Contextualising African women's empowerment in agriculture: challenges from climate change and mineral extraction perspectives

Abstract

Most cultures in Africa view women's role as subordinate to that of men. The patriarchal nature of human and social systems that are more or less an enduring feature of a typical African society, dictates that women are inferior and less powerful when compared to their male counterpart. Hence, their role should naturally be of a domestic calling. In addition to being relegated to the background of domestic affairs, most women function as food producers, at least, at the subsistence level. These dual roles are mostly unpaid, under-valued and, therefore, hardly accounted for in monetary terms. Rather than being beneficiaries of development having also contributed to it, women not only lack access to technological raw materials of productive agriculture, but also they actually become major victims of associated untoward fall-outs of developmental processes. Climate change-induced stresses and ecological damage resulting from mineral extraction in most African states exacerbate the burdens of women's role in agriculture. Thus, relying on eco-feminism theory, this paper investigates the agricultural role of women in Africa amidst climate change- and mineral extraction-induced challenges. To guarantee region-wide food security, it recommends a more agriculturally gendered continent.