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Sex, money and power: considerations for African women's empowerment
Danai S. Mupotsa, Africa Files
February 12, 2008

http://www.africafiles.org/atissueezine.asp#art1

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Growing up in Zimbabwe, I was constantly forced to observe the "appropriate modes of conduct" for a young woman. Maintaining "respectability" was paramount and young women were policed constantly. The constant (and consistent) reminders of appropriate parameters for women's bodies and sexuality, as I experienced it in Harare, drew me to reflect on the historical underpinnings of what my peers described to me as "our culture".¹ Interrogating this national culture, it became curiously clear to me that at the crux of these constructs of "tradition" and "modernity" in these discussions were women's bodies: the success or failure of the project of "national culture" (if we are to call it that) appeared to reside in the "national family's" ability to manage and control the mobility and sexuality of women's bodies, be it through parents and kin at home, or through the police forces on the streets of Harare.²

When I consider the question of women's economic empowerment in Africa, these contentious issues immediately come to mind. A range of sexually violent relationships³ — from families accepting bribes to withdraw charges for sexual assault,⁴ to young girls (and their families) accepting money and gifts for relations with older men — are commonplace and commonly accepted.⁵ Regarding the latter issue, a social worker in Harare observed with despair, "How do you say to people, 'Stop having the relationship,' when they want food on the table!"⁶ In recent years, in a variation of the "sugar daddy" phenomenon, Zimbabwe has seen the emergence of the infamous "small house" - the second (or third, or fourth, etc . . . ) young wife. Like a BMW, or Mercedes Benz car, it's a status symbol for every successful man! A cynical perspective, perhaps, but what is interesting is how women, women's bodies and sexuality have become increasingly commodified in the context of extreme economic inequality. In a country with an economy in crisis, women appear to be hardest hit by poverty, and transactional sex (by choice and otherwise) has emerged as one means of survival.

All this begs the question, if women were economically empowered, would they be in a better position to negotiate sexual relationships?

What I want to do here is, first, to state my central thesis. Then I will use a personal anecdote to illustrate the complexities of the issues at stake. In conclusion, I will return to the question of women's economic empowerment by examining the close relationship between discourses on sexuality, culture and women's economic empowerment.

Dominant views on women's empowerment suggest that offering women economic independence and empowerment can enhance the cause of gender equality and women's sexual rights. I wish to extend this argument by suggesting that because of the manner that dominant discourses on culture have been socially engineered (in this case, in Harare), women cannot achieve economic empowerment if we take no account of the ways in which different gender and sexual relations operate. Whatever the economic conditions in different countries, women the world over continue to face the violation of our sexual rights because of a historically produced and artificially maintained gender discourse of "our culture" or "our tradition" — that not only entitles men to women's bodies, but also informs our views on economic activity. What I wish to interrogate are the multiple representations and interpretations of tradition and modernity as they are applied in relation to women under the present economic crisis in Zimbabwe. Taking one specific example, I want to consider how young women rationalize their choices (or lack thereof) and agency in these situations and how families use "culture" and "tradition" to defend or define what appears to be a fairly modern phenomenon. I also wish to consider the multiple legal frameworks under which these relationships occur. How does one protect the rights of young girls when there are laws defending them as minors that consider these acts to be statutory rape while another set of laws that have been defined as "traditional" can also be applied to counter such charges of rape? Given the implications of the constraint on women's mobility and bodies, what are the economic possibilities for young women?

I have elected to focus on sexuality, as this is a topic on which African feminists have often been silent. Patricia McFadden speaks to this, describing the fear of sexuality amongst us African women as "socio-sexual anxiety". She says that "the intensity of this anxiety is generated by the fact that there is an extremely intimate relationship between sexuality and power, a connection which is manifested in a range of circumstances and experiences."⁷Like McFadden, I am concerned that this socialization has depoliticized our discussions of sexuality when they do occur and most often such discussions do not even take place. Barbara Klugman endorses McFadden's position in an essay interrogating the discourses that took place in Beijing on sexuality in Southern Africa,⁸ noting how previous silences on sexuality are being challenged by the advent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. While discussions on sexuality in Africa have emerged in recent years, in large part because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, these discourses continue to fail to address the intersections of power, sexuality and culture. Some have noted that in fact what is produced is the notion of "African sexuality" as deviant and the producer of an "African AIDS".⁹ I want move away from HIV/AIDS, not because I do not see the importance of these debates, but because like many others I see the prevalence of the pandemic in Africa as symptomatic of a pre-existing gender discourse of power: it is precisely this discourse that I wish to investigate.

