History lessons for gender equality from the Zambian Copperbelt, 1900–1990

Abstract

This article explores the historical causes and consequences of gender divisions of labour in the Zambian Copperbelt. Male breadwinner and female housewife stereotypes appear to have emerged as a product of imported Christian ideologies, colonial–capitalist concerns and an economic climate that largely enabled men to financially provide for their families. Reliant upon husbands for status and economic support, many urban women had little conjugal bargaining power. Gender divisions of labour also meant that people lacked first-hand evidence of women’s equal competence in employment and politics, who they thus often underrated and overlooked. Such perceptions seem to have perpetuated women’s exclusion from prestigious positions – a pattern sustained by macro-economic circumstances in the early decades of Independence. Compliance with the gender status inequalities promoted in pre-marital traditional initiation thus became necessary to marital and economic security, as well as respectability, which was not previously the case. While there were exceptions to these trends, the historical record illustrates the interplay between patterns of resource access, internalised gender stereotypes and cultural expectations.

Lecciones de la historia en igualdad de género desde el cinturón de cobre zambio

Este artículo analiza las causas y consecuencias históricas de las divisiones laborales de género en el cinturón de cobre zambio. Los estereotipos de los hombres como sostén económico y las mujeres como amas de casa parecen haber surgido como un producto importado de las ideologías cristianas, las preocupaciones coloniales-capitalistas y un clima económico que en gran parte les permitió a los hombres proveer económicamente a sus familias. Dependientes de sus esposos para su estatus y sustento económico, muchas mujeres urbanas tuvieron poco poder de negociación conyugal. Las divisiones laborales de género también significaron que las personas se quedaran sin evidencia de primera mano de la competencia igual de las mujeres en el empleo y la política, a quienes por lo tanto a menudo subestimaron y pasaron por alto. Estas percepciones parecen haber perpetuado la exclusión de las mujeres de puestos prestigiosos – un patrón sostenido en circunstancias macroeconómicas en las primeras décadas de la independencia. La aceptación de las desigualdades de estatus de género promovidas en la iniciación prematrimonial tradicional se volvió por lo tanto necesaria para la seguridad marital y económica, así como para la respetabilidad, lo que anteriormente no era así. Aunque había excepciones a estas tendencias, los registros históricos ilustran la interacción entre patrones de acceso a los recursos, estereotipos de género internalizados y expectativas culturales.

赞比亚铜带省的性别平等历史课

本文探讨赞比亚铜带省中性别劳动分工的历史性导因与后果。男性做为负担生计者与女性做为家庭主妇的刻板模式的出现，是外来基督教意识形态、殖民资本主义考量以及经济环境广泛地让男人得以在经济上支持家庭的产物。诸多城市女性因为依赖丈夫的身份与经济支持，因而少有婚姻谈判的权力。性别劳动分工同时意味着人们缺乏女性在就业与政治平等能力的第一手资料，女性因而经常被低估或忽略。这样的观感，似乎已贯穿并续存于女性被排除在具有名望的地位之外——一个由独立早期数十年的大尺度经济境况所维繫的模式。顺从于婚前传统仪式所提倡的性别身份不公平，因而成为确保婚姻与经济安全及获得尊敬的必要条件，而这在过去却并非如此。儘管这些趋势有其例外，但历史纪录却描绘了资源获取模式、内化的性别刻板印象以及文化预期之间的互动。

Keywords::

• colonialism
• gender divisions of labour
• gender status inequality
• gender beliefs
• Northern Rhodesia
• Zambia

Palabras claves::

• colonialismo
• divisiones laborales de género
• desigualdad de estatus de género
• creencias de género
• Rhodesia del Norte
• Zambia

关键词:::

• 殖民主义；劳动性别分工；性别身份不平等；性别信仰；北罗德西亚；赞比亚

Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to Zambian participants, who shared their reflections with me, commented on draft summaries and patiently aided my Bemba language acquisition. Thanks also go to Sylvia Chant, Miles Larmer, Nick Day and an anonymous reviewer for providing constructive feedback on earlier drafts. This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, grant number ES/H013210/1.

Notes

^1. Note that polygamy was rare amongst the Bemba, unlike the Southern Bantu ethnic groups, such as the Tonga (Richards 1951, 181).

^2. See also Gluckman (1987, 180) on the ease of accessing divorce amongst the (bilateral) Lozi. By contrast divorce was historically impossible for Tonga women (Colson 1951, 229).

^3. Nonetheless, it is important to note that this shift was not universal because not all Copperbelt residents hailed from areas that previously practised bride-service. Many Tonga in Southern Province (matrilineal and patrilocal) and Ngoni to the East (patrilineal) practised bride-wealth instead (Barnes 1951; Colson 1951, 126; though see Wright (1983), who contests this claim, pointing to men’s construction of history). Mizinga (2000) and Wright (1983) nonetheless maintain that the economic value of Tonga bride-wealth increased under colonialism – echoing Copperbelt trends).

^4.Bana means ‘mother of’. I have used this respectful prefix when participants introduced themselves to me in this way.

^5. For the consequences of a society-wide flexibility in gender divisions of labour, see Evans (2011, 2012).

^6. Ridgeway (1997, 222–223) argues that people’s ‘self-interest makes them more cognitively resistant to disconfirming information’ of their stereotypes.

^7. Rasing (2001) found that initiation was widespread, at least amongst her participants (Catholic women with formal jobs in nearby Mufulira). The vast majority of informants in my own research similarly seemed to take it as given. Other research differs, however. Rural participants to Moore and Vaughan’s Zambian study (1994, 171) maintained that icisungu is uncommon and were reluctant to detail their own initiation. However, their efforts to downplay its prevalence may be symptomatic of their unwillingness to discuss the topic (see Schumaker 2001, 127).

^8. I was invited to participate as a nacisungu (initiate) by a banacimbusa (my host’s closest female friend) presiding over the initiation of two betrothed sisters in our low-income compound. She was keen for me to learn. The initiation consisted of a month’s private training and then an overnight event to show the sisters’ readiness for marriage to their female in-laws and gathered married women. The training detailed conjugal obligations, just as Richards previously documented (1995, 140). There were also similarities in symbolic behaviour in the overnight event: we banacisungu were veiled by a large cloth as we crawled into the room of assembled married women. We also used our mouths to grab domestic emblems (e.g. a cooking stick), and underwent a series of physically excruciating challenges to demonstrate our readiness to fight for our marriages. However, in contrast to Richards’ descriptions, sexual dancing was a central part of the overnight event. This may indicate the increased perceived importance of securing one’s husband’s attention through his sexual satisfaction; though it does not detract from my central point that the taught message appears to have remained constant over the twentieth century.

^9. See Evans (2012) on the consequences of association through women’s paid work in the public sphere.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alice Evans

Alice Evans is a Fellow in Human Geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Her research explores how men and women come to support gender equality in the Zambian Copperbelt.