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.

Heji Shin's Kanye West's Kunsthalle Zurich Gallery Show: "I Knew People Would Hate This Exhibition"

Artist Heji Shin is no stranger to controversy, writes Tom Waite for Dazed.

“I knew people would hate this exhibition,” the artist says.

Shin is currently showing some of her newest works at the Kunsthalle Zurich gallery, with an exhibition featuring nine larger-than-life injet portraits of Kanye West. The two separate prints are pasted together and printed directly onto the gallery’s walls.

Why do people hate the exhibition, according to Shin? “This desire to have art to meet their moral and political standards has always existed. Today, more than ever, art is considered as the ultimate validation.”

The artist’s Kanye portraits express a rebellion to political correctness sweeping the art world.

After meeting Kanye in Chicago, she joined him in rural Uganda, with a generally detached attitude about the rapper’s comments about slavery, his idolizing of Donald Trump or his often incoherent tweets. The actual images were shot in 10 minutes in LA.

Shin’s disinterest in Kanye’s political attitudes changed quickly when I saw people getting really mad. I was interested in how the media portrayed him all of the sudden, “when he expressed his opinion.”

“Is that art?” one commenter on the Kunsthalle Zurich Instagram writes, while another exclaims: “We love it! Kanye is bigger than God!!!”

A scholarly tweet: “His work may be far beyond the scope of my art history and theory training I received while in school. As far as I can tell the purpose of this work is to simply elicit the feelings of contempt for every party involved in this work.” is followed by “Fuck this garbage.”

Kanye made Shin her own MAGA-inspired New York Yankees cap with ‘make New York gay again’ on the brim. Even that act crazed the digital culture and they attacked her. artNet writes: She says the hat is about making a stand against politically correct culture. “My work wouldn’t be possible if I restricted myself in these terms,” she says. “I don’t even understand how somebody can possibly think this is about gay rights. What has Trump got to do with gay rights?” (Hmmm . . . actually Trump has quite a lot to do with gay rights, and his vice president has even more to do with it!”

“He-Ji Shin raises the question of portraiture today, and therefore addresses the difficult business of intimacy and exposure as they are undergoing a radical reevaluation in the context of social media,” says the institution’s director and curator, Daniel Baumann.  artNet sums up the point of the Kanye West images this way:

Shin and West seem to be a good match, both willing to stir the pot and and unafraid to annoy their audiences. It all begs the question: is the art world as tolerant of taboo as it imagines itself to be?

German-Korean photographer Heji Shins solo exhibition runs through February 2, 2019.

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