Sitting on a Man

Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women

Bibliographic Data

ID2139261
AuthorsJudith Van Allen (0000-0002-9228-3815, Acting Instructor, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley., corresponding author)
Year1972
Volume6
Issue2
Pages165
Publication date1972-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-3968 • E-ISSN: 1923-3051
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/484197
OpenAlexW4241024958
LanguageEN
Citations received55

Colonialism resulted in the loss of political position and power for Igbo women in Nigeria; the Victorian assumption on the part of the British colonial administrators that women were incapable of political leadership resulted in the failure of the administrators to preceive the traditional role played by women in Ibgo political life and eventually led to the British imposition of political institutions on the Igbo which provided political roles for men only. In the traditional culture there was a balance of power between men and women. Issues relevant to men were decided by concensus of all the men in the village. Women ran their affairs through the womens town meeting where they also arrived at decisions through consensus on such matters as trade farming and family relationships. If the womens decisions were not accepted by the men the women took group action such as publicly berating a or beating on his house until he repented or by conducting a village-wide cooking strike if the men refused to clear the paths to the market. These forms of collective action were referred to as sitting on a or on the man and were viewed as legitimate by the men in the community. When the British extended their control over Igbo they viewed the diffuse authority patterns of the Igbo as a sign of anarchy and proceeded to divide up the region into districts and arbitrarily appoint natives usually someone predisposed to the British position as the warrent chief for the district. These chiefs were given complete authority and the traditional decision making power for both sexes was ignored. The women responded by holding a town meeting and deciding to make war on the repressive warrant chiefs. In towns throughout the region the women congregated at the administrative centers burned the buildings and berated the new chiefs. The British responded in typically ethnocentric fashion; they failed to perceive the traditional system at work and quelled what they considered to simply be unruly mob behavior. Later reforms lead to the restoration of political pwer for Lgbo men but not for the women. Missionaries also contributed to the decline in political power for women. They viewed the womens town meeting as a pagan ritual and reserved job related education for Igbo men only

Colonialism · Economic growth · Economics · Igbo · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Position (finance · Power (physics · Sitting · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Gender Studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Medicine · Philosophy