Grace Bantebya Kyomuhendo and Marjorie Keniston Mcintosh Women, Work and Domestic Virtue in Uganda. Athens OH: Ohio University Press (pb $26.95 – 978 0 82141 734 8; hb $55.00 – 978 0 82141 733 1). 2006, 308 pp.
As Hilda Tadria wrote in 1987: ‘A man is highly regarded because he is essentially a cash earner (even if he is not earning cash) whereas a woman is underrated because she is regarded essentially as a dependent (even if she is earning cash).’ (‘Changes and continuities in the position of women in Uganda’ in P. D. Wiebe and C. D. Dodge (eds), Beyond Crisis: development issues in Uganda. MISR, 1987.) The aptness of her assessment is well demonstrated in this scholarly contribution to the growing body of research on women and gender in Uganda, which spans the twentieth century. Ambitious yet carefully constructed, it focuses on women's work without neglecting the multiple dimensions of their lives, and illustrates how they face challenges to their own progress, which is interwoven with that of their country. Eight factors are selected as determining women's work, to show how institutions such as government, women's organizations and religious groups advance or restrict them. The comprehensiveness of the book is as new as many of its analyses.
The authors give great weight to ‘culturally defined gender expectations’ as they affect the division of labour. Part I introduces both the study itself and the peoples of Uganda. Part II covers the period 1900–71, and Part III deals with 1971–2003. Biographies of ten interviewees illustrate the authors’ arguments.
It was in the early colonial period – the 1920s and 1930s – that British and African male leaders devised what the authors call the domestic virtue model (DVM), which defines women in terms of their marital and home responsibilities and keeps them from ‘acting with inappropriate and dangerous freedom’. The first modification of DVM – this they call the service career variation – came about in the 1940s in response to the appearance of working women, teachers and nurses, who were encouraged in those professions by Christian missionaries.
In the initial decade of independence during Milton Obote's presidency (from 1962), both government and the press stressed women's contributions to economic and political life, but little change came about and scant attention was given to rural women. The three subsequent decades are identified as years of radical change for women. The Idi Amin and Obote II presidencies brought ‘abrupt and forcible change’ – civil war and government ‘campaigns of repression against women’. For family survival, a second adjustment to the DVM surfaced – the ‘petty urban trade variation’ flourished when Uganda's formal economy collapsed. Towards the end of the Obote II presidency, 16,000 women from 157 countries met in Nairobi at the third United Nations World Conference on Women. Inspired by the amount and variety of women's activities at the conference, on their return home Ugandan women convened their own national conference – and launched a powerful movement.
The National Resistance Movement (NRM) victory in 1986, led by President Museveni, brought political and economic stability to Uganda and affirmative action for women through a new constitution that supported their presence in government, university and primary education. The media gave positive coverage to women and their burgeoning NGOs and CBOs. Women increasingly worked outside the home, often in micro-enterprises, and the availability of education brought more middle-class women to entrepreneurship and the professions; this expansion is attributed to a combination of need, interest, and NRM support. But the gains were offset by structural adjustment programmes imposed by the international lending institutions: the shrinkage in government health and education budgets created a devastating effect on women's workloads.
During the NRM years debate continued on the major gender issues of colonial days. Despite its widely accepted variations, the DVM (2003) maintained a tight hold on the culture, especially in rural areas where women often remain subject to men's authority. The model ‘simply could not stretch far enough to accommodate the new entrepreneurial women’, who continue to be seen as socially respectable and economically secure; they attend to family needs and show ‘appropriate’ respect for their husbands when in public. This brings us to the present. The primary recommendation of the authors is a call for new gender definitions and active intervention to assist poor women, necessitated by the ‘ongoing force of domestic virtue assumptions’ which are, they assert, detrimental to both men and women.
The book's maps, figures, illustrations, abbreviations, glossary and appendices list the newspapers analysed, people interviewed, and quantitative information about the samples studied. There is a report on the women leaders’ meeting of 20 March 2003 that capped their research. These features, together with an extensive bibliography and an index, testify to the care with which the book has been researched and written. This is indeed a very good book and and I recommend it for secondary school and university use.
