Why Age Gives West African Women More Autonomy and Power

Image via US Aid Leadership, Management & Governance Project

By Marijke Verpoorten, Associate Professor, University of Antwerp, and Sahawal Alidou, PhD candidate and teaching assistant, University of Antwerp. First published on The Conversation.

Several studies, covering about 58 countries across the world, found that as women get older they are more able to make decisions independently of men. But scholars have struggled to pin down explanations for this age dividend – why are women given more independence the older they get? We wanted to know what the reasons may be.

In a recent study, we looked at women’s autonomy across age in Nigeria, Togo, Ghana and Benin. These four West African countries are home to ethnic groups that practice “voodoo”, a religion that spread with the expansion of the Dahomey kingdom in the 17th century.

In these countries women are not equal to men. They sometimes won’t be able to make decisions about their own health – like negotiating safe sex – or on how household incomes could be used.

In our sample of 21,000 women aged 15 to 49, we found that autonomy in household decision-making increases with age. This was especially true for women who belonged to the four “voodoo-ethnicities”: Fon, Ewe, Adja and Yoruba. We also found that women had even more power if they are menopaused.

Our findings suggest that both age and magico-religious beliefs have a huge role to play in a woman’s independence. Menopaused women from “voodoo-ethnicities” are much more independent to make decisions on how they spend their own earnings, care for their own health, visit family or relatives and what major household purchases need to be made.

These insights are important for female empowerment strategies. To be effective, policies must identify potential agents of change who can, for instance, influence decisions that improve children’s schooling and nutrition or abolish female genital cutting. Despite their apparent agency, elderly women in West Africa have largely been overlooked.

West African queens of Dahomey, now Benin. These fierce fighters were also called the Dahomey Amazons. This image is likely taken 1900-1912. Photo: Francois-Edmond Fortier.

Voodoo and Menopause

So, why do women gain more independence the older they get, and especially if they are of voodoo-ethnicities and menopaused?

We analysed data on 21,000 women and their ability to make various decisions. We found that women’s autonomy was related to menstrual bleeding, particularly for voodoo-ethnicities. This was further explored in Benin, the birth place of Voodoo, where we conducted interviews with voodoo priests and menopaused women.

As one woman said:

[Women in menopause] are equipped with supernatural powers. Only she can talk to the ancestors and request their help, assistance and protection. And they respond to her worship and requests, not everyone can do that.

In the interviews we gathered that voodoo adherents worship collective deities (related to the sea, the earth, or thunder) and family deities: ancestors that turn into spirits after death.

The interactions with the family deities are led by a menopaused woman, referred to as the “Tassinon”. Only she can transmit the family members’ prayers and requests to the ancestors and consult the oracle to see if the spirits have accepted the offering and sacrifices.

These alleged powers, in their turn, increase the bargaining power of elderly women in their communities and households.

In situations where the supernatural power of menopaused women has faded, the cultural norm derived from it – increased awe for elderly women – persists.

Our analysis shows that the “Tassinon effect” is sizeable. We created an autonomy index – which looked at a combination of different situations where decisions had to be made and who made them – to measure this and found that it increased their ability to make decisions by about 10%.

As one woman said:

My opinion matters now in all important decisions or issues in the family and in my community. It was not the case before my designation as tassinon. I could not even attend or talk in certain audiences.

Our research provides support for the argument put forward in the African feminist literature, that seniority trumps gender in an African context.

Nigerian women callling for gender equality on International Women’s Day 2017.

It also adds to the evidence that voodoo continues to play a role in West-Africa. Adherence to voodoo has been proven to affect the governance of natural resources. For instance fishermen who adhere to voodoo are more likely to respect rules related to prohibited fishing gear. It also affects the uptake of preventive health care; for instance because mothers who adhere to voodoo will rely on traditional healers, they may not immunise their children. Now we know that voodoo also affects the level of independence women have in some communities.

The Way Ahead

A better understanding of cultural attitudes towards elderly African women will become more important for policymakers in the future. As fertility declines and life expectancy increases, elderly women will increase in numbers, both in absolute and relative terms. They could play an important role as agents of change in supporting both child care and female empowerment projects.

For instance in Benin the respect for elderly women is already relied upon in interventions targeting children’s health and nutrition, and in the abolishment of female genital cutting. This could be reinforced and extended to other sectors and to other countries.

Will Londone Myers and Models of Color Have Better Black Hair Support For Fall 2018 Fashion Shows?

Londone Myers by Alexi Lubomirski for Harper's US February 2018

Rising model Londone Myers must be thrilled with her femme solo editorial 'Global Style' in the February 2018 issue of Harper's Bazaar US. The images document what I feel is a significant rise in the positive presence of women of color on the runway, in ads and headlining fashion editorials. 

Fine, reports Londone, but we still have issues. 

Writing for Teen Vogue in early October, 2017, Tess Garcia connected with Londone after this Instagram post documenting her Paris Fashion Week backstage experience. "The post’s caption reads, “I don't need special treatment from anyone. What I need is for hairstylists to learn how to do black hair. I'm so tired of people avoiding doing my hair at shows. How dare you try to send me down the runway with a linty busted afro. We all know if you tried that on a white model you'd be #canceled If one doesn't stand we all fall. If it isn't my fro it'll probably be yours.”

