Women - contrast USA/SENEGAL

Historically, women have not only been considered intellectually inferior to men but also a major source of temptation and evil, and unable to perform work requiring strength.  Women have generally had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women's most significant professions. Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century Christian theologian, said that a woman was "created to be man's helpmeet, but her unique role [was] in conception . . . since for other purposes men would be better assisted by other men." As we can see in Ousmane Sembéne’s God’s Bits of Wood and through what I am going to tell you next, we can see how this belief is still going around in Senegal.

By the 20th century in America, women were seeing more job opportunities than they had ever seen before. Whereas in the 1850s where they could only be teachers and perform few other jobs, they were even introduced into the medical and scientific worlds. Laws passed in 1911 and in 1913 set maximum hours and minimum wages for working women. Perhaps most importantly, they fought for and to a large degree accomplished a reevaluation of traditional views of their role in society.

Meanwhile, in Senegal, where women had a status that remained marked by the weight of tradition and religion, they faced even more disparities in their social status. They had an absurdly high illiteracy rate, it was socially unacceptable for them to work outside of their houses or perform any jobs that required intellect or strength, and legally they had no rights that protected them if they ever wanted to work.

American women have had the right to vote since 1920, Senegalese women got the right to vote two years before God’s Bits of Wood takes place in 1945 and have played a very minimal job in politics ever since.

While in the US women got the right to own property in most states by the end of the 19^th century, in Senegal women were not allowed to own property under their own names, which made them extremely dependent on their husband, brothers fathers, uncles and even grandfathers.

Although polygamy has never been popular in the United States, by the 20^th century when this book takes place it was illegal for anyone to marry more than one person, while in Senegal it was legal and very common as shown by Mariam Ba in her novel So Long a Letter.

In Senegal, the position of women in most ethnic groups is one of dependence: husbands, fathers, brothers, and uncles all have rights over women and much of what they produce. Despite constitutional protections, women face extensive societal discrimination, especially in rural areas, where Islamic and traditional customs, including polygamy and Islamic rules of inheritance, are strong and women generally are confined to traditional roles. More than half of all women live in polygynous unions.

In mid-20^th century, a group of women formed the Association des Juristes Sénégalais to protect the rights of Senegalese women, but not many associations like this exist because for the most part they are not aware of their rights, or they are afraid because still today it is not socially acceptable for women to be independent in Senegal.