Gender Relations in Cameroon

written by Emmanuel Yenshu Vubo

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.

Emmanuel Yenshu Vubo

Emmanuel Yenshu Vubo is a university professor (Professeur des Universités) in Sociology and Demography (Qualification 19e section, Conseil national des Universités, France). He is currently Associate Professor at the University of Buea, where he has lectured in sociology and anthropology since 1993. His most notable publications are Civil Society and the Search for Development Alternatives in Cameroon (edited, CODESRIA, 2008) and Inventer un nouvel espace public en Afrique: Le défi de la diversité ethnique (Harmattan, 2011). His numerous other publications are in the domain of the sociology of development, political sociology, ethnicity, inter-cultural relations and intercommunity relations within the modern nation state. He is a member of the executive committee of the Council for the Development of Social science Research in Africa (CODESRIA).