Gender Colonized: Women in Igbo Communities Before and During British Colonization Igboland is located in southeastern Nigeria. Today, it is divided into five political states— Anambra, Imo, Enugu, Abia, and Ebonyi—in which the common language of Igbo is spoken and kinship is an important structure.1 Pre-colonially, Igbo people demonstrated organized government, lived off agriculture and trade, and practiced medicine and ‘healing rituals.’2 They had no concept of the Western sex-gender model, and had no use for it. Women were successful farmers and traders and could be what is referred to as female husbands. Igbo gender construction was flexible and had nothing to do with biological sex: women could be husbands, daughters could be sons.3 Pre-colonial social organization was matricentric, and high importance was placed on the mother-daughter relationship. Less important was the role of father, which could be fulfilled by a woman when two women married one another.4 Gender construction was fluid, and therefore there was no concept of gender roles. The Igbo language reflects this “looseness of gender association,” in that there is no grammatical gender; subject and object pronouns are neuter, so there is no distinction between male and female in either written or spoken Igbo.5 There is no linguistic reference to a woman performing a male role or vice versa, because both the roles and the people performing them are linguistically genderless. Politically, the most important part of Igbo life was the village assembly. In such meetings, all adults gathered and any person, regardless of gender, could bring a case forward. Women in Igbo communities also held specific political gatherings for issues that uniquely concerned them. These meetings, called mikiri, usually concerned trade, the most important activity presided over by the women.6 In Igbo communities, men were in charge of long-distance trading, while women held power over the markets. Women, therefore, made the rules concerning market and trade activity: prices, market attendance, punishments for rowdy behaviour of men, and fines for those who violated the rules.7 The enforcers of these rules were to be the men and elders of the community.
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