Description of VET in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the

This Section discusses the gender identities based power relations, and the roles fishermen construct for fisher women as well as how the women position themselves in the community. In so doing, I examine the everyday fisherwomen experiences as significant for their identity production and gender differentiation and their implication for child labour in the community (Butler, 1990).

During my first day meeting with the chief and his elders to negotiate access to the community and its people, there was no woman among the elders. So I became so curious and interested in knowing why there was no woman at that meeting. But during my meeting with the chief fisherman and his elders for the same reason on the 10^th May 2013, there was only one woman who was referred to as the ‘Konkohenmaa’, meaning the queen of petty traders, representing all the fisher women in the community. She was the leader of all the fisher women in the community. During our interaction, this woman made an attempt to contribute to the discourse. But one of the elders signalled her to keep quiet by saying,

Hey hey hey woman, keep quiet! Let the men deal with him. We need to know everything and then we might ask you to come in with your question.

Pondering over this comment and other observations led me to delve into Fisherman-Fisherwoman identity-based power relations in the community. The elder’s comment suggests that fisherwomen have other experiences in their relations with their male counterparts. The following are some of the comments fishermen made about fisherwomen and other women in general in the community.

Me: Please tell me about your notion about womankind in general in this community.

Atule Aban

…Is in the Bible…women were created with a rib from a man. They cannot be compared in anyways to us, men. This explains why we the men are always heads of our homes, no matter our financial position…….

Atta Brukusu

...God created women to be under men. Our customs and traditions support that. We can impregnate women but they cannot impregnate themselves. No matter how rich a woman is, she will still need a man to impregnate her for a baby…..this is nature…

Obibini Takyi

…when a woman buys a gun, she hangs it in a man’s room. This is because the man is the head, and supervisor of the woman…. This is a biological arrangement made by God… Women are women by birth and nature…

The fisherman, Atule Aban’s comments point to the unequal power relations between men and women in the community. He refers to what the Bible (Genesis 2:22) says

“….and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman…” to suggest how women are made out of men. This for him makes a man whether rich or poor the head of every home and all-important relative to woman. Atule Aban further suggests that because of the Bible’s position, women cannot be compared in any way to men in the community. This brings to mind Kessler, Ashenden, et al.’s (1985, cited in Dunne, 2007, p. 502) idea of “gender regime” constructed through community and religious beliefs which position and regulate everyday life and normalise unequal power relations between men and women. The fisherman, Atta Brukusu’s comments also depict this. He says women are meant to be under men.

For Atta Brukusu, no matter the social status of a woman, she still needs a man to make her complete as a human being. These are all sanctioned by his customs and traditions.

Obibini Takyi corroborated further by saying that when a woman buys a gun, she hangs it in a man’s room suggesting that the man is the head of the house, and also a supervisor of the woman. He further suggests that women occupy their position by virtue of their biological make- up which according to him is God’s arrangement. These comments help

to make sense of men's apparent contempt for women as the normal outcome of what Freud (1933) refers to as masculine Oedipus complex, through their identification with their father's masculine superiority and the consequent view of women as penis-less (inferior) creatures. In this way Freud demonstrated the intertwining of psychological and social forms of gender oppression (Chodorow 1989). Similar arguments have been made by Butler (1990) who stresses the importance of understanding how social practices of a given culture are transmitted to its members and how the individual internalises the power relations, sex roles and psychodynamics of the family.

The following is a one-on-one interaction I had with one of the fishermen informally at his home.

Me: So what do you think about women and how they were created?

Sapiensa Musah

…We all know that women were created to help men and give birth for us, the men. We all know that men are so important, that’s why God gave men penis and women did not get it. We all know that pregnancy becomes impossible without men. They are important but cannot be compared to men. That is how it is by nature, and by cultural practices.

Me: Please tell me about the importance of women in your everyday life in this community.

Sapiensa Musah

…Oh my brother, I am not saying that women are not important. At least without them, we cannot get a womb for foetus to form. But the fact is by birth, nature and traditional practices men are ranked first before women.

It has been so before we were all born. Every society’s work is to protect this God made arrangement between men and women for the sake of respect and peace…Women understand this arrangement. That is why when women give birth to their own children, they always want to be with the girls, and boys are encouraged by their mother to be with their father….

Me: Tell me about any specific role you think without women’s help fishing business could grind to a halt.

Sapiensa Musah

…look my brother, we all know that women are very good at managing money than men. They finance our fishing activities in this community.

They buy all our catch and sell to others. They can perform some wonders anytime a family is grieved; I mean they provide the money for funerals among others.

The fisherman, Sapiensa Musah’s repetition of the phrase we all know that suggest to me that his responses, perhaps, represent the dominant discourses men have about women’s position in the fishing community. Sapiensa Musah’s comments reveal symptoms of how the fishermen regard the importance of their penis relative to women (Butler, 1990).

