The impact of women emancipation on the family in Uganda : a Kampala case study

Abstract

Women emancipation is a process with various stages and components. Women emancipation has two major aspects, the social physical and the epistemological or cognitive. In the social-physical .context, Women emancipation constitutes a process of liberating women from their subordinate position imposed on them by culture or tradition to equality with men. Traditional society perpetuated false consciousness by painting the picture that oppressive and exploitative traditional cultural values and practices on which roles and perceptions of women were base dare normal, legitimate and natural part of culture of the society. Epistemological emancipation is the realization of oppressive traditional cultural values and practices for what they are: oppressive and exploitative. There has been a clash between the traditional cultural order and the new order due to the emancipation. This clash has affected the family both positively and negatively. The main problems that bring about negative effects of women emancipation on the family are value clashes, abandonment of traditional values which enabled family stability, wholesale appropriation of western values and a misconception of women emancipation. Since the family is of fundamental Importance as an Institution of society and as a framework of Individual life, there Is need to strengthen It. A synthesis of traditional cultural values and new emancipative values, going back to the traditional values which enabled family stability, development of a critical outlook to values and creation of awareness about women emancipation are some of the solutions that the study recommends.