or not, and I can't say if the influence was for the better or for the worse. However, I believe that "gender" has certainly become a concept in Yoruba and the roles have changed based on the research and data I have collected. If anything can be said with certainty, it is that the concept of gender in Yoruba is far from being a uniquely defined idea. Gender roles are changing and flow with all aspects of your culture, from marriage to religion to government.

bibliography

• Denzer, Laray. "Yoruba Women: A Historiographical Study".From the International Journal of African Historical Studies27.1 (1994): 1-39. Red.
• Ember, Melvin. and Ember, Carol R. Lands and Their Cultures / Melvin Ember and Carol R. Ember, editors. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Network.
• Falola, Toyin., Genova, Ann, and Perspectives on Yoruba Historical Culture. The Yoruba in Transition: History, Values, and Modernity / Edited by Toyin Falola and Ann Genova. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic, 2006. Print.
• Falola, Toyín. and Genoa, Ann.Yoruba identity and power politics / Edited by Toyin Falola and Ann Genova.Rochester, NY: University of Rochester, 2006. Drucken. Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora, [v. 22].
• Familusi, O.O. "African Culture and the Status of Women: The Yoruba Example".Journal of Pan-African Studies5.1 (2012): 299. Web.
• Johnson, Samuel y Johnson, O.The history of the Yorubas from the earliest times to the beginning of the British protectorate. G. Routledge & Sons, 1921. Web.
• María M. Johnson. „Yoruba Legal Systems“ Journal of Law and Judicial System, 1(3), S. 1-2
• McIntosh, Marjorie Keniston. Mujeres yoruba, trabajo y cambio social / Marjorie Keniston McIntosh. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana UP, 2009. Drucken.
• Mercader, Julio, Raquel Marti, Jayne Wilkins, and Kentd. bird hunter “The Eastern Periphery of the Yoruba Cultural Sphere. Pottery from the lowland rainforests of southwestern Cameroon.” Current Anthropology 47.1 (2006): 173-84. Grid.
• Nolte, Insa. „Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.“Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Bd. 73, no. 3, 2010, pp. 107-1 568–570.JSTOR, JSTOR,www.jstor.org/stable/40963348.
• Olabode B.O. “African Gender Myth in Proverbs and Verbal Discourses; A case study of the Yoruba in southwestern Nigeria” in Kehinde, A. (ed.)Gender and development: essential reading,Ibadan: Hope Publications (2009).
• Olajubu, Oyeronke. "Seeing Through a Woman's Eyes: Yoruba Religious Tradition and Gender Relations".Journal of Feminist Religious Studies20.1 (2004): 41-60. Red.
• Oyewumimi, Oyeronke.The Invention of Woman: Understanding Western African Gender Discourses / Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí.Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 1997. Print.
• Peel, JDY "Sex in Yoruba religious change." Journal of Religion in Africa 32.2 (2002): 136-66. Grid.
• Ubrurhe, J.O. "Cultural religion and feminism: hermeneutic problem" in Ifie, E. (ed.)deal with culture, Ibadan: Oputuru Books (1999)
• Weziak-Bialowolska, Dorota. “Differences in gender norms between countries: are they valid? The measure invariance problem.European Population Magazine = Revue europeenne de demographieBd. 31 (2014): 51-76.

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