Abstract
Is poverty gendered? Feminist theorists suggest that the experience of poverty by any woman is shaped not only by her gender but by ideologies and other systems of social stratification such as race, ethnicity, and class – and that these dimensions are not simply an additional facet of a woman's identity but do affect her gendered experience as well. The narratives examined in this chapter consist of symbolic patriarchy, inheritance laws, gender socialization, domestic division of labor, and certain accounts pertaining to widows and the subordination of women. A scan of the African cultural landscape revealed a profile of rural poverty that is unproportionate, unequal, and sometimes unfairly affects women more than men. Patriarchal and discriminatory practices are stubbornly unyielding in some rural areas and has inflicted a blow against women the most.