‘Gender hates men’: untangling gender and development discourses in food security fieldwork in urban Malawi

Abstract

This article examines the social construction and contestation of gender and gender roles in the city of Blantyre in Malawi. In fieldwork on gendered household roles related to food security, interviews with men and women revealed a distinct set of connotations with the word gender, which reflected Malawians’ historical and contemporary engagement with concepts of development, modernity, and human rights. We denote the Malawian concept of gender as gender in order to distinguish the word participants used in interviews from the more widely accepted conventional definition. We then use this distinction to highlight the ways in which ideas of gender equality have been introduced and received in the Malawian context. The urban setting of the research is key to drawing out the association of gender with Westernization, bringing into focus the power dynamics inherent in the project of translating global discourses of gender rights and gender equality into meaningful social change in developing countries. Gender in Malawi denotes a top-down (and outside-in) process of framing Malawi’s goals for gender equality. This creates political constraints both in the form of resistance to gender, because it resonates with a long history of social change imposed by outside forces, and in the form of superficial adherence to gender to appear more urban and modern, especially to a Western researcher. Local understandings of gender as gender undermine efforts to promote gender equality as a means to address Malawi’s intense urban poverty and household food insecurity.

Resumen

Este artículo analiza la construcción social y la disputa de género y los roles de género en la ciudad de Blantire en Malaui. En el trabajo de campo sobre los roles generizados en el hogar en relación con la seguridad alimentaria, entrevistas con hombres y mujeres revelaron un conjunto distintivo de connotaciones con la palabra género, las cuales reflejaban el envolvimiento histórico y contemporáneo de los malauíes con los conceptos de desarrollo, modernidad, y derechos humanos. Denotamos el concepto malauí de género como género con el objetivo de distinguir la palabra que lxs participantes utilizan en las entrevistas de la definición convencional más ampliamente aceptada. Luego utilizamos esta distinción para destacar las formas en que las ideas de igualdad de género se han presentado y recibido en el contexto malauí. El contexto urbano de la investigación es clave para identificar la asociación de género con la occidentalización, poniendo en foco la dinámica de poder inherente del proyecto de traducir los discursos globales de los derechos de género y la igualdad de género a cambios sociales significativos en los países en desarrollo. Género, en Malaui, denota un proceso vertical de arriba hacia abajo (y de afuera hacia adentro) de definición de los objetivos malauíes de la igualdad de género. Esto crea limitaciones políticas en la forma de resistencia al género, porque resuena con una larga historia de un cambio social impuesto por las fuerzas exteriores, y también en la forma de la adherencia superficial al género para parecer más urbana y moderna, especialmente a un/a investigador/a occidental. Las formas locales de entender el género como género socavan los esfuerzos por promover la igualdad de género como una manera de abordar la intensa pobreza urbana y la inseguridad alimentaria en el hogar de Malaui.

摘要

本文检视马拉威的布兰岱市中，性别与性别角色的社会建构与争夺。在针对粮食安全的性别化家户角色的田野工作中，对男性及女性的访谈，揭露了有关”性别”一词一系列的特殊意涵，反映出马拉威人对于发展、现代性及人权概念的历史及当代涉入。我们以”性别”指涉马拉威人的性别概念，以此区分参与者在访谈时所使用的该词彙和更广为接受的一般定义。我们接着使用此一区辨，凸显性别平等的概念，如何被引介至马拉威的脉络中并被接受。本研究的城市背景，是得出性别与西方化的联系之关键，并将内在于将性别权力和性别平等的全球论述转译至发展中国家的有意义社会变革之计画中的权力动态，至于焦点之中。”性别”在马拉威，指涉一个由上而下（且由外而内）来架构马拉威的性别平等目标之过程。它同时创造出以下两种限制形式：反抗”性别”的形式——因其与外在力量加诸的社会变迁的长久历史相互呼应，以及表面上服从”性别”的形式——以此表现出更为城市和现代，特别是对西方研究者而言。在地对于性别作为”性别”的理解，减损了促进性别平等作为对付马拉威剧烈的城市贫穷与家户粮食不安全的管道之努力。

Keywords:

• Gender
• development
• postcolonial feminism
• urban
• qualitative research
• Malawi

Palabras claves:

• Género
• desarrollo
• feminismo poscolonial
• urbano
• investigación cualitativa
• Malaui

关键词:

• 性别
• 发展
• 后殖民女性主义
• 城市
• 质化研究
• 马拉威

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the invaluable support of the research participants, the anonymous reviewers of Gender, Place and Culture, and the following individuals: Arja Vainio-Mattila, Rachel Bezner Kerr, Patson Gondwe, Gertrude Samati, and Chimwemwe Hara.

Funding

This work was supported by the International Development Research Centre (Doctoral Award); Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada Graduate Scholarship).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Thirty-seven interviews were conducted representing the views of twenty men and twenty women; in some cases two people were interviewed simultaneously at their request. These cases are noted in the discussion of the interviews when applicable.

2. The Chewa are the majority ethnic group in Malawi. Banda was a Chewa and many of the symbols he adopted to represent the new nation have been criticized for being overly focused on Chewa tradition and marginalizing the many other ethnic traditions in Malawi.

3. Chirwa’s contributions to the struggle for human rights in Malawi is evident in many accomplishments, including being the first female lawyer in Nyasaland, co-founding the Nyasaland Women League in the 1950s, organizing a series of public consultations on gender equality and human rights that contributed to the drafting of the 1994 Constitution, and working as an advocate on human rights cases in the ‘multi-party’ era.

4. Pseudonyms are used for all research participants to protect their anonymity.

5. Nearly three quarters (74%) of Malawi’s population was under the age of thirty in the most recent census, conducted in 2008 (MNSO 2008).

6. It is worth noting that the original intention of having a male and a female research assistant was that Patson would interview the men and Gertrude would interview the women. This approach soon proved impractical and unnecessary, but in the end Gertrude interviewed more of the women and Patson more of the men. To some extent, Patson’s tendency to probe more into people’s opinions influenced the effect that men tended to expand more on their opinions of gender.

7. Nsima is the staple food made from maize that is served at virtually every meal in Malawi.

8. Women were banned from wearing trousers under the 1973 Decency in Dress Act. The ban was lifted in 1993, but the issue continues to be a point of contention on public morality, especially in the context of intergenerational tensions.

9. Malawi is a culturally diverse country and it is therefore impossible to generalize about ‘rural’ societies. There is a long-standing and widely recognized problem of inheritance rights for widows and orphans after the death of a male household head. The HIV/AIDS epidemic heightened the effects of this problem in recent decades. Several men explained in interviews that in matrilineal societies, men who are not first born usually marry out of their natal villages and in their wives’ villages their claims to property are through their wives. In the event of divorce, these men can be dispossessed of their homes and farmland. Some men said that it was for this reason that they chose to move to town, so they could have freehold title to property and not face dispossession through divorce. See Malawi Human Rights Commission (2007).

10. ‘Boys’ quarters’ refers to on-site housing for adult domestic staff.

11. Mzungu is a term primarily used to refer to white people in Malawi and other countries in Southern and Eastern Africa. It can also refer to people with high wealth or status who are not white.