Impact of Empire on Women

Question 1

What have regional studies about Nairobi prostitutes shown?

Answer 1

That they were able to earn and save enough money to buy their own houses under colonial rule

Question 2

Why did more women in the empire takeover the running of land and farms?

Answer 2

Since the growing economic investment, taxes and urbanisation led men to go in search of paid employment, leaving the traditional economic jobs to the women

Question 3

What two sectors saw more opportunities for women for paid employment?

Answer 3

• Health sector

- Education sector

Question 4

What was Mary Carpenter’s Normal School? When was it set up?

Answer 4

1868 - school set up to train Indian female teachers

Question 5

Where could women train as midwives in the Gold Coast? What was their government salary?

Answer 5

Accra maternity hospital

£208

Question 6

When were laws passed improving inheritance rights for Hindu women? What was the name of the final Act?

Answer 6

1874, 1929 and 1937 - Hindu Womens’ Right to Property Act

Question 7

What sparked the Aba Women’s Revolt 1929? What was the underlying concern?

Answer 7

Fears of direct taxation of women

Underlying concern about lack of female participation in governance

Question 8

Where was there a notable opposition to a hut tax? When? How does this relate to women?

Answer 8

1898 in Sierra Leone
Taxes worsened the broader economic situation for families, of which women were a part and for which women were often responsible

Question 9

Whose studies have shown that women in Igbo and Yuroba tribes had a greater economic status prior to British rule? What was the cause of this?

Answer 9

Rachel Hill

The fact that land ownership and registration had to be by a male

Question 10

Where did the British limit female mobility at the will of traditional chieftains? What measures facilitated this in 1918?

Answer 10

Northern Rhodesia
Women became required to possess a contract of service pass and to pass a medical exam for movement into new economic centres and communities

Question 11

Whose studies have shown that female education was improved by missionary work in Malaya?

Answer 11

Janice Brownfoot

Question 12

How many schools for girls were set up in the Gold Coast in the first few decades of the C19th?

Answer 12

22

Question 13

How many attendances had been measured in health clinics in Accra and Kumasi by 1936?

Answer 13

42,000 in Accra and 49,000 in Kumasi

Question 14

When was adultery outlawed in Southern Rhodesia?

Answer 14

1916

Question 15

When was the age of consent in marriage increased in India?

Answer 15

1891 and 1929

Question 16

When did the campaign to end Female Genital Mutilation begin in Kenya?

Answer 16

1920s

Question 17

Where did Mary Carpenter set up girls’ schools in India?

Answer 17

Calcutta and Ahmedebad

Question 18

What was the limitation of the girls schools set up?

Answer 18

They often taught domestic sciences and hence reinforced traditional roles

Question 19

Which rule contributed to the sigmatisation of women on the periphery being inferior?

Answer 19

1909 Crewe Circular (banning concubinage between British officers and native women)

Question 20

How would Said argue that women’s lives were negatively affected socially?

Answer 20

Their social status and inferiority was reinforced by orientalism. They were presented as weak, exotic and willing to be dominated. Effeminacy was seen as a weak trait in males

Question 21

What was the limitation of better hospital provision for women?

Answer 21

Women were often afraid to go into hospitals as it didn’t conform to traditional practices e.g. having children in the kitchen

Question 22

Whose work has shown that the empire reinforced and worsened sexual barriers and differences in India?

Answer 22

Indrani Sen

Question 23

When did women gain the right to vote in New Zealand?

Answer 23

1893

Question 24

When was the All-Indian Women’s Conference set up? What was its role?

Answer 24

1927 by Margaret Cousins

Pushed for better women’s rights, education and healthcare in India. Became a leading political female pressure group

Question 25

When did women gain the right to vote in e.g. Malaya?

Answer 25

1957

Question 26

Who was a key female nationalist figure in Nigeria? What did she do?

Answer 26

Funmilayo Ransome Kuti
Set up Federation of Nigerian Women’s Unions. Had success in preventing the introduction of a Water Rates Tax in 1959 amongst others.

Question 27

How were women in politics silenced for much of the imperial period?

Answer 27

Through indirect rule

Question 28

How did democracy still not bring major improvements for the political empowerment of women?

Answer 28

The new educated elite rulers were male

Question 29

How many parliamentarians were male following Zambian independence in 1964?

Answer 29

92%