Kortnei Davis(FGCU) Women in Ghana

Currently i have been doing research on another country for my gendered studies course and surprisingly this topic has made a tremendous effect on me.  As living in the US, i have found that we, women,  do live in a patriarchial society, in fact, just about every country is patriarchial. However, while stepping outside of my norm and broadening my horizons i have found another country where women, just llike women in the U.S., suffer from all sorts of hegemonic msculinity. True our women in the U.S. still suffer from gender inequality but for the most part we our growing, have improved our standards, and are still improving( for example, the lily ledbetter fair pay act: the push for equal pay, ERA, etc.). On the contrary, the women in Ghana seem to have a long way before they can get to where the women in the U.S has. In Ghana the women suffer from a process called Female Genital Mutilation or female circumcision, slavery, societal discrimination, political and economic inequality. Each of the issues i have listed are all examples of violations of the women’s rights in Ghana. It was stated, that FGM is done so the girls can have a lesser urge for the desire of sex, an introduction into “womanhood”, and preparation for marraige. This procedure is done depsite the fact the girl may not want it, it is her parents desicion, and with this being done it provides her family with social and economic survival because once she is married, her husband, then takes care of the family. Another issue is slavery. In Ghana, a system known as Trokosi, is where a young girl(usually under 10) is given to a fetish shrine to compensate for the crime someone in her family has committed. In this system the young works for the priests, perform farm duties, house duties, and in most cases have babies by the priests. The women in Ghana seems to have no rights or rather have their rights violated. There is no room for these women or young girls to make their own desicions because the man does the desicion making for them. Yes, they have the right to voice their opinion but in the end it’s the men who have final say. I totally, disagree with what happens to those young girls as well as the women but it seems as though internalized oppression plays a major role in these women lives. They seem to accept these things as norms because it’s all they know now. There are organizatins that are trying to get these issues forbidden but because of Ghana’s lack finances not much improvemnt has been made. I only pray for the women that soon they will have their rights no longer violated and hope that one day the young girls can live happy and harmful life

P.S. : Febraury  6 is International Zero Tolerance Day for FGM. Please be aware and take recognition

This entry was posted on 14. April 2009 at 16:02 and is filed under Social Problems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.