The Plight and Prejudice of Grass field Female Folk in the Colonial Missionary Venture in the Cameroon Bamenda Grasslands Fandoms

Abstract

The missionary colonial enterprises in the African continent, most especially south of the Sahara, at any time of its growth or expansion, had a boundless desire to close the gap existing in the socio -cultural, economic or political hierarchies that anchored lavish glorification of gender dichotomy. All of the missionary denominations had lead actors who were predominantly male, but incidentally, African female folks provided subtle banks where the gospel easily penetrated. With this, the pioneer and even subsequent missionaries came to a tested and proven conviction that the growth and expansion of the gospel and church philosophy or way of doing things lay in the full integration of African women from established traditional polities, mainly to perform non-clerical roles within the missionary economy. In an environment of firm patriarchal worship, the attempt to remove women from their societal upheld servitude roles and to give them active and even leadership roles in the Church economy immediately assailed the patriots of the old African order that was complete with a conservative bastion of patriarchy. This removal or boundless attempt to do so directly erected pillars of discord that the Church and the traditional authorities were going to dabble with throughout the Colonial period. Though the decision to emancipate and used women in various positions of the missionary endeavour was essentially borne out of reality and practical need, the missionaries wholesome intention to break down the grip of polygamy and constant attempt of asking the male folk to accord equal opportunities to women opened doors for various forms of conflicts, misunderstanding or crises that were going to animate the female lot through the colonial period. The women's engagements in all aspects of the missionary economy exposed them to exceeding plights and prejudices, most of them not of their own making but rather from the frictions of perceptions that both the church hierarchies and t

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