# Introduction t is evident that gender is a significant aspect in understanding issues of women oppression and discrimination. However, the issue of gender inequality is too wide to understand and explain exhaustively in case one does not specify on what force maintaining gender inequality (leading to oppression and discrimination) is to be dealt with. Patriarchy, capitalism and socialism are the forces that in one way or another do maintain gender inequality. For this paper, patriarchy is examined separately from other forces (capitalism and socialism) that maintain gender inequality leading to women oppression and discrimination. Etymologically, the concept 'patriarchy' derives from two Greek words, pater (father) and arche (rule). The combination of these two words means the 'rule of the father'. Patriarchy expresses conditions whereby the male members of a society tend to predominate in positions of power. Patriarchy is systems of male domination and female subordination. Joseph (1996), while trying to define patriarchy from the Arab point of view, argues that patriarchy has to do with "the prioritizing of the rights of males and elders (including elder women) and the justification of these rights within kinship values which are usually supported by religion". For this paper, patriarchy means a force that maintains gender inequality leading to women oppression and discrimination; it is a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate and exploit women based on the powerful role of a father head. # II. # Methodology Research Design: Research design for the study was Descriptive design because the study aimed at describing the state of patriarchy and inequality as they exist through classification, analysis, and interpretation of data. Descriptive survey was adopted as a method of collecting information by interviewing a sample of individuals. The study aimed at collecting information about people's attitudes, opinion, habits and other social issues related to patriarchy ideology and inequality within household. Research Approach: The methodological approach for the study was ethno-methodological. This approach implied concentrating its enquiry in the Gogo ethnic group, trying to interpret and understand meanings of reality from the perspective of the Gogo themselves in matters pertaining to patriarchy ideology and inequality within households. Study Areas and Justification: Makulu bearing villages in Dodoma region were selected as the areas of study on Gogo cultural issues. For the Gogo people, a Makulu is believed to be a central area in which one finds the "original Gogo people" for understanding true Gogo cultural issues. In actual fact, the Makulu is the palace of the Gogo King or people of the royal family. The rural villages of Hombolo Makulu and Hombolo Bwawani were purposely selected because they belong to Hombolo Ward in which there is a Makulu. Similarly, Makulu in the Ward. So, the villages in Dodoma were purposively selected as they contain central areas (Makulu) for the Gogo people where the rule of the father as the head dominates the social systems. Sample size: The sample size of respondents was determined by the predetermined method of data collection to be used in data collection for each category of respondents. The researcher determined to use FGDs to collect data within the rural Gogo community in both Hombolo and Mvumi Makulu wards. # III. # Findings and Discussion # a) Gender Roles and Workload Inequality among the Gogo Women At a homestead a woman has more roles to play than it is for her husband. Of all the roles to be played in the homestead the husband just deals with security of the homestead while the woman has to clean the house, prepared children for school, prepare food for the family members, and attending the husband. All these roles are tedious and time consuming as they involve many activities. The activities involved in keeping security of the homestead are not so tedious compared to those of a woman. The roles are ascribed to women and men within culture. From the gender perspective, these roles are determined by that culture's assumptions about the potentials and abilities of men and women. Roles are therefore expected performance of someone who occupies a certain position. For women, the roles they play depend on the position they take within the social structure. This implies that the role they play ascribes them a status within a social structure that determines where they fit in the community and the way they have to relate to other people. Women roles depend on the status assigned to them at birth and at different stages in the life cycles. As such women roles are all about a set of norms specifying the rights and obligations associated with their status in society. The division of roles to play within the homestead among men and women is the reflection of the prevailing patriarchy ideology where there is male domination and female subordination. Women's status includes complex tasks and relationships, which makes them to have more than one role. Women play their role as mothers, wives, and care takers (reproduction) etc. Each status has normative rights and obligations that guide women into the socially accepted appropriate behavior. From Table 1 it is clear that men are not involved in any of all those activities that women have to do in the homestead. This supports the findings by Siddiqui (2001) who found that in the absence of their wives, men were found to be inflexible in accepting new roles in household management. Instead, the extended family came into operation when women were away. This is indicative of how male roles within the family are rigidly defined and how difficult it is to change them. # b) Workload among the Gogo People The workload is looked at in terms of the way the Gogo people work ranging from the homestead to the