Racheal Prentice8 March 2005ENG 197Final PaperExamining the Status of Women in Africa Through Four Films Last year in my biology class I was talking with my two lab partners about some of their experiences as African American women. One of the women, born in the United States, had several stories that I was able to relate to on the basis that we were both female. As we laughed at a joke at the expense of the general male population, the other woman, born in Zaire, told us we American women had no idea what it meant to be discriminated against. She told us about how where she was from you had to do whatever your husband told you to do. I had always known that the status of women in other parts of the world was very poor, but up until that point I had never thought about the personal consequences living in a highly sexist community would have. To investigate the role of women in traditional African culture I viewed four movies on the subject - Mooladè, Finzan, Monday’s Girls and Women With Open Eyes. The first is a deeply moving film about Collè, a woman that had significant problems giving birth from having her genitals ritualistically “circumcised.” When her daughter was suppose to be circumcised she refused to have the procedure done because of all the problems she herself had. The movie opens with four little girls escaping to Collè asking for her to protect them from being “cut.” Finzan centers around the plights of two young women; Nanyuma, recently widowed, and Fili, a city girl sent to rural Mali by her conservative father. Nanyuma is promised to her late husband’s brother whom Nanyuma does not want to marry. Fili’s father thinks she is promiscuous and sends her to Nanyma’s village where upon her arrival the local girls are both fascinated and horrified to find that she is not circumcised. Monday’s Girls is a documentary about two girls about to go through the custom of the Niger River delta for passage into womanhood called Iria. The tradition involves the girls wearing copper coils around their legs (to restrict their movement) and being isolated in fattening rooms for five weeks where they are lavished with food and treated like princesses. Florence has lived in the village all her life and is excited about going through the process, but Azikiwe has spent the last ten years studying in the city and she is apprehensive about some of the requirements of the Iria. Women With Open Eyes is another documentary that opens with a woman reciting a fragment of an African poem. In it, women are encouraged to believe what their husbands tell them and nothing else, they are to close their eyes to everything around them and only listen to him. The film is broken into several sections addressing multiple problems that African women face including female circumcision, the AIDS epidemic, traditional practices that are sexist and the exclusion of women from some trading practices. African women are essential for the progression of life, prosperity and the furtherance of the community in traditional culture. They are mothers and are the ones responsible for raising the children. They take care of the home doing the cooking, cleaning and other chores that are necessary for family life. Women also work in the fields, plowing, planting and harvesting along side the men. The importance of women in African society is obvious, but in many ways it is overlooked. As one woman tearfully explains in Women With Open Eyes, women make life and work hard for the good of their community yet the prosperity they helped to create is used against them. In each of the films one of the ways women were discriminated against was their almost property-like status. For example, in Mooladè when Collè’s husband demands that she release the girls she is protecting to their mothers and she refuses, he tries to force her to obey him by brutally whipping her in front of the entire village. Another instance of women being treated like property is in Finzan when Nanyuma is promised to her late husband’s brother by the Bambara village chief without her consent. She refuses her brother-in-law and flees her village only to be brought back by villagers who know the “problems with their women” that the Bambara notoriously have. When she tries to escape to another brother-in-law who lives in the city, he has her bound and shipped back to the village. However the practice of inheriting a brother’s wife is not meant to subjugate women as much as it is an attempt to protect them. The idea is that the brother-in-law will then be responsible for taking care of the family so they will survive. Although the tradition is not done with the intent to dehumanize women, it is easy to see how this could stimulate the perception of women as property. There are many traditions in Africa that involve a girl’s passage into womanhood. Monday’s Girls is a prime example of one practice, the Iria, where girls go through a five week confinement and emerge as respected, honored women of the community. This is an important aspect of the culture and all girls go through the process. When asked about their sentiments on the topic, the girls