USA Africa Dialogue Series - Would You Eat Kola Nuts Blessed and Broken by a Woman?

I just finished teaching "Women and Politics in Contemporary Africa" as part of my African Politics and Society course this Spring 2014 semester. Among other things, we watched and debated Chimamanda Adichie's TED Talk, "We Should All Be Feminists" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg3umXU_qWc). The class had previously read both Achebe's Things Fall Apart and A Man of the People. In the context of the on-going debate/campaigns regarding anti-LGBT laws and and environments in most African countries, you can guess the fun the class has had this semester.

Last night, I read Dr. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo's interesting re-statement of long-running scholarly discourses of the power and leadership dynamics in Achebe's Arrow of God that VC Aluko graciously posted on this list.  Suddenly, I woke up this morning from a dream in which a highly accomplished Igbo woman stood up, blessed and broke kola nuts at an Igbo village assembly and everyone ate in silence. As anyone with a faint knowledge of the Igbo knows, this is a NO! NO! In fact, women's gathering would even go to the extent of inviting even a 10-year old boy to break the kola nuts if a much older lad/man is not around. Women simply are not allowed to perform this ritual; not even the most powerful female chiefs that are becoming ubiquitous in Igboland today!

Since then, I've been re-evaluating the main thrust of Ms. Adichie's TED Talk: she offers "solutions" to gender inequality among Igbos, nay in Africa. Adichie shows that people often use culture as an excuse to maintain the status quo; however, she states that culture can change. "Culture does not make people. Rather, people make culture", she quipped. Her solution centers on raising respectable human beings that do not focus on being "manly" or worry about seeming "feminine." By doing so, she argues, we will create a new generation of adults who will respect their female counterparts. This got me thinking: Of what use are changes in socialization practices if the institutions in which these nicely-raised children will operate remain in tact? Is it even possible to "behave well" or respect differences if the institutions that set these expectations give a different mandate? If you ask me, I'll always lean, first, towards changing the property rights regimes that sustain these gendered institutions.

I've therefore posed the following questions, especially to our esteemed Igbo men and women in this and other fora, with the hope that I could be more educated on these conflicting dynamics of Igbo, nay African societies today.

1) For (Igbo) Men: (a) Would you invite a woman in your home or in a formal setting to bless and break kola nuts with men and women present? (b) Would you allow/permit/encourage your wife and/or your daughter(s) to bless and break kola nuts in your home and/or in a formal setting with men and women present? (c) Would you eat kola nuts blessed and broken by a woman?

2) For (Igbo) Women: (a) Would you bless and break kola nuts in your home and/or in a formal setting in which both men and women are present? (b) Would you allow/permit/encourage another woman (including your daughter/s) to bless and break kola nuts at home or in a formal setting where men are present?

Peace as always!