Shona Women and Rainmaking Rituals in Zimbabwe: Indigenous Women’s Ecological Wisdom and Agency

The gender oppression school of historical analysis posits that women in Africa are confined in domesticity whilst enduring the oppression perpetrated by men. It also portrays women as minors who need protection and guidance from their male counterparts. This school of thought also maintains that women play insignificant roles in African societies. Contrary to this narrative, this chapter adopts the post-colonial theory to foreground the pivotal roles played by African women, focusing particularly on the role of Shona women in rain petitioning rituals in Zimbabwe. The main argument proffered in this chapter is that women are neither restricted to the domestic space nor oppressed; rather, they play focal roles in the religious, social, economic and political spheres. They actively participate in the public domain, for instance, in religion as rain-petitioners through the rituals of mukwerera and kupetera. The discussion also illustrates how, in religion, women can cross over to male-type duties and sometimes, they complement each other with men. The religious domain is thus not exclusively for men, as the gender oppression school of historical analysis opines, it is for both sexes. The chapter concludes by refuting the widely held view that societies in Africa are steeped in the patriarchal order, diminish women and consign them to the domestic sphere. It affirms that though African societies worship a patriarchal God, this does not permanently push African women to the communities’ periphery.