Increasingly in the literature on underdevelopment, there is growing recognition of colonialism's pernicious effects on women's status in Africa, as elsewhere. Colonialism, it is argued, destroyed the traditional sex role balance both through underestimating and undermining women's economic role, as well as through the havoc colonialists raised in the social sphere by such varied means as forced labor and cash cropping (cf. Seidman, 1975; Diarra, 1971; Tinker, 1975). And yet there is a highly visible elite of African women—women well-traveled, usually professionally trained and/or university educated. If indeed colonialism did have such negative effects on women's status as are now being claimed, how then do we account for the rise of this female elite?

On the basis of data gathered through interviews in Senegal during the autumn and winter of 1974, we will argue that these women are indeed exceptions, that elite women sampled came from highly privileged family backgrounds in which the father was already involved in the colonial order. We will also examine their motivations for acquiring higher education and professional training and their opinions on topics related to colonialism, development, and women's status. From this data we can then better evaluate both their evolution as an elite and their relationship to other women within the particular developing society.

Dakar was chosen as a research site both for the availability of archival records from the colonial era and for its significant population of highly educated women. Dakar, as the former capital of French West Africa, was a center for education, with the Section des Sage Femmes of the Medical School (opened in 1922) and the Ecole Normole des Jeunes Filles at Rifisque (opened in 1938), both located within the greater urban area. These two schools served as the major secondary training schools for girls from all over French West Africa during the colonial era: their graduates were among the first women professionals, and many have since obtained high positions in many sectors of their societies.

Political science as a discipline has ignored women in its research and consequently in its literature. Cathartic ranting and raving by feminist political scientists about the blindness of their male colleagues will not bring out the fundamental issues. The shortsightedness of political scientists about the political role? of women is not merely a function of the attitudes of the discipline's practitioners (the vast majority of whom have always been males). Nor can the whole problem of how political science views women be discarded with the observation that women are rarely influential actors in public activities and therefore do not merit the serious attention of observers of political life.

The invisibility of women in political science stems from the traditional concerns and emphases of the discipline which come, in turn, from its largely Western setting. By examining politics in other cultural settings, we can come to understand why women have received so little attention in political science. Only with a significant expansion of its scope can the discipline incorporate women into its analyses. The changing circumstances of politics around the world now mandates such an expansion. Nowhere is this more obviously the case than in Africa. Before examining how and why political scientists have ignored African women, it is important to review briefly political science as a discipline.

The sixties will be remembered as the decade of independence for most of Africa, independence won for the most part at the negotiating table. All too frequently the parties negotiating on behalf of African countries were a carefully cultivated elite who simply replaced the colonial administrators and set the stage for the growth of neocolonialism, coups, and counter coups. Unlike Britain and France, Portugal, until its 1974 revolution, refused to relinquish its colonies in Africa–Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Angola.

Guinea-Bissau, a small country on the west coast of Africa, had been a colony of Portugal for 500 years. For most of this period the relationship was one of trading. Portugal was not interested in political control so long as it had access to slaves and other goods. But with the “scramble for Africa” at the end of the nineteenth century, Portugal changed its attitude. Africa was being greedily divided up by the imperial powers and Portugal realized that unless it entrenched its presence and took political control, it might lose out altogether. With the coming to power of Salazar and a fascist dictatorship in Portugal in 1926, the control became both brutal and complete.

In 1956 the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) was founded by Amilcar Cabral and a few country people. At first PAIGC's goal was to organize workers in the towns, hoping that through demonstrations and strikes they would convince the Portuguese to negotiate for independence. It soon became clear that this was not going to happen. Each demonstration was met with violence, until the 1959 massacre of fifty dockworkers holding a peaceful demonstration at Pidgiguiti. This was a turning point for PAIGC: they realized that independence could not be won without an armed struggle, one that had to be based on the mass participation of the people. They turned their focus to the countryside and to mobilizing the peasants, who represented 95 percent of the population.

Through their wedding celebrations, women from all strata of Mombasa society have participated in the evolution of a variegated Swahili culture. An historical analysis of wedding ceremonies illuminates two important questions: first, the pattern of interaction between people of slave and free ancestry after the abolition of slavery in 1907, and second, the role women have played in integrating into Swahili culture elements drawn from both slave and free peoples.

