About the Work
This text is a scholarly article rather than a standalone book. Titled “Human Rights, Gender Equality, and the Question of Justice: A Re-Examination of Male Chauvinism in African Culture,” it was written by Rev. Fr. Dr. Hyginus Chibuike Ezebuilo of the Department of Philosophy at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. The work appeared in the International Journal of Advanced Engineering, Management and Science (IJAEMS), Vol-5, Issue-8, in August 2019. Despite the notes referencing Judith Butler’s “Question of Gender,” the actual content is this philosophical and sociological examination of gender relations within African cultural contexts, with particular focus on the Igbo people of Nigeria. The article combines theoretical analysis with empirical research conducted in the community of Nsukka, offering both a critique of harmful traditional practices and a framework for understanding contemporary shifts in gender relations across Africa.
“Man and woman have the same dignity and are of equal value ontologically, and as such, we recommend that different African societies should uphold this ontological equality and dignity while socially constructing gender.”
Context
The article emerges from a critical moment in African gender discourse. By the early twenty-first century, women’s rights had become a prominent issue across the continent, yet the author observes that little research existed on how African men understood these developments or how African masculinities were implicated in such changes. This gap in scholarship motivated the study. The work engages with several overlapping contexts: the legacy of colonialism and its reshaping of African cultural institutions, the ongoing tension between customary legal systems and state law, the rise of international human rights frameworks, and the specific economic and social conditions of contemporary Nigeria.
The author positions the discussion within broader philosophical debates about culture and universal values. African societies, frequently essentialized as tradition-bound, communal, and incompatible with individual rights, have in fact engaged with questions of human dignity and justice across their histories. Many pre-colonial African societies articulated visions of human dignity, freedom from oppression, and rules governing just distribution of goods. The article challenges arguments that African notions of dignity and justice differ fundamentally from human rights, suggesting such positions presuppose a restricted, Eurocentric understanding of legally-enforceable individual rights. Pre-colonial societies espoused religious, moral, and cultural values that incorporated both collective and individual rights, which the author considers valid contextual equivalents of modern legal rights.
The institutional context is also significant. The Organization of African Unity, formed in 1963, formally recognized the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1981, the OAU adopted the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, notable for including collective or group rights alongside individual rights. While the Charter mandates member states to protect women’s rights, some African women’s rights activists argued that its emphasis on community rights legitimized cultural practices that discriminate against women. In 2003, the African Union passed the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, marking another milestone in the legal recognition of gender equality. Many African constitutions now recognize women’s rights, including the Nigerian Constitution of 1999, which prohibits sex discrimination and ensures equal access in civil matters.
Structure of the Book
The article is organized into seven sections that move from theoretical foundations through empirical research to policy recommendations. The opening section introduces the research problem and establishes the conceptual framework. The author defines culture as the way of life, customs, and beliefs of a group, drawing on classical anthropological definitions including E.B. Tylor’s formulation of culture as a complex whole encompassing knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, and custom. The section also introduces the philosophical principle of igwebuike or ubuntu, which serves as a touchstone throughout the work.
The second section develops the conceptual and theoretical framework, examining the relationship between gender and human rights. The third section addresses the Igbo-Africa context specifically, describing the research setting in Nsukka and the economic realities facing the community. The fourth section presents the survey of harmful traditional practices, examining virginity testing, widow’s rituals, witch-hunting, female genital mutilation, the primogeniture rule, and twin killing. The fifth section offers policy advice for promoting gender equality in contemporary African cultures. The final section presents the author’s conclusions.
Within the empirical portions of the study, the author categorizes responses to women’s rights into three discourses: reactionary responses maintaining gender inequality, mainstream responses accepting gender equity, and transgressive responses embracing full gender equality. This typology structures much of the analysis of men’s attitudes in Nsukka.