His comments also suggest the fishermen’s feelings of being superior to women. In so doing, the comments assume men’s superiority in sexuality; it assumes of biological determinism and neglects the symbolic significance of the penis, and social influence on individual difference (Butler, 1990). His comments illustrate how femininity is construed vis-a-vis masculinity, or more precisely, femininity is to be articulated in the context of male and the opposition of male and female. This for me represents Sigmund Freud’s (1933) reified notion of man as norm and woman as the ‘Other’. This further bespeaks of Freud’s idea of penis envy, which views the penis as important in unconscious life (Butler, 1990).

The fisherman’s comment also resonates with Freud’s expositions on anatomical differences which, according to Chodorow (1978), are loaded with relations of superiority and inferiority. These comments are confirmed by Freud's overall view of women. He constructs women as shameful beings, narcissistic and vain, with less sense of justice than men and with no notable contribution to make to civilisation (Freud 1933).

However, the fisherman’s (Sapiensa Musah) response to my second question reveals, for me, some conflict in his responses. The fisherman mentions the womb of a woman which is needed to carry a foetus which forms a baby. The fisherman suggests the capability of women to give birth as very important and critical. Despite the fisherman’s realisation of the importance of the womb of a woman, he continues that “by birth, nature and traditional practices” men are ranked ahead of women. This suggests an assumption of male sexuality as the complete, and the capacity of women to get pregnant and give birth as an insufficient alternative (Kittay, 1984 cited in Mahtani, 2011). As a response to my last question, the fisherman suggests that fisherwomen provide the men with money

to get their fishing business going. The women break bulk and sell to others. Women provide the monies for the day-to-day running of businesses and their homes because they can manage money better than men. This resonates with Stets & Burke’s (2000) argument that one cannot only consider women’s vital contributions towards keeping society operating, but also their potential to succeed in other, non-traditional and arguably greater social duties. In her Rereading Freud on Femininity or Why Not Womb Envy?

Eva Kittay (1984, cited in Mahtani, 2011) addresses this issue where she also makes an argument about men’s envy towards women’s sexuality and distinctive capacities. She calls this Womb envy (see Eva Kittay, 1984 for further reading).

The fisherman continues to suggest that men’s perspective of women in the community is not ahistorical. Women have been ‘subordinated’ to men in the past till today. He suggests that before he was born, that has been the normal practice. And that it is an arrangement made by God. For him this needs to be maintained for peace to prevail.

These comments support Butler’s (1990) argument that gender identities are performed and accomplished over a period of time. This happens through gender-specific routine behaviour in which forms of femininity and masculinity and sexual identity are produced and regulated (Swain, 2006). This implies a psychical reproduction of subordination of women in that fishing community. The comments also suggest a situation in which women in the community have been made to accept their position without raising any question. From the perspective of the fishermen, the women in the community regard their situation as very normal. I argue that this normalisation is an agentic process that ensures the regulation and accomplishment of sexual identity (Dunne, 2009 cited in Adzahlie-Mensah, 2013). This also explains why Sapiensa Musah made the comment to the effect that women are always with their girls and the boys are always with their fathers.

The suggestion is that mothers are able to help their girls to identify with them, and fathers are able to also help their boys to be masculine by identifying with them. As Blakemore, Berenbaum, & Liben (2009, p.206) remarked, “Simply identifying one’s own gender is enough to begin to motivate the child to learn about and behave in a way that is

consistent with that gender”. Chodorow (1978) also argues that mothers are more likely to relate to their sons as different and separate because they are not of the same sex. At the same time, they experience a sense of oneness and continuity with their daughters because they are of the same sex. As a consequence, mothers will bond with their daughters thereby fostering femininity in girls. Simultaneously, mothers distance themselves from their sons who respond by shifting their attention away from their mother and toward their father. Through identification with their father, boys learn masculinity. More informative, was my conversation with the fisherman, Alhaji Osman.

Me: Please Alhaji how do you see women?

Alhaji Osman

………look, somewhere in the Quran, a disciple of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) asked him, Prophet your mother and father which one should be respected first? The Prophet said your mother. This question was repeated three times. The Prophet answered your Mother. The question was repeated the fourth time. That was when the Prophet mentioned your father. This means God and the Prophet hold women in high esteem. So why can’t humans do the same? Women and children are treated disrespectfully in this community and in Ghana as a whole, why?....These same women keep our families together. The most shocking are my fellow Muslims who are supposed to copy the Prophet’s lifestyle of treating women with chivalry and what the Quran says about respect and equality for women… in this community you see an uncle taking undue advantage of his sister’s child …

Me: Please tell me how men treat women in this community.