The decision to focus on young women is another methodological choice because young women are rendered particularly vulnerable in Zimbabwe. Recent statistics with regard to HIV/AIDS bear this out. In sub-Saharan Africa young women have substantially higher rates of HIV infection compared to young men of the same age. In Zimbabwe specifically, it is estimated that 26% of females aged 15-24 years are infected with HIV, compared to10% of males in the same age range.¹⁰ Such statistics reflect the particular vulnerabilities faced by young women. Richard Mabala, who coined the term "Genderation", argues that "If women are a disempowered majority and young people an invisible majority, girls and young women stand at the interface of gender and generation. They have far less power and resources than older women and are even more invisible than adolescent boys and young men."¹¹ Like Mabala, I contend that there is a need to focus on the lives of young women. As a young woman myself, I am able to reflect upon my own daily experiences.

I will enter this discussion with a personal anecdote to demonstrate the complexities I have outlined above. In conclusion, I will return to the question of economic empowerment by examining the close relationship between discourses on sexuality, culture and women's economic empowerment.

1. I draw this conclusion both from general observation, and a series of interviews I conducted in 2005 with a group of 12 women aged between 19 and 22, who grew up in Harare. The study focused on questions of sexuality and articulating the reasons for their decisions and perceptions of appropriate feminine and masculine behaviour as predicated on what they called "our culture". It is from these reflections that I began to think about the discourses of "our culture" as they have been produced in Zimbabwe.

2. For example a study on the status of women in Zimbabwe published in 1998 notes that "in the early years of independence women's human rights were constantly violated when they were picked up off the streets on the excuse that police were clearing the streets of prostitutes." (Tichagwa, W. 1998. Beyond Inequalities: Women in Zimbabwe. Harare: ZWRCN. Page 38.)

3. I say "sexual violence", but what I hope becomes clear is the expanse of this spectrum: I am speaking here of a variety of experiences and the negotiations of agency that are involved in them. I call it sexual violence to underline the question of power related to them.

4. For example, on a list of the 1000 Worst Cases of Rape in 2005, compiled by Girl Child Network (www.gcn.co.zw) from more than 6000 reported cases, there are a number of cases where either the victim of rape or her parents/family have accepted money to prevent them from reporting the case to the police.

5. See Modola, S. 2007. "Daughters Fetch High Prices As Brides," in Agenda. No. 73: Biopolitics: New Technologies Trilogy, vol. 1, 1. Page 130. This brief article reveals how many families have elected to marry off their young daughters to pay off debts, for example.

6. Chase, M. 2004. "African Girls Taught to Say No to 'Sugar Daddies'". The Wall Street Journal. February 25, 2004. Page 2.

7. McFadden, P. 2003. "Sexual Pleasure as Feminist Choice," in Feminist Africa 2. Cape Town: African Gender Institute. Page 50.

8. Klugman, B. 2000. "Sexual Rights in Southern Africa: A Beijing Discourse or a Strategic Necessity?" Health and Human Rights, vol. 4, no. 2, Reproductive and Sexual Rights. Pages 144-173.

9. See Jungar, Katarina & Onias, Elina. 2004. "Preventing HIV? Medical Discourses and Invisible Women," pp.97-111, in Inge Arnfred, ed. 2004. Re-Thinking Sexualities in Africa. The Nordic Africa Institute and Patton. Cindy. 1993. "From Nation to Family: Containing African AIDS," pp. 127 -138, in Abelove, Henry, Barale, Michele Aina & Halperin, David M, eds. 1993. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Routledge: New York.

10. Pettifora, A., Van der Straten, A., Dunbara, M., Shiboski, S., Padian, N. 2004. "Early Age of First Sex: A Risk Factor for HIV infection among women in Zimbabwe," in AIDS, vol. 18. Page 1435.

11. Ibid.

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