Inside the Book
The article opens by acknowledging that traditional cultural practices reflect community values, some beneficial and some harmful to specific groups such as women. Harmful practices include early and forced marriages, virginity testing, widow’s rituals, female genital mutilation, the primogeniture rule, and witch-hunting. These practices persist because they go unchallenged and take on an aura of morality. The author observes that law reform has focused on state legal institutions while excluding customary legal systems. Where courts have developed customary law, they have either reinforced archaic laws or imposed Western ideology. Research in Nsukka reveals a new configuration of gender relations that accommodates some women’s rights while retaining notions of innate male authority. The article concludes that harmful practices violate women’s human rights, perpetuate inequality, and contribute to extreme poverty. Man and woman share the same ontological dignity and value.
The introduction establishes that the revival of tradition must be rooted in human rights, democracy, and equity, understood from the viewpoint of igwebuike. Research involved unstructured time in the community, with the author talking with men and women in shops, bars, markets, and homes. Responses were categorized as reactionary, mainstream, or transgressive. Reactionary responses maintain patriarchal power relations, framing men’s power as natural. Mainstream responses reconcile men’s role as provider with some women’s rights, representing an emergent hegemonic masculinity. Transgressive responses challenge hegemonic masculinities by accepting gender equality. The paper examines colonialism’s influence on African culture, particularly for the Igbo people, and argues that the primogeniture rule is a colonial construct rather than an original African principle.
The conceptual framework draws on multiple definitions of culture. Material culture covers physical expressions, while immaterial aspects include principles of social organization, mythology, and philosophy. Bello sees culture as the totality of a way of life distinguishing a people from their neighbors. Aziza states that culture includes everything that makes a group distinct, such as greeting habits, dressing, and rites of passage. In traditional society, culture is caught rather than taught. African culture is now a mixture of traditional and alien features. Western cultures are individualistic, while African cultures are collective. This collective principle is ubuntu or igwebuike, meaning “I am what I am because of who we all are.” The Zulus express this as “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu,” meaning a person is a person through other persons. Igbo sayings include “a single tree does not make a forest.” All African practices were based on this humanistic principle, which values consensus.
However, the author notes that this same tradition permits male chauvinism. Male superiority is not peculiar to Africa. Thomas Aquinas asserted the inferiority of women in bodily strength and intelligence, though he affirmed that some women will surpass men in Heaven, possibly to accommodate Mary. Aquinas reasons from scripture, citing St. Paul that woman was created for man and that man is the head of woman. The author observes that we should love who we are, and the problem arises when society uses natural diversity to suppress one class based on sex.
The discussion of gender and human rights notes that notions of inalienable human rights have reshaped political landscapes. Women’s rights activists have been central to revitalizing human rights. The language of human rights is now integral to declarations, treaties, and legislation in Africa. The work understands human rights as not foreign to African societies or an imposition of Western values. Citing Amartya Sen, the passage argues that constituent components of modern human rights notions appear in many cultures. While human rights may have found fullest articulation in the West, they address fundamental questions about individual-society relationships raised across time and across cultures.
The research context section describes Nsukka, a low-income community in Enugu, capital of Enugu state, Nigeria. Nigeria faces challenges in education, poverty reduction, and health care. Men dominate better-paying occupations, being about twice as likely as women to earn income through self-employment. Persistent gender gaps exist in literacy and education. Formal wage labor was virtually non-existent in Nsukka. Some men found semi-regular work in auto-repair shops, metal workshops, as butchers, farmers, masons, and in carpentry workshops. Work was often strenuous, sporadic, and poorly paid. Men dominated commercial streets, but women worked in schools, pharmacies, office supply stores, restaurants, and informal stalls. Other women sold produce while tending unpaid home work.
Despite economic hardships, masculinity remains strongly tied to the breadwinner identity. One dominant masculine ideal exists: being a provider, primarily embodied through responsible fatherhood. Beyond this uncontested ideal, confusion and conflict exist over contested masculine ideals related to work, male authority, and male sexuality. The majority of men encountered during research were receptive to greater women’s rights only insofar as such changes did not undermine their ultimate authority over women, especially within the home. These men believed women’s rights should be limited in scope and not synonymous with equality with men. However, some women and a small number of men linked women’s rights to gender equality, challenging entrenched notions of masculinity rooted in male superiority. A minority of men were adamantly opposed to any notion of greater rights for women, and a backlash to this new configuration existed.
