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Women's Rights In Ethiopia: A Research Proposal

Although she sent her son to school, Zenebu kept her eldest daughter at home to help with her housework, and planned to circumcise all of her daughters, as she was circumcised as a child. (Female circumcision is not only more painful than male circumcision; it can cause life-threatening health complications throughout the circumcised woman's life). Family planning is not talked about socially in traditional Ethiopian culture, except at local health clinics, and even there the emphasis is on the relatively ineffective rhythm method. Catholic health organizations will not discuss family planning or other means of birth control, and many men still consider a large brood of children both to be a sign of masculinity as well as a necessary source of income and labor. Yet prohibitively large families often become an economic burden upon women and men, and quite often it is the daughters of large families who suffer the most, including being deprived of food and water when these precious items become scarce.

The obstacles to female empowerment in Ethiopia are many. Female oppression is rooted in culture and custom as well as the formal structures of society. Discrimination in the workforce and in the educational system is rampant, and the rural life of most women limits their exposure to new ideas and their ability...

Even Zenebu knew the risks of infection from female circumcision, and wished to her daughters to be circumcised, to be like all of the other girls in the village (Weld 2009). The availability of female education did not change her mind about gender inequalities and the need to make sure her daughters knew how to keep house, rather than to read. Old habits die hard, and are reinforced by a lack of exposure to other ways of living. Customs such as having many children and not wishing to seem different than one's neighbors are reinforced by the extreme poverty that cements most communities together in a network of need.
Works Cited

Implementing the Ethiopian Policy for Women: Institutional and Regulatory Issues, 1998. the

Women's Affairs Office, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the World Bank.

October 14, 2009. http://www.ethioembassy.org.uk/fact%20file/a-z/women-1.htm

Ofcansky, Thomas P. & LaVerle Berry, editors. Ethiopia: A Country Study. Washington: GPO

for the Library of Congress, 1991. October 14, 2009. http://countrystudies.us/ethiopia/59.htm

Walt, Vivienne. "Zenebu." Ethiopian women. Mt. Holyoke. October 14, 2009.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/epaus/econ213/ethiopia/tulu.htm

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Implementing the Ethiopian Policy for Women: Institutional and Regulatory Issues, 1998. the

Women's Affairs Office, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the World Bank.

October 14, 2009. http://www.ethioembassy.org.uk/fact%20file/a-z/women-1.htm

Ofcansky, Thomas P. & LaVerle Berry, editors. Ethiopia: A Country Study. Washington: GPO
for the Library of Congress, 1991. October 14, 2009. http://countrystudies.us/ethiopia/59.htm
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/epaus/econ213/ethiopia/tulu.htm
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