An awareness of the interplay of ethnicity and social stratification is crucial to understanding Swahili society. Historians have traced successive migrations of people from different parts of Africa and the Indian Ocean, bringing disparate ways of life. But despite the well-known formulation that Swahili culture grew from the mingling of African and Persian or Arab peoples, little attempt has been made to analyze specifically the contributions of African slaves to the mixture. The failure to distinguish different strata in the African component of Swahili culture obscures the class dynamic in coastal society. Scholars do not ignore social stratification, but few describe adequately the interaction between various strata. Still fewer writers analyze cultural artifacts as the expression of different, and often competing, strata. For example, James De Vere Allen, in his excellent guide to the Lamu museum, argues persuasively that “Swahili culture … is an African culture,” not an Arab import, as early British writers assumed. But having exposed the colonialist assumptions behind the earlier idea and having established the indigenous roots of Swahili culture, Allen (n.d.: 1-2) does not attempt to describe the impact of the lower strata on the material culture of the elite, whose articles dominate the museum. Allen is handicapped by the fact that poor people tend to create fewer and less substantial artifacts. In order to analyze the contributions of slaves and other people from the lower strata of society, one must turn to customs, particularly dances, which did not depend upon wealth or power for their creation.

Why discuss women's role in development? The reason is quite simple, and it forms the underlying premise of this paper: If all of the persons who are involved in the human tasks of survival and creation of a better life are allowed to share the opportunities available to apply scientific knowledge and technological advances, development will be achieved at the most rapid rate possible. Conversely, if some persons are left outside the stream of this knowledge, the pace of development will be slowed down for the whole society. And the latter is particularly true if those left out play a major part in economic production and are at the same time the persons who bear the chief responsibility for the health and well-being of all the people.

Whether one holds a pragmatic or a humanistic view of development, the participation of women is necessary. From the pragmatic approach, one sees that the most serious problems of development defy solution without the active participation of women. Can hunger be banished without the women, who grow most of Africa's food, and who breastfeed the babies and prepare the meals for the whole family? Can illiteracy be abolished without the women who are the first teachers of children, and whose own level of education affects the progress in schooling of both boys and girls? The pragmatic approach to development also dictates that all available human resources must be mobilized to reach the goal.

The humanistic approach to development is expressed in the definition of development formulated by the President of Tanzania: “Development is development of people toward their greater freedom and well-being” (Nyerere, 1968). All must participate in the tasks of nation-building and share in its fruits.

It has by now been amply demonstrated that involvement of a local region with the world capitalist economy, or “development,” can have disastrous effects upon the economic status of women (Boserup, 1970). These changes are created by the involvement of the labor force in activities related to world markets in commodities, either by working as wage laborers on plantations, mines, and factories, or by cultivating cash crops as tenants or owners of land. In Africa women have been barred from much of the wage labor available, yet have been expected to subsidize low wages paid to men of their families by agricultural work and trading (Hay, 1976; Stichter, n.d.). Where new agricultural techniques have been introduced, men have been trained to use them despite the preponderance of female farmers in much of African traditional agriculture (Boserup, 1970: 53-65).

I had the privilege in 1969-1971 of working as an anthropologist in Ethiopia, a nation at that time marginal to the world economy. Principal exports were cotton and coffee, both unsuitable for cultivation in much of the Ethiopian highland. Indigenous manufacturing firms employed fewer than 50,000 people in a population estimated at 25 million (Ethiopia Statistical Abstract, 1970: 54). The nation had never been part of a real colonial empire; Italian domination in 1938-41 was too brief to set up successful forms of foreign-dominated economic extraction. Various types of subsistence farming and pastoralism supported the bulk of the Ethiopian population.

The largest women's voluntary association in Kenya and the only one with a countrywide network of clubs is Maendeleo ya Wanawake (Swahili for “women's progress”). It was organized by a small group of European women in the early 1950s under the auspices of the colonial government's Department of Community Development and Rehabilitation, to promote “the advancement of African women” and to raise African living standards.

This paper will argue that although Maendeleo was founded to improve rural living standards through self-help, and although its national leadership in the early years of independence took a critical position towards the government, in the last few years the leadership has tended to accept the status quo and accomodate itself to the political elite. Moroever the gap between rural and urban women has grown wider and the development projects that have been implemented have been the results of local level initiative. The paper suggests that unless there is a greater commitment of resources from the national executive and from the government, Maendeleo ya Wanawake (MyW) will likely lose its extensive rural base. To support this proposition, the paper contends that:

(1) the national executive and its urban supporters engage in the “patrons' round” of activities, and in the urban context MyW bears more resemblance to a western women's philanthropic organization than to an African self-help organization;

(2) the national executive, though voicing support for women's rights, enjoys essentially an accomodative relationship with the government, and makes little attempt to secure equal rights or more resources for women;