Gender Relations in Cameroon

Multidisciplinary Perspectives

This book examines some facets of gender relations in Cameroon – symmetry in male-female relationships, women’s access to land in traditional society, socialization into gender roles through language textbooks in schools, the association life of women, widowhood and inheritance, social capital and entrepreneurship, husband-wife relations in early German colonial encounters – as socially and historically constructed realities from a multidisciplinary perspective, bringing together some social sciences and humanities. The studies point to the fact that these relations are as much rooted in traditions and customs fashioned in several benchmark epochs in African history – arming women with formidable social and cultural capitals or making of them victims of social structures over which they have little control – as they are constantly evolving in contemporary times and transforming women into agents in their own affairs as well as those of the new societies in the making.

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