Amina Mama, "Rethinking African Universities: Gender and Transformation"
(page 7 of 7)

Rethinking . . .

We can reasonably conclude that, as demonstrated in the institutions studied, marked gender inequalities have persisted in African universities. Overwhelmingly, patriarchal gender cultures are sustained through unquestioned everyday procedures, practices, and values. The academic hierarchies of privilege and patronage are imbued with dynamics that disadvantage women. These dynamics characterize relationships between students and lecturers, and between and within the ranks of both, making it harder for women to succeed and limiting the extent to which they can benefit from the formal and informal collegial relationships that play a key role in academic life. Women remain vulnerable to actual sexual pressure and to the even more pervasive perception of women in terms of their sexuality. They also experience more generalized discomforts arising from andocentric discourses on gender that permeate academic culture. Beyond this gross overall picture, there are wide national and institutional variations in the overall picture of historically-entrenched and hierarchized gender differentiation, along with variations due to age, era, policy climate, disciplinary hierarchies, facilities, class, ethnicity, marital status, and other dimensions of status.

Public universities, while they seem clear about their role in producing generations of well-educated citizens, seem to have remained largely oblivious to the challenges of gender inequality. By not acting to facilitate some level of redress, they end up perpetuating an unequal status quo. Thus far, the university administrators seem to remain reluctant to acknowledge that gender inequality is in fact an intrinsic feature of university life. Correspondingly, they also remain resistant to the idea of supporting and committing resources to taking concerted action against it. Most still believe that gender inequality is not the responsibility of higher education, and, therefore, most do not see the need to take any action to address the perpetuation of inequality within the institutions they lead.

In this context, the implications of globalization are far from simple. The preliminary analyses that are available suggest that contemporary trends in higher education financing and governance may well run the risk of curbing the greater access gained by the proliferation of African public universities since independence. The inclusion of higher education services in General Agreements on Trade and Tariffs (GATTS), for example, is likely to exacerbate a status quo in which the U.S. dominates the provision of "higher education services" and further marginalizes African institutions from national and local interests and agendas as they struggle to compete in an unequal market (AAU 2004). As universities become less accountable to the local public and more accountable to the global market, longstanding social justice agendas, including those of gender equality, need to be defended anew.

The evidence discussed suggests that universities in Africa will need to rethink the manner in which they discharge their responsibilities, if they are indeed to be re-vitalized in a manner that sees them become institutions that advance the democratic and social justice agendas that the African people are once again embracing as they move beyond the legacies of our difficult history and struggle to become peaceful, democratic, and just societies. Gender justice lies at the heart of these aspirations, and public universities have a responsibility to take this a great deal more seriously than has so far been the case.

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Endnotes

1. The university case studies were carried out by senior researchers working on the key institutions selected for their respective national contexts: Aminata Diaw (Senegal), Rudo Gaidzanwa (Zimbabwe), Abiola Odejide (Nigeria), Zene Tadesse and Rahel Bekele (Ethiopia) and Dzodzi Tsikata (Ghana). Related research was carried out by Lesley Shackleton (South Africa). [Return to text]

2. Excluding North-of the-Saharan countries and South Africa. [Return to text]

3. The detailed statistical picture is likely to be far more complicated and diverse than these global figures indicate. Proper analysis is hampered by the fact that the available statistical picture of Africa's tertiary institutions is so incomplete. [Return to text]

4. It is curious that this figure is presented alongside a very similar figure for the number of expatriates employed in the same university. [Return to text]

5. Indeed, dress codes have since generated nation-wide controversy, as a result of a woman Senator's attempt to introduce a bill that would have inscribed these in law, had the women's movement not put up public resistance this year (2008). [Return to text]

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