African culture and the status of Women: the Yoruba example

Issues relating to the rights of women across the globe are a major focus of contemporary scholarship. Quest for women emancipation has been on the increase in religious, political and economic spheres. This is premised on the fact that women are always at the receiving end. This however has been discovered not to be true in its entirety as women in every society enjoy some inalienable privileges. This paper therefore discusses the status of Yoruba women in traditional Africa from a holistic perspective, with emphasis on how culture has impacted negatively on their well-being, although there are benefits derive from their status in society. Thus, it recommended that cultural practices that are harmful to women should be discarded, while caution must be exercised in the quest for the liberation of women so that African cultural values can be retained, and thus not destroyed under the guise of civilization.