What do women stand to gain from trade?

15.09.2006

Trade, trade and more trade: That’s the winning formulae for a fulfilled life. But what does this mean for women in the East Africa region? How are their interests reflected in trading activities? Salma Maoulidi investigates.

Trade signifies an assortment of economic activities and transactions. Trade, for many in the Global South struggling to improve their economic status, is the new salvation. It is the magic equation to economic prosperity - do more of it and your Gross Domestic Product (GDP) goes up, winning you points in economic performance.

But like all prevailing economic formulas there is a catch: for any meaningful economic gains to be registered under the present trade regime, external trading must outweigh internal trading. In practical terms this means economies import more at the expense of local production, the latter becoming more prohibitive and less competitive on account of higher production and transaction costs. Conversely, countries fetch lower returns on exports following the devaluation of local currencies, making then too weak to trade competitively on the world market; and also because goods produced locally continue to have the inferior status of “raw materials” or unprocessed goods and are of a lesser value compared to processed goods.

Why sex is a factor in the trade equation

In simple terms, this forms the basic functioning of the current trade regime. Underneath this simplicity, however, lies a complex set of relationships that fundamentally influence the terms and players in trade deals, including women. Universally the world of business is seen to be off limits to women. Just as dominant religious and cultural ideologies persistently deny women proprietary rights, the business establishment has followed suit, recognizing more readily women’s role as producers, and as consumers, but not as owners and managers of productive enterprise.

Political independence has had minimal impact on the national and global economic profile in terms of wealth distribution. During colonial times in East Africa, the trading class was composed mainly of Indians and a few Arabs, who owned the local retail and wholesale shops. The main economic activities were, however, controlled by the settler farmer and colonial administration, mostly Europeans. As corporations take over economic activities, trade monopoly is no longer solely defined by race and ethnicity. Thus the local Indian or Arab retailer in East Africa is being replaced by the Chinese retailer/wholesaler; while an expert labour force from India and other parts of South East Asia take over industries and the service sector. A few indigenous entrepreneurs claim a stake in local and regional business, but for the most part Africans form the bulk of the unskilled labour force and remain the primary consumers.

The sex composition in the business world has remained unchanged, with women registering little success in penetrating global, regional and local markets. Women in trade and economic bodies are still under-represented. In Tanzania, for example, women are underrepresented in virtually all business chambers. The local bourse has very few women traders as do local industries. Regional Trade Agreements offer business opportunities beyond national boundaries but are, for the most part, not integrative of the needs of women. Trade frameworks like NEPAD or the East African Common Markets, while seemingly progressive, are rendered ineffective by constitutional frameworks that preserve gender inequalities at national levels. In many respects, therefore, women remain objects of sale, convenient conduits for furthering materialist aims and gains. They are yet to become the subject of trade regimes and investments.

The miracle of women friendly economic programmes

In view of the persistent exclusion of women in economic enterprise and the widespread belief that economic empowerment is critical towards raising the status of women, some quarters, either pioneering individuals or development organizations, have tried to redress the imbalance of players in economic enterprise. Many implement programmes aimed at the economic upliftment of women, programmes that vary minimally in approach in that they have micro-lending or micro-credit as the basis for women’s economic empowerment.

The theory of women and economic upliftment is, however, flawed as it does not see the woman as an independent economic investor or dealer. Indeed, whereas the imperialist business model focuses on accumulation in order to achieve profit maximization through serious capital injection, prevailing notions of women and entrepreneurship limit women’s economic engagement to the micro, the small business happening outside the margins of real business.

Essentially, the very concept of micro credit is restrictive. Other than suggesting that it is insignificant, and therefore of minimal consequence, in so far as volume and risk is concerned, it does not view women as serious accumulators of capital. Rather, the concern is to give women enough to help them and their families survive. Such an outlook has affected how women engage in business, their overwhelming motivation being aiding their families, not making serious money.

Indeed, women plough back most of the earnings and profits they get from productive activities into their families instead of expanding or diversifying their businesses (a fact a number of agencies have banked on to introduce or intensify micro-credit programmes targeting women). Because women’s economic activity is mainly concerned with improving the household and family welfare it is not perceived as a serious trade venture. Perhaps if women did not assume the greater burden of caring for the household, they would dare trade for profit as some younger unattached women do. They would vie to make money for the sake of making money, and not just for survival.

The terms of engagement under which most micro lending schemes operate are also limiting in that they require women to organize in collectives - in fives or tens - to qualify for lending or credit schemes. Indubitably, it proves more profitable for lending institutions to lend money to communities of women where they can maximize their turnover irrespective of whether women are making any money from the loans: continuous recruitment and policing of group members ensure high return rates. Hence, with very little investments women become effective mediums of cash generation and multiplication.

