Yesterday was International Women’s Day. Here in San, there was singing and dancing, a huge gathering of women celebrating women. And there is a lot to celebrate. Women here, just like women across the world, deserve to be celebrated.
Women in Mali have so many responsibilities, from childbearing and rearing to cooking and cleaning, collecting water and gathering wood for fires, the list goes on and on. In the hierarchy of Malian society, women occupy a rung that does not do them justice.
Occupying the highest point of the pyramid are older men. These are the dugutigis, or village chiefs, the elders that in village life, make the important decisions, and the heads of families generations deep.
Following behind them are middle-aged, educated men, and then middle aged men with responsibilities as farmers, herders, or blacksmiths, in addition to the responsibilities they may have taken on in starting a family and joining a men’s group or other village cooperative.
Behind these men are the eldest women and then the educated women, who are most likely also mothers and grandmothers, taking on the tasks and responsibilities that come along with those roles.
Women who have not been educated, as many of them aren’t, fall behind the young men on the social climb. These may be the women who have not left their village because at age 15, they were married off and expecting their first children.
These women may have been expected to take care of their family, doing work that their mothers gave them when they themselves got too busy to do it all on their own. This may have prevented them from making it to school on time everyday, or even at all, which would mean that they probably never progressed past the 6th grade and had no real chance of ever getting out of their village, except for the possibility of marrying a man in a near by village.
What ever a women’s age or education, the fact remains that Malian women have never been equal to their male counterparts. I’d love to believe that this is slowly changing. Maybe it is. During International Women’s Day, many villages celebrated their women, some with singing and dancing like San. In some villages, volunteers talk about the men taking over household chores for the day, or the Mayor’s office providing lunch for the women of their commune.
There is a special Women’s Day fabric that is sold in the weeks leading up to March 8th. Walking around market yesterday in my Women’s Day outfit, I got lots of compliments and was excited to be able to talk to the women who were also wearing the fabric.
I’ve also been lucky enough in the past few weeks to be able to have conversations about the differences between men and women with people in my village. I hear from men in village all the time that women work so much, that they have so many responsibilities. But the general thought is that men do their part, working the fields, farming to provide a harvest that will sustain the family.
To be able to talk to Malian men and women about their differences and their roles is eye opening. Additionally, it is great to be able to share with them how men and women have interchanging roles in American society. I know I will not change anybody’s mind with one conversation, but I like to think that this sharing will help them to see that there is more than one way to live this life. I am learning that lesson every day.
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