Example Of Essay On The Reasons African Women Decided To Join Politics In Mass In 1990’s
Nowadays, the world's historical dominance of men over women is changing gradually. In industrialized and socially oriented countries women have almost reached equality with men in matters of their rights and opportunities. In Africa the situation is more complicated, but very promising.
Until the 1990s, the role of women in politics was assigned to a minimum; they almost did not participate in the elections and were not present in the Parliament, except for the 19th century, when, according to the article, only a few women were in power (Tripp, 2001).
Such a low admission to the policy eventually did not satisfy women, and of course it was rather unfair, because women deserve to have the same rights as men. Religion, laws and customs did not consider women as valuable as men (Tripp, 2001), presumably because culturally their main task was to rare children and to look after the dwelling. By the 1990 women became plagued by their social position (Tripp, 2001) and that could be the first reason why they decided to join politics massively.
Another reason why women's interest in politics grew up was associated primarily with the extinction of authoritarianism and hence, with the emergence of many parties (Tripp, 2001). This was the start of mass occurrence of women's social groups to express themselves in politics. In the 1990s, in many African countries, such as Kenya, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria, women's organizations participated in various political campaigns, rallies, and strikes (Tripp, 2001). These few successful achievements in the democratization of Africa gave rise to women to create their own independent parties to improve old laws and regulations that severely restricted the rights and freedoms of women with more courage.
Women created the political parties because they were interested in achieving the greater financial independence, in equal educational opportunities for girls and women, in improvement of the health care system, and in the expansion of the religious, cultural and ethnic diversity (Tripp, 2001).
In conclusion, the 1990s are marked by the greatest inclusion of women in politics in the whole African history. African women showed their collective spirit of courage and desire to make the difference. Although having faced a lot of difficulties, they still managed to make a significant progress.
References
Tripp, A. M. (2001, July). The New Political Activism in Africa. Journal of Democracy, 12(3), 142-155.
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