During colonialism in Southern Africa, women faced "tripartite oppression" as they suffered due to their gender, race, and status as colonial subjects. They were left to do most of the farming work alone while men migrated to towns for work, and had no land rights or access to education, voting rights, or opportunities. This oppression negatively impacted women and economic development.

1.  During colonialism in developing countries especially in Southern
Africa, women suffered "tripartite" or a three way oppression.
 Can you think of what this means? This means that the women
were faced by three major problems.
 Firstly, they suffered for just being women.
 They also suffered as black women and again as colonial objects.
 In many parts of Southern Africa, Africans were forced to move
away from their fertile traditional lands to live in reserves where
land was not enough for farming.
 This prompted or forced many African men to migrate to towns in
search of jobs to pay for the tax that was introduced by the
colonial government.
 This meant that men left behind the women to care for the sick,
the aged and the children.
 The women were also forced to till the land that was less
productive.

2.  This migration of men meant that women and
children were left in the reserves where there
was absolutely no development.
 Women had to do most of the hard work of
farming alone.
 Women had to grow crops on the less fertile land
to produce enough food for their families.
 They had no rights to own land as land was
registered in the man's name.
 This was because the man was considered head
of the family.
 Women who were doing a lot of work on the land
while the men were away in town were not
recognised by the law as landowners.

3.  In many countries such as apartheid South
Africa voting rights were only given to men.
 Even the white women were not allowed to
vote.
 In other African societies almost all
decisions were made by men even though
they affected both men and women.
 Women were in most cases treated as
second-class citizens.

4.  Many women in developing societies had no chance to
go to school or access to modern technology.
 Women were also denied decent education because
they were expected to bear children and raise them.
 This trend is, however, changing in democratic
countries such as Botswana where people are seen as
equal before the law.
 In countries such as Afghanistan where women were
to have a large number of children, they had very
little time to concentrate on their school work as
they had to spend most of their time raising children.
 Since we know that education means development,
countries which denied their women education would
not develop.
 The women's talents and potential were all wasted.
This, therefore, impacted negatively on the economy.

5.  During the colonial rule, when men went to the mines,
women were not allowed to join them.
 The women had to stay behind to take care of other family
members and also to till the land.
 The women had to do all the agricultural work.
 They started to do all the duties previously done by men.
 There was low agricultural productivity because the able-
bodied men were all away working at the mines.
 Migrant labour contributed greatly to shortage of
production which ultimately led to malnutrition as women
could not provide much especially during drought periods.
 Migrant labour also resulted in broken marriages.
 Some of the men who went to the mines found new
partners and so did some of the women who stayed
behind.
 This, therefore, resulted in broken marriages.

6.  As we have already studied, during the colonial
rule men had to go to work in the mines to
provide for their families and to be able to pay
tax that was introduced by the colonial rule.
 Life at home was left in the hands of the women
who were now forced by the situation to grow
cash crops.
 They needed money to get certain commodities
that they needed.
 The women could, of course not do so well in
commercial farming.
 A lot of them actually ended up working in
farms to earn a living and a wage small as it was.