farm and other off-farm activities as summarized on Table 1, 2 and 3. # i. Homestead Works The woman's roles in the homestead are, generally, maintaining cleanliness, preparing children, preparing food, and attending the husband. The man is just concerned with household security (Table 1). With reference to Table 1, it is seen how a woman has got so many roles and activities to take care of; she seems to be one who has to fully stay at home, if she has to do all that. In fact, her area of expertise is supposed to be in the homestead, with a questionable embedded value, as can be seen from this quote: # We work at home; we know what to do with the children and the house; we know how to cook. ? If a man is left at home, what can he do? ? What men are capable of doing is getting out and talking to people; they feel they can get someone to buy some food or a goat meat or chicken and then they make some money for the home. ? (Hombolo Bwawani, FGD, Women, Feb. 2010) One important thing that is raised in this quote is that the woman's role in the home is considered socially valuable, but economically valueless. For this matter, men shy away from getting involved with such activities at home and they prefer going for outside work that has some income generation. They actually do not know how to deal with housework. With the work at home, however, women are in control of the homestead in terms of determining the nutritional status, hygiene, and purchases. # I can decide on my own what type of food to buy and prepare for my children when I have some little money to spend. I can buy some clothes, soap, sugar or milk for my children, without making any stories with my man. ? I can buy pens and books for my children. ? I am in charge of all this. (Hombolo Makulu, FGD, Women, Feb. 2010) ii. Farm Works Farm works range from the preparation of the farm to the harvesting and storing the produce. Men and women have different roles and activities to play, as can be seen in Table1. Still, with the Table 2 it is clear how a woman's workload in the farm is quite a lot compared to men. The most alarming observation is that the woman does almost every farm activity. This supports Boserup (1970), that in Africa women do most of the farming such as cultivating the subsistence crops whereas men are merely engaged in clearing the land for cultivation. Moreover, there is a Gogo saying that "an idle woman keeps her hoe with no handle". This saying means that in order for a woman to be regarded as a hard-worker, having a hoe with a handle is necessary. The above saying implies the creation of gender identity in agriculture based on patriarchy ideology; it looks at idleness through a woman not a man. This supports Brandth (1995) who pioneered the analysis of the construction of gender identities in the context of the agriculture by analyzing the creation of gender images in tractor advertisement. He concluded that women absence in the tractor advertisements supports the symbolic intimacy between men, machinery and management. For a woman creation of gender identities lead into her subordination to men while for a man it leads into his superiority and domination. In actual fact, for the Gogo people, one cannot talk of agriculture without referring to women: When we say cultivation has begun, it means that almost all women are in the farm busy with their hoes. Every woman should work hard to meet the timing of the cultivation season. For women it is time to show our husbands that we are committed to fulfill our obligation as good wives. An idle woman is one who avoids going to the farm ?(Mvumi Makulu FGD, Women, March, 2010) I have to grow groundnuts, Bambara nuts and 'Kunde'; these are not many, but specifically for use in preparation of sauce/relish. How can your man (husband) eat food without sauce? And a man cannot get involved in the cultivation of these crops: we should grow them because we deal with the preparation of food. (Hombolo Makulu FGD, Women, Feb. 2010) Not only do the Gogo men see women central in agriculture, but the Gogo women as well who internalize their central position in the farm, as can be seen from this woman's observation: When it rains well, that is a good season since there will be good yields. I rejoice for the good season since for me it means having enough food for my family. ? I am ready to saw any seeds when it rains well. ?I have to ensure that I have good seeds. ? I would get annoyed if my husband sells all the crops together with the seeds. (Mvumi Makulu FGD, Women; March, 2010) So, a woman is happy being at the centre of farming; she is also happy that with farming her family will be food secure; her happiness can last so long as the husband does not sell the seeds for another planting season. There is another dimension, though, that comes with the woman being at the center of the farming activities: Even my husband rejoices. He is happy with good yield; he can sell and get some money to buy brew; he is happy because when the people talk about his family, they say the family has food and so he feels he is a strong man; ? it is a pity that as they say he is a strong man, then he gets married to another woman so that he can be felt stronger. (Mvumi Makulu FGD, Women; March, 2010) With the above quotes, it can be seen that much as the woman is central leading to good harvest, the husband rejoices the more because the merit is his; due to the merits, he can even get married to another woman. This conform findings by What more (1991) who found that it was not the nature of women's work that led to lack of recognition of farm women's work but rather their position within a patriarchy ideology. This is further elaborated by Walby (1990) who calls it a "patriarchal mode of production" where women's labour is expropriated by their husbands and others who live there. She says housewives are the producing