Drawing on empirical research in Cameroon in collaboration with the Ministere de la Condition Feminine (MINCOF), this thesis examines inequality in women's access to and participation in Cameroonian governing institutions, and argues that institutional mechanisms to promote the advancement of women are inadequate. The findings of the work are based on the qualitative research approach. The exploration is through indepth/ elite interviews based on an unstructured interview guide, direct observation and content analysis which were identified as the most appropriate research methods. The transcribed interviews, ministerial documents, materials from periodicals, newspaper reports and political speeches, combined with fieldwork notes to constitute the data for this research. As informed by feminist theory within the qualitative approach, I have framed my work within feminist standpoint epistemologies, combined with feminist critiques of the social contract philosophy, interwoven with gender, as an analytical category. The research begins with an exploration of inter-related concepts which have implications for the institutionalisation of gender within political parties and state bureaucratic structures in Cameroon. This institutionalisation is bound into a patriarchal culture of power and authority which leads to the concentration of men and women at different levels of the formal political arena. Even when women make successful inroads into what is considered a male occupation within the bureaucracy, evidence shows that a process of resegregation usually takes place. The thesis also examines the steps the Cameroonian party-state has taken ostensibly in order to achieve gender equity and promote women's rights, and argues that these are fundamentally flawed and inherently unable to produce results compatible with human rights principles and freedoms. In spite of the creation of the MINCOF and the appointment of female bureaucrats --- women charged with the responsibility of consciously using their positions to promote women's interests in the government bureaucracy --- substantial inequalities still exist in the nature and extent of customs and practices that perpetuate Cameroonian women's secondary status. I argue that these inequalities in practical terms determine and restrict women's rights to personal choices in the social political spheres. I further argue that there is a direct correspondence between what happens in regard to the choice in decision-making in the private sphere and outcomes in the public sphere; in both cases, women's freedom and possibilities of action are limited simply because they are women. Hence the thesis questions the principles on which the democratic Cameroonian party-state is built: far from promoting the right of all citizens, as a genuine democracy might be expected to do, in practice it entrenches male dominance and the subordination of women. For this reason, I argue that Cameroonian politics is gendered because the construction of masculinity and femininity are intertwined in the daily culture of its governing institutions. My study's main contribution to knowledge is the detailed insider accounts of the gendered politics of policy making. The generalisations of feminist theoretical propositions and previous empirical studies on gender gaps in political participation by women politicians and female bureaucrats in governing institutions are examined and expanded upon by relocating the problem area to the Cameroonian social context.
Permanent link to this resource: https://doi.org/10.24384/fp2n-aa67
Akale, Catherine Mudime
Supervisors: McRae, Susan; Axford, Barrie
School of Law and Social Sciences
© Akale, Catherine Mudime Published by Oxford Brookes UniversityAll rights reserved. Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.