In the aftermath of recent socio-political protests across the world, and with particular attention to the losses incurred in each affected economy, it is hardly surprising that well-meaning citizens are advocating for a better way to deal with conflict and public-government disagreements. With more and more women taking high-visibility roles in politics and governance, the suggestion of softer strategies has been made more than a few times. The main issue though, is that women have not always used the so-called soft touch when it comes to politics. And wherever ‘the women’ have taken a stand against perceived injustice, they have been far more daring with the basal, an instinctual type of warfare that overwhelms and often psychologically overpowers the oppressor.
African women have a long, rich history of creative warfare and unorthodox protest strategies. In November 1929, the women of South-Eastern Nigeria organized the Aba Women Riots by sending palm fronds and leaves from one village market to the other. Silently, they mobilized women from 6 different ethnic groups, each with different languages and cultures, but all united in their protest against oppressive colonial rule, and against the imposition of tax on market women. These women walked naked to the seat of regional government in a traditional ritual of protest that is as old as time itself. The war of naked women was won in an age when hi-tech communication technology was a very expensive telegram. With a different kind of social media, the market women accomplished what Wikipedia describes as “a strategically executed anti-colonial revolt organized by women to redress social, political, and economic grievances.” Despite heavy casualties, the Aba Women Riots gave tax exemption to market women whose efforts put life into the agricultural eco-system. It also got them more leadership roles in the Warrant Chieftaincy with input to the British colonial administration.
In 1922, seven years before the Aba Women Riots, Kenya’s Mary Muthoni Nyanjiru and other women protesters were killed during a naked march to protest activist Harry Thuku’s arrest, and to speak against colonial residents’ use of women and children in forced labour. In a rousing speech which was delivered naked, Mary Nyanjiru is said to have asked the men of the land to bring their trousers and take skirts, since they have chosen to let the colonial masters take away their manhood. Nyanjiru died that day, but the naked protest gave a voice to the Kenyan woman’s role in sacrificial defense of her values and her homeland.
Invoking the Anjanou ritual in 1949, a multi-ethnic group of more than 2000 women walked a 60km distance from Abidjan city to the jail at Grand Bassam, Cote D’Ivoire. Demanding that the French colonial authorities release the imprisoned liberation leaders, the Anjanou protesters smeared their naked bodies with kaolin clay and brandished leaves as a traditional curse upon bad leadership in the land.
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In Cameroun, the same ritual of naked, screaming, political reproach is called Anlu. In 1958, Takembeng women of the Kom region performed Anlu in protest of colonial agricultural policy, and to remove an administration that they saw as oppressive to the common man. The Kom Women’s Rebellion disrupted North-West Cameroun for 3 whole years, and gained increased popularity for eventually toppling the shamed political alliances from power.
Historically, African women were not left out of the political value chain. In many cultures, female monarchs and regents had reigned over kingdoms, building empires with admirable leadership qualities. Queen Amina of Zauzau, Queen Idia of Benin, Queen Araweelo in Somalia, Queen Nefertiti in Egypt, each stood up to lead and fight against the internal and external forces of injustice during her time. The anti-colonial women leaders were simply expressing the warrior-woman persona that was forced under heel by oppressive administrative policies. According to Van Allen, they “had a significant role in traditional political life. As individuals, they participated in meetings with men. But their real political power was based on the solidarity of women, as expressed in their own political institutions.” (Judith Van Allen. La Revue Canadienne des Etudes Africaines. 1972.)
It is good to note that these shaming rituals are not peculiar to African women in protest. Popular Anglo-Saxon history places Lady Godiva, Countess of Mercia in the same position. Supporting the commoners of Coventry, she is reputed to have taken a horse ride dressed in nothing except her hair. Her naked protest was meant to argue for lowering of the high land use taxes inflicted by her wealthy husband. Although many academics are quick to dismiss the Godiva tale as more fiction than fact, it stands to reason that whether plausible or not, women of different ethnic and sociopolitical backgrounds are able to mobilize towards a common goal.
Recently, in June 2017, the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires was stormed by over 100 naked, screaming women in protest of genocidal violence against women under Argentina’s present administration. To these modern-day ritual protesters, the roar of displeasure is heard in the sheer power of an aggrieved female baring all, and daring to speak out, to scream out, in the raw.
Despite known matriarchal leadership and the historical relevance of women in our traditional political institutions, there are still huge barriers to female candidacy in modern politics. The question arises as to whether the slow offtake is to be blamed on men’s fear of being ‘sat on’, or simply a communal aversion to the possible extremities of females in power. As in the historical case of Somalia’s Araweelo, who elevated women and forced men into more domestic roles; or Wangu wa Makeri, Kenya’s first female Headman, who was reputed to (literally and physically) sit on men. While Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Bermuda’s past Premier Meredith Smith and Somalia’s first female presidential candidate, Fadumo Deeqo Dayib all have Harvard and womanhood in common, each one has had to face multiple hurdles with social, political and religious barriers to female leadership.
When the question of gender and vocal politics is raised, stellar qualifications, noble intentions and sacrificial commitment have proved not to be enough to get a woman into political office. Inexplicably, human communal memory is conditioned to remember only the few who have made a big difference. But in truth, we all wait for the day when the sacrifices of the countless many will morph into a positive movement that puts more women in government.
After all, who’s afraid of the women?
Funke Michaels is an MIT Sloan Fellow, and Edward S. Mason Fellow at Harvard University
