Plum Leaves
Alexis Teyie
Where are the prophets we were promised?
I came looking for them, the messengers,
In your breasts. Those painful, exquisite things.
Touchstones.
I said that and you laughed.
So I tried again: refraction.
You didnât find that funny, but listen,
Whatever you are, there are certain tasks,
The tasks of your life, that cannot be delegated.
Submit to life.
Apprentice yourself to itâthis, of course,
Is what I should have said. What happened
Instead is this: the bedspread remained
Unturned, and the beers unfinished.
I should have said, this is our time, now.
Enough with the heaviness, the hiding.
No more scrounging for love.
Are we uglier than everyone else,
Crueler, more cowardly?
Why all the codes, the sidelong
Glances, all that unseemliness.
Must we be denied even the mundane,
Will we forever be robbed of the simple things.
Staging fantasies in counterpoint,
Iâm no different from anyone else.
I prowl the corridors of that memory,
Wishing Iâd opened a different door,
Hoping Iâd stayed in a different room.
The room that smelled of fennel seeds,
Plum leaves and cardamom. That sacred
Room, and us, frenzied, wounded.
Gloves
Unoma Azuah
Our lives are five live fingers
Etched across a skyline
Our lives are like giant gloves in the air
But like costumes
They have to fit their roles
Gloves of grief
Gloves of love
And gloves for play
Glittering across a full hall
Fanning laughter across a sea of faces
Gloves of grief may not be swapped for gloves of love
Some gnarled fingers stay the same
Even in bright gloves
Roles like tossed dices donât roll into cracked edges and remain the same.
Carol P. Christ offers a very useful definition of patriarchy that I will adopt because it encapsulates what is at the heart of this chapter:
Patriarchy is a system of male dominance, rooted in the ethos of war which legitimates violence, sanctified by religious symbols, in which men dominate women through the control of female sexuality, with the intent of passing property to male heirs, and in which men who are heroes of war are told to kill men, and are permitted to rape women, to seize land and treasures, to exploit resources, and to own or otherwise dominate conquered people.1
Any reference to patrilineal inheritance in this chapter has this definition in mind and highlights the place of lesbian women and all those who are not considered vital, in the perpetuation of patriarchy. âOmushaija nâomushaija,â a Runyakole (Bantu language from South Western Uganda) phrase that literally translates into âa man is a man,â is a common saying that can be found in most Bantu languages. It is also a shared expression in whatever form it manifests itself in the broader patriarchal world: âBe a man!â âyou are the man,â âgrow some balls!â âgrow a pair!â All these injunctions imply the same thing: The inherent superior value attributed to maleness as opposed to femaleness. Put differently, no matter what a woman does, achieves or amounts to, she is believed to never reach equal value, status, and ability to a man. A man by birthright and socio-politically sanctioned beliefs and practices is considered a full person deserving respect, even as a child.
Women in most societies are made conscious of their subordinated status to men from birth, lest they somehow believe themselves equally valuable or find a way to change their status. Hierarchical ideas and attitudes toward gender are socially sanctioned and pervasive in education and inform the ways in which resources are allocated even under progressive state constitutions. Women who understand and uphold this patriarchal value system are likely to share in the spoils through their proximity to maleness. They find ways to get closer to the source of power sometimes by reinforcing stereotypical ideas about âfeminine charmsâ and marriage. Those recalcitrant to patriarchy and without alternative route to power often find themselves at the margins of society. For instance, patrilineal inheritance customs and laws dispossess women in general, and more specifically those without the advantage of male favor. These inheritance systems adversely affect single mothers, widows, lesbian women, and divorcees. More specifically, lesbian women in rural areas become outcasts because they are ineligible for inheritance under such traditions. They often have no option than to either be condemned to poverty, or attempt to pursue life in the cities that provide respite and anonymity but where other gender-based dangers lurk.
No data exist regarding land ownership for queer people in Africa or elsewhere since land ownership statistics are generally based on binary heteronormative surveys. The absence of data is not accidental and should therefore be read and understood for what it really implies: That queer people and especially lesbian women have largely been neglected from land survey data and excluded from land inheritance. The omission of queer data on land inheritance is a good indication of how well African communities, especially those in rural areas, treat populations that arenât male, heterosexual or able to reproduce. Although focus here is on lesbian women, one should keep in mind that on a larger societal spectrum, this category functions symbolically as a placeholder for the deviant and undesirable in society. Hence, lesbian women are the representatives of the marginalized and the discarded and their struggle for land inheritance should be approached from an intersectional perspective.
In addition, Africaâs population is still predominantly rural with urban centers generally accounting for only a third of the entire continent.2 It is also true that women make up most of the production capacity in rural areas, especially in food production. Yet, women remain the minority when it comes to land ownership. This inequality therefore makes land a very focal point of contestation and interest in the fight for womenâs emancipation, including queer womenâs rights. However, lesbian women have been generally excluded from this debate, with the primary focus being heterosexual women. The reasoning behind this heterosexual focus might be valid given that straight women are considered the majority, although no one knows for sure. But examining the position of lesbian women in the struggle for female land ownership in Africa has the potential to highlight the plight of minority groups as well as unearth socio-cultural biases that hinder the process of creating more just and inclusive societies.
Systems of land tenure vary from country to country, ranging from individual to collective. But what does it mean to have equal rights to secure land tenure? For the purposes of this essay, I retain the following definition: âSecure rights to land are rights that are clearly defined, long-term, enforceable, appropriately transferable, and legally and socially legitimate. Womenâs exercise of these rights should not require consultation or approval beyond that required of men.â3 Land tenure in Africa has gradually shifted away from collective to individual land ownership in line with capitalist economic models that took root after the fall of communism in the late 1980s. This is because not only land is an important factor of production and a tradeable good. It is for this reason specifically that womenâs and queer land rights should be entrenched if they are to compete in the resource allocation process and potentially benefit from the free market economic system.