class, while husbands are the expropriating class, their backbreaking, endless and repetitive labour is not considered work at all and housewives are seen to be dependent on their husbands. So, there is a material basis for patriarchy. Most property and other productive resources are controlled by men and they pass from one man to another, usually from father to son. On the other hand, cattle keeping are among the central agricultural activities by women. men (husbands) are mostly the owners of cattle in the homestead. Traditionally, livestock plays vital economic and social roles in the Gogo society. It has direct benefit in terms of provision of milk and manure. In relation to social aspects, the ownership of livestock is an important expression for social status of people in the area and is used in dowry payment. When it happens that there is much crop failure, livestock provides security since animals can be exchanged for food/ grains. Cattle are incarnation of power among the Gogo people. For those who own cattle, it is a source of respect and power, and makes one influential in the society. Those who own cattle do set themselves apart as the honorable people as they have different products out of animals (milk, meat and manure). They may even sell cattle and get money. Milk is a very precious thing for the Gogo; having it, means having prestige. Apart from drinking it, they process it and get cheese, which is used for cooking. Meat is food for the few people who manage to buy it. Having cattle means ability to have meat in plenty when a cow or got or sheep is slaughtered. When one has manure it means that he is likely to have good yields and therefore he has food security at his home. He has high quality manure called gombelo or suji to smear in his farm. The animal skin is used for sleeping on. # Volume XVI Issue I Version I On the other hand, the Gogo use cattle as part of dowry. A family with cattle is assured that their sons will get married as they are able to pay dowry. Girls would also like to get married in families which own/keep cattle since such families are regarded as being economically and socially strong. The one who owns cattle is known as mhaha while his wife is referred to as Mdala wa mgoli (the wife of a rich man). This indicates that the power and respect of the household is in hands of the man who is the owner of cattle; so women are likely to get respect and prestige when they have husbands. Women, however, face hardships in livestock keeping. A woman has to make sure the cattle shed is clean every day. This is a hard activity assigned to a woman. In case there are calves, a woman has to look after them not very far away from home and come back to home in the afternoon to attend other activities. Women do not get significant assistance from their men in animal keeping. Sometimes women are forced to keep animals indoors and go to collect fodder, which they get far away from home. Although women are not regarded as owners of cattle but the sustainability of family power and respect given to it is partly in their hands. # iii. Off-farm Works Off-farm activities refer to income-generating activities, besides the agriculture. Sometimes, yields are not good or they are not meant for sale and people need cash so as to purchase other goods like sugar, cooking oil, clothes and some agricultural inputs like hoes, and insecticides. They cannot get all this money from the farm; they need to find other sources of money. The findings on off-farm activities in Gogo people are illustrated in Table 3. Off-farm activities increase the financial base for the Gogo people. The offfarm activities by the Gogo people include businesses in fish, firewood and charcoal, local brew, running small kiosks, food vending, and labor selling. With reference to Table 3, men are only involved in two off farm activities which are fish business and charcoal business, however they share these with women as they fish and sell while women fry or smoke fish. On the other hand men make charcoal and sell it but women are also involved in cutting trees for charcoal making. In particular, women do perform some off-farm activities alone like business in firewood, local brew and vegetable vending. Generally women hold a lot of responsibilities in off farm activities. From what can be seen in Table 3 women are central in the off-farm activities. They do almost everything, leaving little for men. One of the implications for this is that they are also much occupied with off-farm activities. Another implication would be that women generate enough income for themselves. However, women's efforts to work off-farm do not make them solve their financial problems as such, because their husbands interfere with their businesses. Sometimes a husband will force that some local brew made by the woman is given to his friends and some money acquired by selling it is under his control; men do demand to know the amount of money acquired by their wives and sometimes do dictate on the expenditure. Thus, a woman's contribution on family income does not increase much of her bargaining power regarding the division of housework and childcare responsibilities, even though they have more control in solving imminent problems. This supports the findings by Shartall (2006) who found that women's off farm labor is often part of a farm household survival strategy to maintain that farm and men's occupation as the farmer. Gogo women do passively resist the situation of not benefiting from offfarm activities though they benefit little from such efforts they make. This supports Wozniak and Scholl (1990) and O'Hara (1998), whereby they show that women on the farms are not simply accepting victims of patriarchal relations but rather they are active agents constructing and shaping their roles within farming. This is in line with these study findings that