The three discourses on gender structure the analysis. Gender inequality holds that men and women are different and unequal, with men innately superior and in authority. Gender equity maintains that men and women are different, but women should have the same opportunities as men. Gender equality questions innate male-female difference, based on expansive universal human rights notions that challenge naturalized male superiority and female subordination. Each response reflects the prevailing hegemonic masculine ideal of provider and established male authority notions differently.
The sections focusing on men’s understandings do not reduce masculinity analysis to men’s lives, but rather illuminate tensions between masculinity, women’s rights, and gender equality in Nsukka. Reactionary views were expressed by some men hostile to equality. Male physical and intellectual superiority seemed obvious to them, and the conventional division of labor appeared natural. A hardware shop manager explained that women and men are not equal unless one wants to change nature, noting that a woman cannot roof a house and would require help from a man. He questioned why, if gender is a social construct involving assignment of roles, it was man who was favored, suggesting this might also be natural. A well-respected butcher saw complementarity between the sexes, stating that a man is higher because he goes out to bring the woman to his home and is the major provider, though he added that this does not mean the man is too superior because they complement each other. Another man stated simply that in Nsukka women do not control men, men control women, and this does not change.
Gender equity and equality discourses challenged entrenched male superiority ideas, eliciting deep feelings of disempowerment and victimization among some men. A discussion with four men revealed their beliefs that women and men are not equal, that a man should have been higher than the woman but now women are higher, and that this reversal represents a loss for men.
The examination of harmful traditional practices begins with virginity testing. The author notes that the practice’s intention may be good, but its flip side is gender bias because it treats boy and girl children unequally. It poses a threat of discrimination against girl children who are not virgins, some of whom may have been raped. The reasons advanced for the practice do not focus on prevention and protection.
Widow’s rituals are described as a clearly defined social role for women with prescribed institutionalized cultural and religious norms and social sanctions for deviation. A different set of norms applies to men upon their wives’ deaths in many African societies. There is large discrimination against widows, including imposition of burdens, obligations, disadvantages, withholding of benefits, opportunities, and advantages, and regular harassment in the household, community, state, and marketplace. A woman’s status shifts drastically downward after her husband’s death, while the widower’s status remains unchanged, including in estate administration. This decrease in status affects livelihood, economic status, and quality of life, and increases vulnerability to discrimination, abuse, harassment, and gender-based violence, while reducing the ability to assert rights. Both men and women experience increased social pressure but in different directions: widows are pressured to remain loyal and faithful to late husbands and honor their memory, while men are pressured into quick remarriage regardless of readiness. Widows rarely remarry of their own free will; some may be forced into new conjugal relations with a male relative or forbidden to remarry.
Witch-hunting constitutes violence against women, involving violence when one is branded a witch. It has been a global problem since time immemorial. The author notes it was practiced in Europe, as described by William Shakespeare in Macbeth, and that an annual celebration of witches’ day is held in Denmark. The question remains how one identifies and verifies that someone is a witch. Most blamed are elderly people and women. In the igwebuike/ubuntu framework, old age or grey hair is a sign of wisdom, and old people were respected, not abused or burned to death. The main ethical values of igwebuike/ubuntu are respect for others including women and children, helpfulness, community, sharing, caring, trust, and unselfishness. The patriarchal nature of societies, influenced and enhanced by colonialism and imperialism, explains why elderly women are targeted. They are weak, defenseless, and easy targets. The practice is criminal, and perpetrators must face the full wrath of the law.
Female genital mutilation is disfigurement including cutting of the clitoris. Some societies see it as a rite of passage into womanhood; others believe it guarantees virginity, curbs female sexual desires, maintains hygiene, prevents promiscuity, and increases fertility. Whatever the reason, the consequences are a health hazard. It is performed without anaesthesia, using unhygienic methods and instruments. Consequences include sickness or death due to infection, haemorrhage, and blood poisoning. This is torture, prohibited in the Nigerian Constitution and article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Nigerian Constitution states that every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person and that no person shall be subject to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.