are excited to be part of the Iria because it defines them as women and makes them members of the society. But before the girls are allowed to enter the fattening rooms they must be certified as virgins. To do this they must have their nipples examined during a highly attended ceremony. In the film it becomes evident that both Azikiwe and Florence are hesitant about baring their breasts in front of the entire town. Azikiwe decides that she is willing to have herself examined in private but refuses to be exposed for the ceremony. Because of this she is not allowed to participate in the rest of the Iria and is sent back to the city in shame. Florence on the other hand is encouraged to go through the ceremony by her family with both words and beer until she complies. Once Florence enters the fattening rooms she is taught by the older women in the village of what it means to be a woman in their tribe. The girls learn about motherhood, child rearing and other issues that are important for them to prepare for life as a member of the culture. At one point the girls are told that there are two types of men in the world, one that will treat you well and the other that will not. One will lavish you with gifts and fine things and you should be obedient and submissive to him. The other is cruel and will beat you for no reason. They are told to pray that their husbands are the first type of man and not the second. The fact that these women are told to pray for a good husband that will not beat them and are coerced into participating in parts of the ceremony they find uncomfortable is a testament to the status in the culture - they are to be obedient to men. Another more widely practiced ritual for African women is female circumcision (also known as excision) or female genital mutilation (FGM.) Terming the process as circumcision rather than FGM is a way of toning down the severity of the practice. In the procedure, part or all of the female external genitalia are removed. Sunna is the cutting off of the hood and possibly the tip of clitoris, clitoridectomy is the complete removal of the clitoris and parts of the inner and outer labia and infibulation is the removal of the clitoris, the inner and outer labia, and the stitching of the scraped sides of the vulva across the vagina leaving a small hole to allow passage of urine and menstrual blood. The World Health Organization (WHO) breaks the procedures down further, referring to sunna, clitoidectomy and infibulation as Types I, II and III (respectively) and includes Type IV, which is the pricking, piercing, stretching or cauterizing of the labia. The WHO also recognizes the introduction of corrosive substances, such as herbs, into the vagina for the purpose of tightening it or to cause bleeding as a form of FGM. FGM is practiced for a number of reasons, mostly for religious or cultural purposes. Although the tradition is suppose to have roots in Islam, the practice predates the religion and is observed by Muslims, animists, nonbelievers and even some Christians. In some cultures it is believed to decrease a woman’s libido and therefore help keep her chaste and faithful. If a woman does not remain a virgin up until marriage, it not only makes it difficult for her to marry but also reflects poorly on the family. Some practice FGM because women’s genitals are believed to be unsightly and the circumcision makes them more feminine. Other reasons for performing the ritual are false health-related concerns involving external female genitalia, which are mostly myths about the clitoris. Some believe that if a man’s penis touches the clitoris it will cause his penis to fall off. Another belief is that if the baby’s head touches the clitoris during birth, the child will die. An added benefit to circumcision is suppose to be increased pleasure for the women’s husbands during sex - the woman’s own sexual fulfillment is not considered. Females are circumcised anywhere from the age of a few days old to mature women with the mean age falling somewhere around eight years old. The “surgery” is performed using any sharp object - a ritualistic knife, a razor blade, a shard of glass or even the sharp edges of tin cans. The process of excision is made very clear in Women With Open Eyes when an exciser (person doing the actual cutting) tells the documentary crew the methods she uses to perform the circumcision. First the girls are lured inside with false promises, then are seized by two strong women. One will sit on the child’s chest and the other will hold her legs apart. Once they have the girl securely restricted, the exciser then takes a razor blade and removes the clitoris. She demonstrates how she “cuts little bits at a time” using a piece of tanned hide and a razor blade and moves with a stroking motion until a small section of cloth is free. There are many health related consequences that go along with FGM that range between the one time experience of pain up to death. The immediate consequences include severe pain, shock, hemorrhage, urine retention leading to massive infection, ulceration of the genitals and injury to surrounding tissues. Because