Thomas Sankara et la condition féminine: un discours révolutionnaire?

CHAPTER II

REVOLUTION SANKARISTE AND STATUTE OF THE WOMAN

During an interview with Ouagadougou in May 1984, president Sankara exposes carefully the statute of the woman burkinabé. He stresses that the women live in a kind of prison universe. In Burkina Faso the women account for 51,1% of the total population and, however, they occupy a marginal place in the sectors educational, political and socio-economic.

2.1 THE EDUCATION OF THE WOMAN

Whatever the type of traditional or modern orientation, the girl receives an education different from that of his/her brother. The teaching exempted with the girl consists to work it, to condition it to play its domestic and maternal part. She is educated in the direction of the tender. As of the first ages of its life, its plays are directed towards the housework and the training of maternity^36(*). The stereotypes as regards education are numerous^37(*). The textbooks, through the texts and the illustrations, convey prejudices at the place of the girls. They contribute to perpetuate various forms of discrimination based on the sex. These documents are vectors of transmission of the standards, values and of an ideology sexists. That influences, with certainty, the development of the attitudes and the behaviors. The representations of the girls remain negative. They are perceived like passive people, showing an affectivity excessive, obeying, are devoted, quiet, awkward, weak, dependant, sometimes frivolous : all things which contribute to feed the myth of « woman object ».

In French the single Book of the African schoolboy (middle price, second year), of use in Burkina Faso in the years 1980, these stereotypes prejudicial with the image of the girls abound. On page 14, one reads there : « Yassi, whose name means woman, was young person of the girls of Drébedjé and three seasons less old than Kossi. Soft it was and pretty, and pleasant. It took its time to speak, was never carried, never pronounced a word higher than the other » In the lesson of reading  « preparation of the meal »^38(*), small Maïmouna is represented like mother and housewife. She makes the crockery, goes to the market for the purchase of provisions and makes the kitchen. She must grant invaluable care to her headstock. She is occupied each day  « with its occupations as a small conscientious housewife ». in spite of its age, Maïmouna has much love clean and intends to succeed in all « its naive companies ».

Contrary to these flexible and subjected girls, the same handbook introduces the Julien young person like the prototype of the rebel !^39(*). He refuses to ensure the guard of the saw. « Instead of attentively supervising the action of all the mechanism, Julien read ». The prototype of the young virile male becomes in these works the expression of bravery and courage^40(*). Thus a young boxer receives the most beautiful medal, that vermilion of the town of Paris. Such images contained in the textbooks contribute to reinforce in the young people of the two sexes, the commonly allowed idea of the superiority of the man (« stronger sex ») on the woman (« weaker sex »).

Supporting a traditional image of the woman, the modern education system knows in fact a weak participation of the woman. Disparities exist between the boys and the girls. In 1983, the rate of schooling in Burkina Faso is 20%. In the primary education the girls account for 37% of provided education for manpower. This figure is of

34,5% with the secondary and 22,9% with the superior. With the advent of the revolution, basic education takes importance. With the level of the pre-school one, one attends the flowering of popular nurseries since 1985. These establishments intended for the framing of the early childhood aim at generalizing pre-school education, with responsabiliser the families with better playing their part in the discoveries of the young child and discharging the mothers from the guard of the children^41(*). Such structures of education were born in China Maoist. On the level of primary education teaching, the report is alarming. The rate of schooling of the girls is definitely lower than that of the boys. 1985 to 1987, the number of girls registered for 100 registered boys is 59 with the primary education , 51 with the secondary and 29 with the superior^42(*).

Illiteracy touches 92,5% of the population including 98% of the women^43(*). The elimination of illiteracy which took importance with the revolution has also disparities between the men and the women. In 1985, the rate of elimination of illiteracy is 14,48% including 19,35% for the men and 1,72%^44(*) for the women. A certain number of constraints justify this high rate of the illiteracy of the female population^45(*) which is characterized by the difficult access and the reduced duration of stay of the girls with the school. The family unit prefers to give his/her daughters in marriage precociously. The instruction, in the mentality of the parents, is incompatible with the female qualities and values. This ignorance of the importance of the education of the girls makes that the provided education for girl is occupied full-time by painful domestic tasks^46(*). Not being able to reconcile the life of pupil and the tasks domestic, it ends up being excluded from the education system.

In the rural community, the religious chiefs oppose female education. They fear that the woman is informed than the husband-to-be. The relations between girls and boys and those between girls and teachers are in discredit of the first. This fact the Master grants little interest to the girls. With that are added the cultural barriers between the men and the women who give rise to the prejudice according to which the girl has, by nature, of the capacities less than the boy to learn. This intellectual misery of the women the constrained one to hold a secondary role, when it is a question of making a decision which interests the life of the family or the community.

* ³⁶ INSD, Burkina Faso, Data demographic, socio- economic and cultural on the women of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, INSD, 1993, p. 7.

* ³⁷ CHLEBOWSKA (K), the Other Third World  : rural women vis-a-vis illiteracy, UNESCO, 1990, pp. 76-77.

* ³⁸ Deliver (It) single of French of the African schoolboy, Paris, EDICEF, pp. 34-35.

* ³⁹ Deliver (It) single of French of the African schoolboy, Paris, EDICEF, pp. 244-245.

* ⁴⁰ Deliver (It) single of French of the African schoolboy, Paris EDIFICEF, pp. 244-245.

* ⁴¹ UNICEF, Analyzes on the situation of the women and the children with Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, UNICEF, 1994 p. 67

* ⁴² UNO, women in the world 1970-1990  : figures and ideas, New York-, UNO, 1992, p. 50.

* ⁴³ BENABDESSADOK (C), «  Women and revolution or how to release half of the company  », in African Policy N 20, «  Burkina Faso  », Karthala, December 1985, p. 54.

* ⁴⁴ UNICEF  , COp cit., p. 73.

* ⁴⁵ CHLEBOWSKA (K) COp., cit., p. 74.

* ⁴⁶ UNICEF, COp cit., p. 40.