Evans, Alice (2015) History lessons for gender equality from the Zambian Copperbelt, 1900–1990. Gender, Place, and Culture, 22 (3). pp. 344-362. ISSN 0966-369X
Full text not available from this repository.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.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgpc20 |
| Additional Information: | © 2015 Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group |
| Divisions: | Geography & Environment |
| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DT Africa H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races |
| Date Deposited: | 18 Feb 2014 11:12 |
| Last Modified: | 27 Jan 2024 03:09 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/55709 |
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