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Book chapter Book chapter Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue
Title:Associating Women Female Linkage, Collective Identities and Political Ideology in Ghana
Author:Woodford-Berger, Prudence
Book title:Transforming female identities: women's organizational forms in West Africa
Year:1997
Pages:37-51
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:Akan
women
women's organizations
Cultural Roles
Politics and Government
organizations
Abstract:This chapter discusses some of the issues connected with women's involvement or non-involvement in single-sex associations, organizations or movements in Ghana. It is based largely on life history and other primary field research data collected in a rural Akan community in Dormaa District, western Brong-Ahafu region, in 1976-1977, 1991 and 1993. As the life history of one woman illustrates: ties of cooperation, mutual assistance and trust are established and actively maintained primarily within one's own matrilineage; formal women's associations, such as the 31st December Women's Movement, are not concerned with the specific problems of poor, rural women; and the issues that Dormaa women identify as central to their interests and around which they may mobilize or act collectively concern livelihood, the construction, reproduction and confirmation of female identity, and perceived life course or career opportunity. However, only a very few women in the community saw their situation vis-à-vis men or male political and decisionmaking structures as something they shared with other women. A major question here is whether sex-related or gender-ascribed similarities or differences can be converted into a more or less conscious and motivating unity of purpose in bringing about an awareness of gender inequalities and a conscious intention to change them. Bibliogr., sum. in French.
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