Patriarchal Societies and Women Leadership

All around the world, the man has been seen to dominate over the woman. This can be blamed by on colonial teachings as well as biblical teachings that dictate that the man is superior to the woman. Male dominated nations are said to be patriarchal societies. Patriarchy is defined by (Walby,1990) as a system of attitudes and structures which men hold power over women or patriarchy can be defined as males holding power over women, and subsequently creating structures that prevent women from accessing power or resources. (Kalabamu, 2006) suggests that men obtain power from social norms within a given culture. Thus this paper views the absence of women in leadership in Developing and Developed nations comparing a country like South Africa to Kenya and many African countries as the reason for continued patriarchal systems and poverty among women. This work has been made possible by a team of students and their lecturer as they completed their work under the Course Specialized Seminar at United States International University - Africa.