Alhaji Osman

Astaghfirullah (An Arabic word which translates to seeking forgiveness from Allah). Most of the men here treat them as if they were created second to men. Most men beat their wives and children every day in this community. Some men will deceive some women with money, impregnate them and leave them alone with their children in poverty. So these children will be roaming about and stealing fish and doing all sort of things just to survive because nobody cares for them…Men should not forget that heaven lies at the feet of all women…

Me: So, Alhaji please tell me about your notion of how women were created.

Alhaji Osman

Allah (God) created women like anyone of us here. We are the same. As for me I think human beings have just used language to show difference between us. These days women can do whatever men can do and do it better.

These responses from Alhaji Osman give an indication of him as a Muslim polygamist, who was so passionate and worried about how men positioned women in the community from an Islamic perspective. The fisherman’s comments resonates with Prophet Muhammad remarks that, "Heaven lies at the feet of mothers" (Moustafa, 2013, p.181).

The Prophet told fathers that, if their daughters spoke well of them on the Day of Judgment, they would enter paradise. Islam teaches that men and women are equal before God (Hasan, 2012). Alhaji Osman’s comments render credence to Gustave Le Bond a prominent French thinker’s argument that Islam is not only about respecting women, but rather, Islam is the first religion to teach about honour and respect for each other regardless of gender (see Al-Sheha, 2000). However, the fisherman, Alhaji Osman makes a comment that suggests his lamentation about the way women and children are being disrespected in the community and Ghana as a whole even though they keep our families together.

The fisherman is highly surprised that Muslims in the community are not showing the rest of the community members how to respect and love a woman based on what the Quran says and the exemplary life style of the Prophet (pbuh). Alhaji Osman’s response to my second question suggests that women in the community are battered and sexually abused by men. He further suggests that some men do impregnate some of these women without taking care of their responsibilities. The suggestion is that such women become single parents and struggle with poverty all alone taking care of their children. Alhaji Osman’s comment reveals how some of these children end up becoming child labourers and street children. Alhaji Osman’s comment, in this community you see an uncle taking undue advantage of his sister’s child, suggests that some adults who could be uncles or neighbours could exploit children who find themselves in such situations as a source of cheap labour. His narratives and expression of surprise resonate with me as a Muslim and a Ghanaian. My father had four wives and we were all living in a Muslim dominated

community. I observed and experienced how my father and other Muslim fathers maltreated their wives and children in the community. Growing up as a Muslim, I was taught about how the Prophet treated his wives and children with an attitude characterised by chivalry, egalitarianism, love and respect.

His comments further suggest that Islam stresses the importance of equality for all. This is further emphasised as it relates to gender equality in particular. In his response to my third question the fisherman indicated that Allah (God) created men and women in the same way. He suggests that none is higher than the other. He adds that men and women have used language to show difference between them. This bespeaks of some of the arguments made in Butler’s (1990) Gender Trouble. For instance she challenges the assumption that masculine and feminine gender identities correspond with male and female bodies. Butler further argues that male and female themselves are socially constructed. So there is nothing “natural” about everybody being defined in terms of the other. The fisherman further emphasised that in terms of performance of any task, men and women could prove equal. The following are the fisherwomen’s perspectives on how they are positioned and their experiences as women in relating with their male counterparts in the fishing community.

Ama Congo

…For me there is nothing like Female and Male. We are all human beings before the creator. Just as whites are not superior to blacks, so is it that women are not superior to men, vice versa. Some Men behave as if they were with God when He created the world, and decided to show difference between man and woman by coining the words MAN and WOMAN. These words are just constructed by human beings. All of us matter in this world….we used our own words and interpretation to make it look like males matter more than females…This has been done for a very long period so it has been accepted by all as if that is how God made it….

Araba Alanta

…now I think it only in this part of the world that men see themselves as different from women. We hear in local language news about men becoming women and women becoming men in the West and America.

That should tell you that one could be whoever he/she wants to be just by some of the things you do, your gestures and the way you dress. Just that in this part of the world our cultural practices and religion frown upon

women behaving like men and vice versa. But it is possible elsewhere according to local news on radio…we all need to understand that male or female is just a language. If we do that, we will all leave respectfully with each….

These comments suggest the strong belief women have in equal gender identity. The fisherwoman, Ama Congo, for instance holds the belief that Men and Women were created in the same manner and that none could be considered inferior in relation to the other. She seems to argue that the difference between man and woman is just ‘man-made’

via the use of language and interpretation. Ama Congo further suggests that this practice has gone on for ages to the extent that it has been accepted by all as normal. Her

via the use of language and interpretation. Ama Congo further suggests that this practice has gone on for ages to the extent that it has been accepted by all as normal. Her