The primogeniture rule is the right, by law or custom, of a firstborn to inherit the entire estate, excluding younger siblings. According to Kimmel Michael, this was not a customary law principle but a colonial and imperial construct imposed on Africans. The irony is that African males embraced it as their customary principle because it benefited them, so they fought against its abolition. Kimmel states the rule was imposed so that the state could litigate against one person rather than join the whole family when the head of house died.
Twin killing is examined in historical context. Prior to Mary Mitchel Slessor arriving in Africa, ignorance, superstition, and negative values made multiple births seem an abomination and herald of evil. Though not exclusive to women, the woman who bore the child felt the pain most; some ended up childless or sent out of the husband’s family. One twin was said to be genuine, the other an imposter; sharing the same cradle bed meant both were infected and cursed, and parents, particularly the mother, were guilty of defilement. Twin birth was a bad omen in traditional Igbo-African society; to save the community from deities’ anger, twins were killed, sometimes with their mothers. Mary Slessor stopped this barbaric custom. Multiple births are now seen as multiple blessings, with public donations for upkeep and no wrath from deities. Twins are now normal, healthy, respected members of society contributing economically, socially, morally, politically, religiously, and intellectually. The custom evolved from killing twins to recognizing them as supernatural gifts.
The section on promoting gender equality in contemporary African cultures notes that equal rights are enshrined in many African constitutions. The Nigerian Constitution of 1999 prohibits sex discrimination and ensures equal access in civil matters. Article 17 recognizes equality of rights, obligations, and opportunities before the law. Article 11 gives women equal rights regarding employment, choice of professions, promotion, and remuneration. Pope Benedict XVI is quoted on the Church’s responsibility to contribute to recognition and liberation of women, giving them opportunities to make their voice heard and express their talents, reinforcing their worth, self-esteem, and uniqueness, enabling them to occupy a place in society equal to men. Gender refers to culturally, socially, economically, and historically defined roles of women and men of all ages.
Main Arguments
The central argument of the article is that harmful traditional practices against women in African societies violate women’s human rights, perpetuate inequality, and contribute to extreme poverty. The author maintains that man and woman share the same ontological dignity and value, and that cultural practices must be evaluated against this fundamental principle.
A second major argument concerns the relationship between tradition and colonialism. The author contends that certain practices often presented as ancient African customs are actually colonial constructs. The primogeniture rule, which excludes younger siblings from inheritance, was imposed by colonial powers for administrative convenience, allowing the state to litigate against one person rather than the entire family. African men embraced this rule as their customary principle because it benefited them, and they fought against its abolition. This argument complicates the notion of authentic African tradition and reveals how colonial influences have been naturalized as indigenous practice.
A third argument addresses the universality of human rights. The author rejects the position that human rights are foreign to African societies or an imposition of Western values. Drawing on Amartya Sen, the article argues that constituent components of modern human rights notions appear in many cultures. While human rights may have found fullest articulation in the West, they address fundamental questions about individual-society relationships raised across time and across cultures. Pre-colonial African societies articulated visions of human dignity, freedom from oppression, and rules governing just distribution of goods. Arguments that African notions of dignity and justice differ from human rights presuppose a restricted, Eurocentric understanding of legally-enforceable individual rights, obscuring how pre-colonial societies espoused religious, moral, and cultural values incorporating collective and individual rights.
A fourth argument concerns the nature of contemporary gender relations in Africa. The research in Nsukka reveals a new configuration of gender relations that accommodates some women’s rights while retaining notions of innate male authority. The majority of men are receptive to greater women’s rights only insofar as such changes do not undermine their ultimate authority over women, especially within the home. This represents an emergent hegemonic masculinity that adapts to changing circumstances while preserving core elements of male dominance. The author identifies three discourses: reactionary gender inequality, mainstream gender equity, and transgressive gender equality. Each represents a different response to the challenges posed by women’s rights movements.
