| Winds Of Change |
by: Violet Barungi. FEMRITE. Uganda
What does it mean to be a woman in our world today? Fifty years or so ago, a woman in Uganda was
considered good only as a homemaker and beast of burden. Her mission in life was to marry and become a
good wife, a good mother and a good worker. Her role was to ensure the comfort of her lord and master, her
husband, and the continuity of the lineage. She toiled endlessly in the shambas to keep the granary full. Other
domestic chores like fetching water from the well, collecting firewood, preparing meals, keeping the homestead
tidy and clean, and looking after the family generally, fell on her shoulders.
Thus she contributed enormously to the social and economic development, but her contribution was never
acknowledged or recognised. It was taken for granted that she was doing what she was created to do. So there
was no need to make a song and dance about it, to say ‘thank you for a job well done’.
She had no rights. She could not own land or even call the children she carried for nine months in her
womb, gave birth to and nurtured her own. When her husband threw her out of the home, she left the children
behind because they belonged to the clan, the man’s clan. She was never consulted in any important matter
even if it affected her directly like bride price. She was voiceless and powerless.
When education and enlightenment came to Uganda , boys were sent to school but parents (meaning
fathers) were reluctant to have their daughters educated. There were two main reasons for this: one, girls were
needed at home to help their mothers with domestic chores and to work in the fields. Two, educating girls was
considered a bad investment. Girls got married on leaving school, benefiting not their clans but the clans they
married into. Educating girls was, therefore, a waste of time and resources. It was also generally believed that
women had an inferior intellectual capacity compared to men.
But changes needs must come and men could not withhold their daughters from school forever. There was
a wind of change sweeping through the country. A few enlightened parents started to send their daughters to
school but most of them withdrew them as soon as they learnt how to read and write their names. There were
stills hurdles to overcome, especially the social attitudes and traditions, which required a girl to marry young.
Girls had a ‘sale-by-date’ whereas boys and men in general didn’t, and still don’t. A girl, therefore, would be
considered too old to marry after certain age, never mind that she was still productive and the man she would
be marrying would be many years her senior, in most cases.
So most of the girls who went to school in the first half of the last century got just minimum education to
enable them to become primary school teachers and what was generally called ‘local’ nurses or ward-maids in
hospitals and dispensaries. Meantime, men were getting all the benefits of education and monopolising all the
leadership roles in the different spheres of development in the country.
It was not until 1954 that Uganda got her first woman graduate, Mrs Sarah Ntiro, Miss Nyendwoha then.
She graduated from Oxford University with a BA (Honours) in History. The second woman graduate came out
four years later in 1958. This was Mrs Posynasky, nee Miss Lubega (RIP). On their trail came the first female
doctor in eastern and central Africa , Dr Josephine Nambooze Kiggundu. She and another girl in her school
who were inclined towards sciences had to be sent to Namilyango, a boys’ school, for their science lessons.
Science subjects were not taught in girls’ schools at the time, probably because science was thought too
complicated for poor female brains!
When Proscovia Njuki, the first woman engineer in Uganda applied for B. Sc. her admission letter was
addressed to Mr Lwanga instead of the applicant, Miss Lwanga!
Over the years, however, more and more women have been gaining access to education. The deliberate
policy of the current government to try and bridge the gap between men and women by introducing affirmative
action has helped to augment the number of women graduates and diploma holders. Although the female
illiteracy rate is still higher than that of the male (67%), many women have now come into their own. Girls are
now excelling at science subjects (previously considered a male domain) and overall national examinations as
evidenced by the ‘O’ and ‘A’ level examination results. Women scientists, doctors, engineers, economists,
architects and so on, are giving their male counterparts a run for their money.
Politics, hitherto, a male domain, has now opened its doors wide to female politicians, thanks to the
affirmative action policy again. Not that the women would not have got there under their own steam; they
definitely would have once roads to equal opportunities, especially to education, were opened to them.
In the business world, a formidable group of women entrepreneurs is emerging. Together with the market
women, food sellers along the highways and the food-growers in the rural areas, they form the real backbone
of the economy of Uganda .
It is true there are still bottlenecks impeding the process of full emancipation. These are to be found mainly
in the archaic social attitudes. Once these are overcome and new ideas and attitudes are accommodated,
women will, without a question, be able to realise their full potential.