The experiences of women within Tswana cultural history and its implications for the history of the church in Botswana

Abstract

This article critically discusses the place of Batswana women within the Tswana tradition and how this has been carried over into the life of the church in Botswana. The article argues that these women have been marginalised and discriminated in various ways by the very system that should have protected them. Generally, their context, whether it be the social, the religious, the economic, the political and the religious, worked against them in every aspect. The article observes that these dimensions of life, which included the religious practices and beliefs, the various political structures and traditions, and so forth, worked against the development of women. Traditional laws and power relations worked towards disempowering women. All this was readily endorsed and accepted as normal by the missionaries. What made matters worse was the fact even the most powerful badimo (ancestors) were believed to favour men at the expense of women. More discouraging still was that the church seemed to endorse this status quo as normal.