of the large arteries in the genitals, if bleeding can not be controlled quickly hemorrhaging, shock and death can follow. In a tragic twist in the movie Finzan, the village chief orders the excision of Fili even after she was present at the sit-in to free him. The women take Fili by force and hold her down for the procedure with Fili screaming that she does not want it to be done. Near the end of Mooladè one of the children in Collè’s care is kidnapped by her mother and taken to be excised. In a heart wrenching scene following this you find that the girl died of blood loss in her mother’s arms as she screamed in pain. More long term consequences of FGM include cyst formation, keloid scar formation, urinary incontinence, chronic urinary tract infections, psychological trauma, painful sexual intercourse and problems during child birth. Another feared consequence of FGM is the spread of AIDS through improperly cleaned tools, although it is difficult to asses to what extent the actual transference of the virus occurs from this practice. In Mooladè, Collè does not want to her have her daughter excised because she herself experienced it when she was a child. It was very traumatic for her, and is responsible for her having only one child. The rest were complicated by her circumcision and the only way she was able to have her daughter was by a drastic c-section that left her with a disfiguring scar. When Collè and her husband have sexual intercourse in the film, she is obviously in pain immediately afterwards and is bleeding. Women continue topractice and be involved with FGM because of the social consequences not having the procedure done can cause. When a woman is not circumcised she can be difficult to marry, a consequence that comes up in both Mooladè and in Finzan. When the village chief learns that Collè’s daughter is not circumcised, he un-engages her from his son and when Fili speaks of marriage to her beau he tells her that even though he slept with her, she is not circumcised so he can’t marry her. Uncircumcised women are also considered dirty and are made the source of ridicule, like when Fili is tormented by the village children as “un-excised woman.” At one point in Mooladè two men are discussing how grotesque the idea of sleeping with uncut woman was and how neither of them would ever do such a thing. Although it is difficult to convince people who are very set in traditional ways that excision is a not only a health hazard but also a women’s rights issue, alternatives to the practice of FGM have been found. Some cultures only hold a knife near the genitals or simply cut off a tuft of pubic hair as a form of the practice. The spread of information in the form of pamphlets to clinics, informed healthcare workers and even posters is also a powerful tool in helping to de-stigmatize and thereby reduce the number of girls at risk for FGM. The modernization of Africa is one of the largest factors that influences the status of women. Information can be more readily spread and the myths surrounding some rituals can be dispelled. In Mooladè the women’s radios are confiscated by the men because of the ideas it gives (they learned that Islam does not mandate the practice of FGM.) But the movie ends with most of village realizing that just because something is tradition does not make it right. The village chief's son, who has been in France for many years, decides to marry Collè’s daughter regardless of what has or hasn’t been done to her genitals. Even Collè’s husband sides with his wife, agreeing that she has the right to speak her mind and stand up for what she believes in. Azikiwe who was disowned by her father for not completing a ritual she was uncomfortable with is doing all right back in the city where she has support from her friends and is content to make a living for herself rather than by marriage. The progression of the rights of women and their overall status in Africa is improving through knowledge, the spread of information and the strength of the women who at its core. Works Cited Amnesty International. What Is Female Genital Mutilation? 2001. Retrieved 21 February 2005 from http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/femgen/fgm1.htm Femmes Aux Yeux Ouverts (Women With Open Eyes). Dir. Anne-Laure Folly. Amanou Produtions, 1993. 52 min. Finzan. Prod. Cheick Oumae Sissoko. Dir. Cheick Oumae Sissoko. 1990. 107 min. Hutchison Dictionary of Geography, The. Female Genital Mutilation. 22 September 2003. Retrieved 21 February 2005 from http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/libweb/elib/do/document ?set=refdesk&groupid=1&requestid=lib_reference&resultid=3&ts=113835A63BE91 CFA4D518EFE884F9A50_1109052722090&urn=urn%3Abigchalk%3AUS%3BBCLib% 3Bdocument%3B100272382 Moolade´. Dir. Ousmane Sembene. Writ. Ousmane Sembene. Edit. Abdellatif Raiss. New York Films, 2004. 124 min. Monday’s Girls. Prod. Lloyd Gardner. Dir. Ngozi Onwurah. BBC Production, 1993. 50 min. World Health Orgainization, The. “Female Genital Mutilation.” Fact Sheet N_241. June 2000. Retrieved 21 February 2005 from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/