ROAPE’s Rama Salla Dieng writes Senegal is facing a wave of protests following the appointment of the new government. Feminist organisations have been shocked at the pathetic number of women ministers in the new government. Dieng writes about the history of marginalisation of women in public office in Senegal since independence, and what the new government must do.
By Rama Salla Dieng
Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko are facing a wave of protests following their 5 April decree appointing the new government: 25 ministers and five secretaries of state . The protests came from women and feminist organisations of diverse ideological and political persuasions. These groups expressed their disappointment at the feeble number of women ministers in the government (only four). This disappointment is all the greater given that the newly elected President proposed in his political platform to promote “the empowerment and promotion of women for an inclusive and prosperous society“. Women’s rights defenders and feminist organisations rightly point out that women have made a significant contribution to the fight for political change in the country.
I have been researching on feminism, the status of women and women’s political participation in Africa and Senegal for many years. I have also conducted interviews with African feminists to understand the meaning they give to their activism. I am convinced that this sense of disillusionment is not new in Senegal. The marginalisation of women in the public sphere has persisted since independence.
A persistent glass ceiling
Women’s disillusionment at their being marginalised in politics is nothing new in Senegal. In March 1964, four years after Senegal obtained its political independence, the editorial team of AWA, La Revue de la Femme Noire, made a convincing statement illustrating women’s desires for more political inclusion:
We no longer want to be mere electoral votes, the ones who tip the balance. We want to know what is going on in the National Assembly, in the municipalities, inside the “party” whose colours we defend in national institutions. We are aware of our strength, and we know that without us, Senegal will not have its true dimension.
Sixty years after this unequivocal call for women’s equal access in decision-making, contemporary Senegalese women appear to face the same glass ceiling. One of the first acts posed by the newly elected leaders was to transform the ministry formerly dedicated for Women, Children and Entrepreneurship into the Ministry for the Family and Solidarities with the decree co-signed by the Head of State and the Head of Government. This new ministry is henceforth responsible for matters relating to “the family” as well as women’s rights, social protection, and the fight against all forms of discrimination. The renaming of the ministry is justified by the government’s concern for pragmatism and rationalisation.
The differences between the content of the current decree and the previous decrees on the remit of the Ministry for Women, Children and Female Entrepreneurship are minimal. However, it is legitimate to question the message that the new government seeks to convey by removing the reference to “women” and “child” from the ministry’s title.
Erasure and deliberate oblivion
The demands of women and feminists of the post-independence generation and the 2012 and 2024 political governments pose a more structural problem which becomes apparent when we examine history over time. In the same 1964 article in AWA referred to above that profiled Caroline Faye Diop, she expressed the same desire for social equity:
We want to participate in the development of our nation, have our full share of responsibilities. At important moments in our history, we have been at your side, and often leading at the front!
This appeal from Faye who was Senegal’s first female member of parliament brings to light a sinister fact: worse than the invisibility of women. Indeed, it must be acknowledged that after having been an integral part of the struggle for independence alongside their male comrades within political parties and even more involved in community organisations, these women were often overshadowed by patriarchy. For example, while the right to vote was granted to the French citizens residing in the four communes (Saint Louis, Gorée, Dakar and Rufisque) as early as April 1944, Senegalese women had to fight to access this right. This was only achieved on 6 June 1945.
This logic of erasure continued after independence in 1960, despite the fact that women often carried out all the work of mobilising and raising awareness among the rural and urban masses, or paid the price of imprisonment and violence, as did the placard-bearers who demanded independence from the French president Charles de Gaulle. Political women and women in general are often deliberately relegated to the background, to the “margins of the margins”, once the hard work is done, as shown in the film Les Mamans de l’indépendance.
Selective forgetfulness
We need to look back at history to see that this logic of selective oblivion and deliberate erasure is not new. Indeed, historian Babacar Fall, who drew up portraits of two Senegalese political activists from the early days who are little known to younger generations – Arame Diène and Thioumbé Samb – deplored the fact that the political and electoral weight of women was not reflected by their access to major decision-making positions.
This relegation of women to secondary roles and their erasure is compounded by a logic of social differentiation that deepens inequalities not only between women and men, but also between different categories of women alongside class, caste, race, marital status and generation. This has resulted in women being forgotten by official history, including Diène and Samb, who Fall sought to rehabilitate. This erasure is also noted by the activists of Yewwu Yewwi pour la Libération de la Femme (‘Educating oneself to liberate self and others’ in Wolof). In their June 1984 appeal to the women of Senegal, they noted that “while the meagre privileges of educated women increased with independence, the gap separating them from the underprivileged widened even further, to the extent that the latter confined themselves to social actions/activities”.
While making this observation, Yewwu Yewwi called for the constant mobilisation of women against an erosion of the gains of the liberation struggles and the fruits of certain achievements such as the reform of the family code to which they actively contributed. Moreover, the family code remains eminently discriminatory despite the fact that women have gained access to certain professions and improved salaries that were not shared equally among all women. They recommended an intersectional analysis that would reveal the internal dynamics of patriarchy and the relations of subordination that justify and legitimise the subjugation of “the overwhelming majority of women, made up of poor peasant women, housewives in working-class neighbourhoods and working-class women”.
As for the editorial team of AWA, it reiterated in February 1973, their aspiration to be recognised and included in decision-making as political leaders in an article profiling four female members of the National Assembly: Caroline Faye Diop, Haoua Dia Thiam, Léna Diagne Gueye and Marianne Sambou Sohai, denouncing the relegation of women to the political background. This was how they expressed their protest:
Committed activists, passionate feminists or housewives traditionally ignorant of “public” affairs, none of us women in this country are indifferent to these political affairs that can – and must – improve certain aspects of the status of women.
How can the situation be rectified?
The President of Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, must instruct his new government to take the protests of women’s organisations and movements seriously – and act swiftly by taking appropriate measures. Here are three priorities for the President and his government:
- honour his electoral promises to Senegalese women as outlined in his Project for a sovereign, just and prosperous Senegal. These promises included: the protection of women’s rights, equitable access to land, an audit of the Strategy for Gender Equity and Equality (SNEEG), and the extension of parental authority to women. Also included was the search for paternity for women and girls in the event of unwanted pregnancy, the training and retention of girls in school, the strengthening of maternal and child health, support for women entrepreneurs, the fight against gender-based violence, and the reform of nurseries (which are not the exclusive preserve of women). In order to implement some of these promises, the family code needs to be reformed to ensure greater equity within the family and in the public sphere.
- Preserve the achievements of the May 2010 gender parity in elective or partially elective institutions for which generations of women (and men) have fought. The recommendations of this law should also be extended to political functions (such as government and administrative management positions).
- Ensure the inclusion and representation of young people and women in all actions taken by the President of the Republic and in all official government communications as a guarantee of respect for the principle of equality of all citizens as established by the Senegalese Constitution.
An earlier version of this blogpost appeared as ‘Les femmes ont toujours été marginalisées dans la politique au Sénégal : les trois mesures que le gouvernement doit prendre’ in The Conversation on 26 April 2024.
Rama Salla Dieng is a Senegalese writer, academic and activist. She is currently a Lecturer in African and International Development at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh. Rama is also a feminist activist who has collaborated with several feminist organisations on agrarian change, gender and development, and social reproduction. Rama has written this text in a personal capacity.
Featured Photograph: Two issues of AWA, La Revue de la Femme Noire, a women’s magazine founded in 1964.