A fifth argument concerns the distinction between gender equity and gender equality. Gender equity accepts that women should have the same opportunities as men while maintaining that men and women are fundamentally different. Gender equality goes further, questioning innate male-female difference and challenging naturalized male superiority and female subordination. The author suggests that genuine progress requires movement beyond equity toward equality, though he acknowledges the resistance this generates.
Key Concepts
Igwebuike or ubuntu is the foundational philosophical concept of the article. It expresses the collective principle of African culture, meaning “I am what I am because of who we all are.” The Zulu formulation “umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” conveys that a person is a person through other persons. Igbo sayings such as “a single tree does not make a forest” reinforce this communal worldview. The author argues that all African practices were originally based on this humanistic principle, which values consensus and mutual responsibility. The ethical values of igwebuike/ubuntu include respect for others including women and children, helpfulness, community, sharing, caring, trust, and unselfishness.
Hegemonic masculinity is used to describe the dominant form of masculinity in Nsukka. The breadwinner identity, primarily embodied through responsible fatherhood, represents the uncontested masculine ideal. Beyond this, confusion and conflict exist over contested masculine ideals related to work, male authority, and male sexuality. The author identifies an emergent hegemonic masculinity that reconciles men’s role as provider with some women’s rights while retaining ultimate male authority.
The three discourses on gender provide an analytical framework. Gender inequality maintains that men and women are different and unequal, with men innately superior and in authority. Gender equity holds that men and women are different but women should have the same opportunities as men. Gender equality questions innate male-female difference, based on expansive universal human rights notions challenging naturalized male superiority and female subordination.
Harmful traditional practices constitute a category of cultural customs that violate women’s rights. These include early and forced marriages, virginity testing, widow’s rituals, female genital mutilation, the primogeniture rule, witch-hunting, and twin killing. The author argues these practices persist because they are unchallenged and take on an aura of morality.
The distinction between reactionary, mainstream, and transgressive responses characterizes how individuals in Nsukka understand gender relations. Reactionary responses maintain patriarchal power relations, framing men’s power as natural. Mainstream responses reconcile men’s role as provider with some women’s rights. Transgressive responses challenge hegemonic masculinities by accepting gender equality.
Themes
The relationship between culture and human rights forms a central theme. The author argues that the revival of tradition must be rooted in human rights, democracy, and equity. Culture is not static but evolves, and African culture is now a mixture of traditional and alien features. The challenge is to distinguish practices that embody the humanistic values of igwebuike from those that reflect patriarchal power relations, whether indigenous or colonial in origin.
The colonial legacy and its impact on gender relations is another significant theme. The author argues that colonialism reshaped African cultural institutions in ways that often worsened women’s position. The primogeniture rule was imposed by colonial powers. The patriarchal nature of societies was influenced and enhanced by colonialism and imperialism. Yet African males embraced these colonial constructs as their own customs because they benefited from them.
Male chauvinism and its justifications are examined across cultures. The author notes that male superiority is not peculiar to Africa, citing Thomas Aquinas’s assertions of female inferiority in bodily strength and intelligence. The problem arises when society uses natural diversity to suppress one class based on sex. The article challenges the naturalization of male authority, questioning why, if gender is a social construct involving assignment of roles, it was man who was favored.
The economic dimensions of gender inequality are woven throughout the article. Men dominate better-paying occupations in Nigeria, being about twice as likely as women to earn income through self-employment. Persistent gender gaps exist in literacy and education. In Nsukka, work is often strenuous, sporadic, and poorly paid. The author concludes that harmful practices contribute to extreme poverty, suggesting a direct link between gender discrimination and economic deprivation.
The theme of women’s resilience and changing gender relations emerges through the research findings. Some women and a small number of men linked women’s rights to gender equality, challenging entrenched notions of masculinity rooted in male superiority. The evolution of twin killing to recognition of twins as supernatural gifts demonstrates that cultural change is possible. Mary Slessor’s role in stopping the practice shows how external intervention combined with local change can transform customs.
