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Women in Ivory Coast formed less than half the country's population in 2003. Their social roles and opportunities have changed since the time of French colonialism. From independence in 1960, the status of women under the law was inferior to that of men, and this continued until the 1990s. The legal changes following the death of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny brought improvement in legal and educational opportunities for women at all levels, and women have been moving into the highest levels of business and government. Cultural traditions and practices, too, have usually marked women for inferior status. While adherence to traditional roles persists, this continuity—as well as the traditions themselves—vary greatly with place and social context. Ivory Coast has more than 60 ethnic groups, usually classified into five principal divisions: Akan (east and center, including the "Lagoon peoples" of the southeast), Krou (southwest), Mandé (Mandé west and Mandé northwest groups), and Senufo-Lobi (north center and northeast). Each of these groups has its own traditional roles for women, as do the religions practiced in the country (Christian 20–30 percent, Muslim 15–20 percent, indigenous 35–50 percent). Today's northern Ivory Coast was at the periphery of the Mali Empire and the great medieval states of the Sahel, while with Portuguese (from the 1460s) and later French colonial expansion, women of the southern regions experienced wars of colonialism and resistance firsthand. In the 1970s, Ivory Coast was considered the economic leader of West Africa, but since the 1990s, poverty and conflict have increased, at times affecting women disproportionately. The interplay of all these experiences has transformed the social roles of women in Ivorian society. ==Women's roles on the eve of colonialism== Ethnic and cultural groups defined women's status in different ways on the eve of colonialism, with beliefs about the role of women in society partly the result of specific ethnic background and historical circumstance. It has been argued that Ivorian cultures largely had a cultural bias against equality between the sexes, embodied in customary law and codified in the colonial period. But this view has been challenged by Ivorian writers, who argue that in many pre-colonial societies, women held political and /or economic power equal to many men.〔N'Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba. Les Africaines dans la politique : femmes baoulé de Côte-d'Ivoire. Paris, L'Harmattan (1996). See review at ( Pounthioun M. D. Diallo, Assié-Lumumba, N'Dri Thérèse. -- Les Africaines dans la politique : femmes baoulé de Côte-d'Ivoire ). Paris, L'Harmattan, 1996, 206 pp. (« Points de vue »)., Cahiers d'études africaines, 160, 2000〕 Looking specifically at the ''N'Gongbo'' Baoulé people, one writer contrasts Ivorian women's roles the traditional Western tradition where the public and the private spheres are separated, with the superior public sphere reserved for men, and argues that Western intellectuals transpose this model onto "traditional" societies in Africa. Rather, the African experience is said to be characterized by coexistence of parallel positions, overlapping roles, and cross gender cooperation. Amongst the Mossi peoples, women's inheritance of family land and possessions, while uncommon, is possible. Women of the Dyoula Mande peoples, living traditionally in scattered communities across in long distance trade communities, were often powerful merchants in their own right. The Gio or Dan people of the southwest regard domestic duties as the preserve of women, while many Mandinka women engage in farming and trade. Women in bond labor communities, or those in cultures with strong caste systems found themselves doubly discriminated against. From the 12th century, but progressing more deeply into the north of Ivory Coast from the 16th century, Islam defined the status of women in Muslim communities. Polygamy, practiced among most Mande peoples since pre-Islamic days, was codified under Islam, which offered both protections and disadvantages. In Mande Muslim communities, the first wife has authority over any subsequent wives, sharing domestic work, and caring for the extended family, into which the wives' parents may be folded into the husbands family. Finally, the African slave trade, beginning in the 15th century destroyed whole communities, with women killed in slave raiding and associated warfare and those enslaved separated from families, and transported to the Americas (or to neighboring states) in brutal conditions. The beginning of the direct colonial period in the 19th century brought general dislocation, warfare, and large population movements, especially in the southern forest zones of West Africa, as the French moved in from the West and South in the 1860s–90s. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Women in Ivory Coast」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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