Following the presidential campaigns from a decidedly not-American context, I've never been so grateful for our democratic process, the choices it affords (however slightly the choices vary), and the civic activity it inspires. I mean, I'm living in a place where politicians literally show up in a village with wads of dollar bills to pay for votes (apparently they haven't yet discovered the efficiency of tax breaks and defense contracts) and where supporting the opposition party is a little like trying to keep a cougar as a domestic pet, nearly always a lost cause, and sometimes dangerous. I'm also a little embarrassed at how detailed the campaign trail is reported here in Cameroon (how does a piece on Obama's relationship with his pastor honestly trump an update on the continued unrest in Chad? It's like 50 miles east! And why should the dude that sells me fruit care about Obama anyway?). The plotline of the soap opera that interests me the most however, is the plight of Hilary Clinton, equal parts impressive and maddening, but never less than fascinating. For anyone afraid I've decided to go political, don't worry, this all ties into my thoughts on African development and my experiences thereof. I have nothing to say about the campaign; I probably won't even vote. And don't you think if I was going to go Jane Fonda (too dated a reference?), I would have done it in college as a political science major like all those other Young Republican assholes?
Anywho, what interests me about Hilary is the masculine/feminine tap dance she is forced to perform in order to appeal to American voters. She obviously can't be a weepy, impulsive girl who hesitates to bomb an Iraqi textile mill for fear of 'ruining all the pretty fabric,' but the days of Margaret Thatcher are over, and neither can she don her trusty strap-on (we all know she has one) and storm around the white house, ordering the bombing of daycares and halfway houses, in between picking fights with the bodyguards. She must be convincingly pragmatic and holistic, understanding and decisive, sensitive but not sentimental. She must be identifiably feminine, but masculine enough to lead in the traditional sense of the Presidency. (The way I see it, we're simply not yet ready for a feminine Chief of State without that last qualification.) For my money, she did and is doing an ok job, though she still comes off too butch for many people's taste, and for a while I just accepted that it had to be that way. But then I took a look at my locality in Cameroon.
The situation of women in Africa (and Cameroon as my choice microcosm) varies a lot, but nowhere is it close to the progress western women enjoy. I occasionally grumbled in the States about vague discriminations I read or heard about, though only for solidarity's sake, because the truth is, I'd never experienced real, overt sexism. This isn't to say I'm not aware of the entrenched, insidious sexual assumptions that hinder women in the workplace and social situations without them even realizing it; I'm saying that stuff looks so incredibly minor compared to what I witness here daily. It's like me whining that my soup is cold while the chick next to me is being eaten alive by a shark that just jumped out of her bowl. I still have the right to complain, but understanding her plight (and indeed how the crap a shark can survive or even fit in a bowl of soup) will render me all the more informed in my quest.
I'm not going to go into just how thoroughly women's rights are eroded, or how bleak many of their lives are, because quite frankly it's a downer, and nothing that hasn't been written about numerous times. If you really want the skinny, I'll be happy to oblige you in the form of a personal email, decorated with clip art flowers and balloons to make you feel better. What applies here is the fact that for women with the luck to be raised with money, resources and education, things are decidedly better. There are even some ministers who are female, as well as school directors, doctors, and other elected officials. Such was not the case 20 years ago, so no one can argue that things aren't moving right along. What these women have in common with Clinton is that theoretically, they should be doing the same tap dance. They're women in positions of unprecedented power, in a country that in general still views women as worthless when childless and across-the-board capricious to a fault. But these women aren't tapping. They're not even line-dancing. They're doing their jobs, unabashedly female and making no apologies for it. They still take care of the household (though normally with help), dress delicately (in Muslim garb if applicable), and tend to bring a decidedly female perspective to the proceedings, regardless of the milieu. They can somehow be all those seemingly contradictory adjectives I listed above, without being inconsistent. Long story short, female Cameroonian leaders have their shit together, despite all indications that this should be impossible. For a while, this didn't make a whole lot of sense, and I admit I'm still not sure exactly how the dynamics work, but a piece of the puzzle came to me when my cell phone reception was activated.
Cameroon has gone from a land of the occasional land line to almost completely cell-compatible in about 5 years. This means people used to sending written messages to family with strangers on motorcycles (or cows, as it were) or not communicating at all suddenly have immediate access across the country. This jolt in technology has led many new customers to use their phones less-than-efficiently, simply because they're not used to the idea of phones period, let alone portable, anywhere and everywhere phones equipped with cameras and mp3 players. Some are too habituated with communicating rarely that they hardly use the phone (racking up neglect charges they're not even aware of). Others call someone a neighborhood over and talk for half an hour, costing them 30 American dollars when they could have just walked the few blocks. Some people's knowledge of manipulation ends with turning on the phone and playing Snake. Globalization dictates that these people have a right to new technology (at that they're a new market for it), but no effort is made to adopt the technology to African society, or to inform the population on how to best utilize it.
The same is true, to a different end, with women's rights and the structure of the state. Cameroon began campaigning for more women in positions of power mainly because the international community advised it that it should. People began advocating for Western-inspired rights and regulations, even at a time when the percentage of girls completing grade school was below 50%. The ideological jump, much like a technological one, forced the concerned players to improvise and make sense of the developed world ideas and Cameroonian realities. Traditionally, men and women were (and still are in a lot of places) considered fundamentally different creatures. While America's long and gradual struggle for equality included a distinct element of sameness, that 'women can perform just like men,' no one would argue so in Cameroon because men and women can't be equal; they are simply different and incomparable. Therefore, when women were originally thrust into positions of responsibility, there was never the expectation that they would act like their male counterparts. I'm sure they were originally assumed to be too sentimental and maybe not as smart, but they proved themselves without losing their gender identity, because it was never expected of them to change. In this case, the Cameroonian adjustment actually aided the proceedings.
I'm not arguing that it's bad that Cameroon has cell phone service, or that promoting western democracy and values is wrong or misguided; I'm simply noting that often, very little attention is paid to the context of the new environment, so can we really be surprised that 'democratic' Cameroon has been ruled by the same man for nearly 30 years? I find it terribly interesting that a makeshift women's lib movement actually produced dynamic leaders, but I'm well aware that wasn't an intended outcome, nor is it true across-the-board. It's simply a happy accident that the female elite in Cameroon don't have to battle the expectations of masculinity Hilary Clinton faces, and I'm not sure how much that fact helps the pesky other 95% of the population still trying to get through high school healthy and unmarried.
Yay Cameroon! There are monkeys and giraffes and elephants too! Everyone is smiling and happy!
…Ok, I can't figure out how to load balloon images. Hopefully the exclamation points sufficed to mask all the, you know, social evils.
Until next time, SLAV
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