“No explanation was given at all,” she said. “There isn’t really much confronting you can do with these hairstylists. I’m not going to chastise [them], but [they] still don’t know what to do with natural hair. The other black girls at the show spoke French, so I was kind of on my own. I simply asked around the room for who did black hair multiple times and was cast aside, until they sat me in this guy’s chair who tried to send me off looking unpolished, like the other [black] girls. One of the other black models saw all of the lint in my hair and was surprised.”

“I think at moments like these we need each other as POC [in fashion]. We need a good support system within our small group- and to give a helping hand when we can,” Londone explained. “Just like Naomi paved the way for us, we should help out other girls. Even if that means handing out some edge control to another girl or helping another girl pick lint if they see any on another girl.”

The issue of natural hair ineptitude or "discrimination" as Londone sees it confirms the reality that the fashion and beauty industries still have a long way to go when it comes to fully embracing the beauty needs of people of color.

“Sometimes it really does feel like the industry just likes to categorize us by skin tone and make us feel like there is only room for one black model at a time,” said Londone. “We need to get rid of that mindset because there is room enough for all of us.”

On a side-note, Yale University's Women's Campaign School reports that 25 years later, the median age for women attending the school has dropped from mid-40s to around 30. Also different now, says Patricia Russo, who leads the school, the majority of those who enroll in the school are women of color.

Simply stated -- and thrillingly so -- women of color are on the march all over America in the terrible time of Trump. So the fashion and beauty industries in New York, London, Paris and Milan had best get their act together to meet the needs of these focused, deadly-serious young women on the move in the fashion industry. ~ Anne

Queen Elizabeth II & Ghana President Nkrumah In A 1961 Diplomat Foxtrot Watched In Black & White

(L) The real-life foxtrot between Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah and Queen Elizabeth II and (R) 'The Crown's' version of the splendid dance featuring actors Claire Foy as Elizabeth II and Danny Sapan as Nkrumah

Who knew! In season 2, episode 8 of 'The Crown' Dear Mrs Kennedy, the geopolitics of the Cold War collide with Queen Elizabeth's pondering her private insecurities as monarch with the rising popular evangelicalism of America's Reverand Billy Graham, the global popularity of The Kennedys and the crumbling of the British Empire.  

Queen Elizabeth meets Jackie Kennedy, who seemingly has every male in Europe trailing and fantasizing about her every move, and hears through the grapevine some very unflattering comments made about her averageness. Mrs. Kennedy -- who later apologizes and says she was under pep drugs at the time -- referenced Elizabeth's inability to inspire Britain, let alone an empire breaking away from her influence. 

Claire Foy is fantastic here, fully capturing the naive insights of a woman unused to making honest personal connections; then thinking she had made a connection with Jackie Kennedy in the privacy of her private quarters and corgis, and then Elizabeth's devastation on hearing about Jackie’s unkind comments at a later gathering.

An opportunity for Queen Elizabeth to redeem herself in her own eyes and those in-the-know about the diplomatic incident between the two women presents itself in the Ghanaian capital of Accra. President Kwame Nkrumah has announced his intention to lead his newly independent nation into a strategic alliance with Communist Russia, a harsh reality realized with Russia has outbidding the US in helping Ghana to build the Volta Dam.

Queen Elizabeth arriving on her hstory-making trip to Ghana.

It’s thrilling to see Elizabeth rise to the occasion, becoming an active, independent agent as opposed to a passive observer of her life, buffeted by events and people acting out of her control on the world stage. Defying her Prime Minister, her advisers, the British press and even her husband, Elizabeth travels to Ghana with a single-minded goal. The Queen will bring the Ghana back into the Commonwealth by any means necessary -- and that includes a foxtrot. Note that in real life, PM Harold Macmillan did champion Elizabeth II going to Ghana, believing she could be his "charm offensive."

In consenting to a foxtrot -- yes, it happened for real -- with Nkrumah, Elizabeth II achieves more in a few minutes than British diplomats dealing with the young nation have managed to achieve in weeks. The dance scene itself is quite dazzling, as Elizabeth finds her Jackie-O side. Comparing the images from 'The Crown' above and the real-life photos below,  there is more physical space between the couple in the real-life dance -- if these images don't distort the truth. And we must always remember that 'The Crown' is a fictionalized account of history, viewed through the lens of the British Empire and Britain's crumbling monarchy.  

In reality, the Akosombo Dam was completed in 1965, in a project jointly financed by Ghana, the World Bank, the United States and the United Kingdom. Few sources -- even those who write that 'The Crown' is racist ( well SURE it is, given that colonialism was racist) -- debate that this foxtrot between Elizabeth II and President Kwame Nkrumah -- The Lion of Africa --was a diplomatic success on multiple fronts.

Here we have actual footage from the Queen's visit to northern Ghana. Note that there is hardly a woman in sight, except for Elizabeth II.