In my old age I’ve come to understand that points of ideological contention can be very eye-opening. My friend Akwasi and I considered each other relatively liberal, like-minded urbanites until we had the “gender role” conversation. Yes, that one —the quintessential Mars/Venus debate. According to Akwasi, women have certain roles such as housekeeping and child-rearing and that they are obliged to fulfill. My view is somewhat more fluid: each party should perform the duties to which he or she is best suited, traditional expectations notwithstanding. I will spare you the details of the tete a tete, but I will share my rather rudimentary analysis of the subject.

After much hand-wringing and a rather ad-hoc consultation with my uncle in Lagos, I concluded that from a “historical” perspective, gender roles had (what I considered to be) relatively unambiguous utility. I reasoned that early man was suited to hunting and gathering due to his greater physical strength and size while early woman, as the child bearer, remained at home out of harm’s way. In my narrow rendering of the world, gender roles were simply a sensible expression of the division of labor. As the capitalist system developed, however, traditionally male roles became recognized by the market and female roles did not. Because we are pushing the boundaries that dictate gender roles, who does what, when, and for whom is now a much more complex question.

So what is the point of my idle musings apart from offending anthropologists, historians, scholars of gender studies - anyone with an informed opinion? Well, quite frankly, it begs the question of where women exist in capitalist society, and more specifically, where they exist at the BOP.

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