The article also engages with religious themes. The author, himself a Catholic priest, quotes Pope Benedict XVI on the Church’s responsibility to contribute to recognition and liberation of women. Thomas Aquinas’s views on women are examined and critiqued. The discussion of twin killing notes that Mary Slessor, a Christian missionary, played a crucial role in ending the practice. The article suggests that religious traditions contain resources for both the subordination and the liberation of women.
The Author’s Conclusions
The article concludes that harmful traditional practices violate women’s human rights, perpetuate inequality, and contribute to extreme poverty. Man and woman share the same ontological dignity and value, and cultural practices must be evaluated against this principle. The persistence of harmful practices reflects their unchallenged status and their aura of morality; challenging them requires both legal reform and cultural transformation.
The author observes that law reform has focused on state legal institutions while excluding customary legal systems. Where courts have developed customary law, they have either reinforced archaic laws or imposed Western ideology. This suggests that legal approaches alone are insufficient. What is needed is a transformation of customary systems from within, grounded in the humanistic values of igwebuike/ubuntu.
The research in Nsukka reveals both resistance to and possibility for change. The majority of men accept women’s rights only within limits that preserve male authority. A minority adamantly opposes any change. Yet some women and a small number of men embrace full gender equality, challenging entrenched notions of masculinity. This transgressive discourse, though minority, demonstrates that alternative configurations of gender relations are possible.
The author calls for harmful practices to be challenged and for perpetrators of violence against women, such as witch-hunting, to face the full wrath of the law. Female genital mutilation is torture, prohibited in the Nigerian Constitution and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The legal framework for protecting women’s rights exists; what is needed is enforcement and cultural change.
The article ends with a vision of gender equality grounded in African values rather than imposed from outside. The revival of tradition must be rooted in human rights, democracy, and equity, understood from the viewpoint of igwebuike. This suggests that the resources for women’s liberation exist within African culture itself, in its communal values of respect, sharing, caring, and unselfishness. The task is to recover these values and apply them consistently to women as well as men.
Significance
This article makes several contributions to scholarship on gender in Africa. It addresses a significant gap in research by examining how African men understand women’s rights and how masculinities are implicated in gender change. Most studies of gender inequality focus on women’s experiences; this work centers men’s attitudes and responses, revealing both resistance and adaptation.
The empirical research in Nsukka provides grounded data on contemporary gender relations in a specific Nigerian community. The categorization of responses into reactionary, mainstream, and transgressive discourses offers a framework for understanding the range of male attitudes toward women’s rights. The finding that most men accept women’s rights only within limits that preserve male authority has important implications for policy and activism.
The historical argument about the colonial origins of certain practices challenges assumptions about authentic African tradition. By showing that the primogeniture rule was a colonial construct imposed for administrative convenience, the author complicates narratives that present contemporary gender inequality as purely indigenous. This argument has political significance, as it undermines appeals to tradition as a justification for discriminatory practices.
The philosophical argument for the universality of human rights contributes to ongoing debates about cultural relativism and universal values. By locating human rights concerns within African cultural traditions, the author counters claims that human rights are Western impositions. The concept of igwebuike/ubuntu provides an indigenous framework for understanding human dignity and collective responsibility.
The article also contributes to understanding the relationship between customary and state legal systems. The observation that law reform has focused on state institutions while excluding customary systems highlights a persistent gap in legal approaches to gender equality. The argument that courts have either reinforced archaic laws or imposed Western ideology when developing customary law suggests the need for more nuanced approaches.
The work has practical significance for policy and activism. By identifying specific harmful practices and their consequences, the article provides evidence for advocacy efforts. The call for perpetrators of violence against women to face legal consequences, and the recognition that female genital mutilation constitutes torture under both Nigerian and African human rights law, gives activists legal tools for challenging these practices.
Finally, the article contributes to theological and philosophical reflection on gender. The engagement with Thomas Aquinas and Pope Benedict XVI situates the discussion within Christian thought, while the concept of igwebuike/ubuntu grounds it in African philosophy. The conclusion that man and woman share the same ontological dignity and value provides a philosophical foundation for gender equality that draws on both African and Western traditions.
