Christianity, tradition, and gender inequality in postcolonial Ghana

In postcolonial societies, emancipation and empowerment are often dialectically situated within colonial discourses of oppression and disempowerment. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the potential of religious institutions to contribute positively to women’s liberation is highly debatable. In particular, women’s ability to interpret Christian religious doctrine to advance their desire for equal rights depends largely on other leveraging factors such as education and socioeconomic status. This paper discusses field research findings in Ghana that suggest that while Christian religious ideologies reinforce cultural beliefs about women’s subservience, participants in this study find that critical engagements with religious or cultural ideologies can contribute to deconstructing patriarchal interpretations of religious or cultural beliefs that marginalize women. These interpretations of otherwise oppressive provisions in the Bible are found to contribute to women’s activism for gender equality in terms of their conception of what constitutes equality and the divine backing for it.