African Gender Relations

Since the dawn of man, gender relations have not a problem among Africans. People collectively lived with their specified divisions of labour and specializations within the households, where men were in charge of all family matters. Under traditional African families, both men and women had different roles to play in their households. Lives were tied and agreed by the traditional African socio-cultural norms for centuries. Divisions of labour and specializations maintained and strengthened social relations across gender lenses, which in turn brought strong families, clans and communities with high mutual respect, honesty, humility and understanding. As such, diversified roles in social, economic and political conditions in African traditional setting has never been the cause of problems and hence should not be interpreted as discrimination, persecution and marginalisation across genders.