The laws governing the process by which land changes hands also vary greatly in Africa, but one finds similarity in clash or obstruction that cultural norms opposed to formal legal regimes or constitutions create. Inheritance is still the primary channel via which land changes ownership and it is also where the disparity between law and custom, men and women is most manifest. Patrilineal inheritance customs, which greatly favor men, make women who donât fit the heteronormative mold inherent in traditional values (unmarried, single mothers, divorcees, and lesbians) hold the very short end of the stick. In Nigeria, for instance, even though the constitution protects persons of all gender from discrimination and guarantees equality under the law, customary and religious laws also guide inheritance rights.
In Islamic law, for example, which is the only law in nine of Nigeriaâs Muslim majority states, the female children get a half of what the male children get; the wife gets a quarter of her husbandâs estate after deductions. In the case of multiple wives that quarter is divided equally among them and those who have converted to other religions are disinherited. However, if a wife dies, her estate is automatically transferred to the husband.4 This treatment is ironically still more just in comparison to customary law where female inheritance is not stipulated at all and women are left at the mercy of male relatives.
The customary laws are subject to tribal laws and therefore vary based on this basis. Because of their patrilocality these inheritance laws trace their origin and value through males, women are generally excluded from decisions about property transfer or inheritance. For example, Chika and Nneka exemplify how the Igbo women in Nigeria are extremely short-changed when it comes to matters of inheritance when they write,
The Igbo customary law is basically patrilineal in nature; and therefore, the cardinal principle of customary inheritance is by primogeniture. Land and landed property, devolve under this system on the males, to the exclusion of daughters and wives. Igbo customary law by implication denies the female genders the right to inherit their deceased husbandsâ or fathersâ landed property, thus their inheritance rights are grossly marginalized and jeopardized. In fact, this custom has surprisingly, received judicial approval by our superior courts of record.5
In contrast to Nigeria, Uganda has a very progressive constitution with regard to womenâs land rights. The 2004 and 2010 amendments to the Land Act go as far as to stipulate the structure of land management bodies. Accordingly,
The Uganda Land Commission must include at least two females among its five members, one-third of the membership of the District Land Boards must be female, and Area Land Committees at the parish level must have at least one female among their four members. Under Section 17 (4) (b) at least one-third of the members of the Communal Land Association must be female. These Associations are corporate bodies which may be formed under the Land Act by any group of persons on any land for any purpose connected with communal land ownership and management of land.6
The rights of the wife are also clearly specified in the Ugandan constitution, in that a husband may not make any decisions related to the family land without the consent of the wife and on dissolution of their marriage, half of their property would be legally hers. In practice however, it is still difficult to enforce these due to patriarchal traditions. For example, Kyembabazi was married to Muhirwe for over 12 years, they live on Muhirweâs family land in Rubindi â a village in south-western Uganda. Out of four pregnancies she was only able to carry one child to term, a girl. Muhirwe went looking elsewhere for a woman capable of producing male heirs. Luckily, Kyembabazi knew her spousal rights and with the help of friends took Muhirwe to court. He, being a reasonable man, bequeathed her a portion of his land on condition that she live with their daughter. Everyone agreed that Muhirwe had done right by Kyembabazi. It would be unreasonable to expect him to transfer a portion of the family land into her name, she was welcome to stay on the land for as long as she wished. The village elders approved. In the above scenario Muhirwe is clearly the master of his universe, whereas Kyembabaziâs fortunes are subject to his generosity.
Although very small in comparison to the first two countries discussed with a population of just over 1.3 million people, Swaziland deserves a mention in this chapter because it epitomizes the vulnerability of women in general and specifically lesbian women in an unapologetically patriarchal and homophobic society. It is also a perfect example of the implications of denying women rights to land and property given its high rates of HIV, gender-based violence and forced and child marriages.
As Brook et al. note,7
The laws of Swaziland greatly restrict womenâs rights to land and personal property at all stages of life, discriminating against women on the basis of gender, marital status, and marital regime. Under Swazi law and custom, a chief allocates communal Swazi Nation Land to a woman only through her husband, male relatives, or male children. Because land rights vest in males and women are considered inferior, a woman has no security on communal land, and may be evicted by her husband, her in-laws, and her chief for almost any reason, including adultery, witchcraft, and the inability to bear male children. A woman will also struggle to access private property because she has insufficient economic resources, she cannot register the land in her name when she is married under civil rites, and she requires her husbandâs permission to administer the land. Furthermore, a husband married under customary law or civil rites may exercise his marital power to control community property as well as his wifeâs personal property and income without her consent, treating her like a minor. A married woman may not sell livestock and crops that she raised, dispose of household items, access her bank account, or obtain a bank loan without the consent of her husband. Finally, at the break up of customary and civil rites marriages, a woman is deprived of property to which she has contributed because she owns nothing of value, her husband can unilaterally dispose of property to deprive her of her share, and the traditional authorities and civil courts unfairly divide the marital estate.
From the above it is clear that those women who do not share intimate relationships with men in Swaziland are exceptionally vulnerable. This despite the adoption of the 2005 constitution which claims to protect individual liberties and access to property as well as gender equality under sections 20 and 28 and declares any contrary laws void. Moreover, although Swaziland has undertaken to ensure gender equality by working to change mindsets resulting from social, cultural, and religious practices as a signatory to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol on Gender and Development which is a recognition by member countries of the need for gender equality and equity on the path to sustainable development and good governa...