Women as objects or subjects of trade

In many respects, therefore, women are becoming the objects of trade. Businesses target women using both traditional as well as modern techniques. Economic liberalization has seen an influx of luxury items in Tanzania, the most significant being cosmetics. Images of the modern woman championed by the media, result in the dumping of cheap beauty products such as whitening creams, the health dimension of which is yet to be assessed. The promoters and chief distributors are men, while women are the willing or beleaguered consumers. Similarly, the home, the bastion of womanhood, remains the most effective sales point, luring women with the possibilities of stocking up on the newest and cheapest home gadgets on the market.

This is not to say that women are sitting idly by, oblivious to emerging economic opportunities under traditional and new trade regimes. Women may have been excluded from active trade but they have never shied away from trade. Indeed, in a number of African countries women are revered for their trading skills. For example, food and textile markets in West Africa are dominated by women. It is now customary, even in conservative areas, to see women traders - women running shops and bars in urban and provincial centres; women fish vendors in coastal areas and the Great Lakes areas and Zanzibar; women trading in foodstuffs and cereals in Manyara and Mbeya; women hawking goods in Moshi and Arusha; and women transporters in Tanga and Dar es Salaam. There is also an increase of women participating in national and international trade fairs, many sponsoring their own participation. Increasingly women are trying to build a niche for themselves in fields previously dominated by men.

Women make up a significant percentage of the 85% of Tanzanians engaged in agriculture, the mainstay of the economy. Also they form a sizeable percentage of the self-employed population engaged in the informal sector. Because women’s economic engagement is confined to the reproductive sector - in food production or preparation, hospitality, child caring, education, beauty and hygiene, and handicrafts - areas that affirm a woman’s sexual and reproductive role, they remain excluded from more lucrative productive enterprises like large-scale farming, horticulture or industry.

Even among the fastest growing sectors of the Tanzanian economy, like mining, women are under performing. Whereas there is an association of women miners representing the interest of a sizeable population of women in mines, few are miners or dealers in gemstones or in industries associated with mining. The bulk of the female population working in mines sells food or provides sex services. Women in the tourist industry fare no better. Men dominate the most lucrative services in the sector as tour and taxi operators, travel agencies, hotel owners and managers. Women assume low raking service jobs such as telephone operators, waitresses, chambermaids, cleaners, travel agent sales persons, and flight attendants. As is the case of women in the food industry, women in the tourist industry are pushed to prostitution to supplement meager incomes.

Economic success but at what price for women?

Increasing insecurity in their personal lives may make women reluctant participants in commerce. Micro credit programmes are replete with reports of husbands who appropriate loans or earnings, exacerbating levels of poverty among women. Similarly, little attention has been paid to the great physical risk women face on account of their economic success. Necessarily, economic success does not shield women from the threat of violence. A number of women experience acts of aggression on account of their business success. A case in point involves a popular female fish trader in Arusha market, Mama Terry, who was recently robbed in her home. A close male relative jealous of her business success paid the gangsters to “fix her”. Thankfully, when they attacked she had a sizeable amount of cash, in her possession. Distracted by the loot, the thugs left without harming her. Other women are not so lucky, falling victims to both sexual and physical violence after being gang robbed.

Clearly, the terms under which women can engage in productive economic activity should not surpass social expectation. Otherwise relatives and society at large reserve the right to apply some form of sanction to neutralize a woman’s economic mobility.

It is common for youth traders, frustrated by severe economic alienation, to physically and verbally attack women they perceive as successful. They feel such women “undermine their chances” to make it in a competitive business environment.

Sadly, models of “women of substance” in trade and business continue to be scarce, even among female business graduates. Interestingly, women with business education end up teaching or overseeing less fortunate women in micro-credit and lending programmes. Few actually venture into business. Moreover, instead of being at the forefront of an emancipatory trade and economic agenda, business professionals do very little to emancipate themselves and other women from economic bondage. Rather, they serve the dominant trade framework, becoming brokers for financial interest, urging on poor and less educated women to take on loans and subscribe to economic models that keep them on a leash of economic dependency and exploitation.

A few business savvy women serve as self-appointed advocates for women’s economic justice. They exercise vigilance over global processes that dictate the terms of trade for men and women in the global south. Nevertheless, they communicate via language and process far removed from the realities of women they represent: Their discourse is too technical, aimed at policy makers and academics. Whereas these women would have provided the link between professionalism and creativity in local enterprise, or with local governments, their oppositional stance serves to alienate women further from entrepreneurship, seeing it as too complex and mystical a venture.

Ultimately, women continue to miss out on role models in the business world. They miss being groomed by women with a conceptual and practical understanding of the system. They remain confused and intimidated by the jargon and procedures that restricts their spontaneity to venture and risk. They remain ignorant of terms and processes they can take advantage of because there is little interest all round to acquaint and translate these to women. As long as women’s induction to trade in the region remains microscopic, microminimized and micromanaged they will remain at the margins of trading blocks, earning just enough for their survival and that of their families. How then can such a trade development formula realistically contribute to women’s economic empowerment?

* Salma Maoulidi, is the Executive Director of Sahiba's Sisters Foundation, a women’s development network in Tanzania whose mission is to build women’s leadership and organizational capacity.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

LATEST FEATURES

What do women stand to gain from trade?