off farm work and the subsequent financial independence are an expression of woman's agency and resistance as this woman points out: ? Sometimes we are forced to be liars. You have to hide your money and pretend you have nothing. Suppose yesterday you asked for some money to buy something for children and your husband responded negatively; today can you dare direct your son to present another problem to his father? We need to keep some money to solve critical problems; at least children have to see things going smoothly. (Juhudi, FGD Women, March, 2010) Moreover, it is not as easy for women as it is for men to get temporal farm employment. Most people do prefer to employ men as they have no interference in their activities. While women are mostly interfered by home responsibilities and child caring, men are so free to perform their activities on time. Men are, therefore, more able to get temporal employment than women can do. This indicates that women have to use extra efforts so as to get paid activities in rural areas. This does involve accepting lower pay than man can accept so that they can win the job. It is concluded that there is prevalence of agrarian gender ideology in rural areas which manifests the patriarchy system in such that even though women may have an independent source of income off the farm, the fact of living on a farm means they continue to be positioned as farm women. # iv. Typical Gogo Day and Work An examination on how both men and women spend their day at home reveals inequalities involved. A woman is always busy to ensure that food is available on time and well cooked for the members of the family. The husband regards his wife to be responsible for the availability of food within the household. This food is expected by the husband to be available on time and accepted as being typical Gogo food. Therefore as her daily responsibility a woman has to cook Ugali (hard porridge) to be served with Mlenda (a slimy green vegetable). Off-farm activities would be an escape for women from agricultural constraints, but they do not have enough time for it since they still have many other activities to attend at home and in farms. Moreover, women do not have full control over business they do as they are interfered by their husbands. Due to heavy workload that women have some off farm activities are not done properly. What can be learnt from the above scenario is that there is division of labor between men and women among the Gogo people. However, a woman has lots of activities during the day and night compared to men, on the one hand, and in the activities she deals with, the man is the greatest beneficiary, smoothly, but sometimes forcefully. Hence, not only do the gender roles among the Gogo people lead to inequality against women in terms of heavy workload, but also in terms of men being central beneficiaries. A woman (wife) is obliged to fulfill her role as a married woman so as to ensure acceptability to her husband and the community at large. Her husband remains an overseer and beneficiary. This confirm the study by Lamichhane (2008) who found that there are, situations where women have to manage their reproductive workload alone. In such cases, it was seen that women mobilize their social networks of friends and relatives to get the work done. In case of financial difficulties, women arrange money through friends and neighbors and not with their in-laws. This also supports Tahira and Karin (2004), that gender norms as part of the social environment of livelihood strategies influence both women and men's access to livelihood assets and their direct and indirect impact on gendered workload seen as their strategies to achieve a sustainable livelihood. IV. # Conclusion This paper has unveiled how the patriarchy system accommodates inequalities in Gogo society at the disadvantage of women .It has presented workload as an aspect on gender inequalities being propagated by patriarchy ideology, that lead to oppression and discrimination of Gogo women. In this aspect, women have got a heavy workload compared to men. Such workload results from the assigned roles of women that occupy them for a long time during the day and night, ranging from working indoors in the homestead to the farm and off-farm environments. Women suffer from inequality initiated by purposeful efforts to maintain male dominance. This results into hard life for women. This hard life is brought about by the gender relations that they live, wellinformed by the patriarchy system. The limited economic opportunities for women are due to minimum returns from farm and off farm activities and limited capital and time for both farm and off-farm activities. They do not control land; they do not have many paid off farm activities, they do not control what they produce and they are not free to markets of their farm products. Though it is the case that women are busy all the time. Generally, therefore, migration becomes one of the options to get away from the gender inequalities, stemming from the Gogo patriarchal system that becomes a stumbling agent for their livelihood promotion strategies in the rural areas. This conform the work by Chant (1992) on gender relations and migration which shows that migration is influenced by the organization of productive and reproductive labour within the household; power dynamics, decision-making and gender divisions in rural and urban labour markets. 1Whose activity?MenWomenPatriarchy Ideology and Workload Inequality within Household © 2016 Global Journals Inc. (US) Volume XVI Issue I Version I 2 ( C ) Global Journal of Human Social Science s -Year 2016 Data Processing and Analysis: 2Whose activity?MenWomen 3Whose activity? © 2016 Global Journals Inc. (US) Patriarchy Ideology and Workload Inequality within Household © 2016 Global Journals Inc. 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