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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 3
British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making:Female Circumcision and Female Education in Kenya, 1929-1939
‘No greater end could be sought or achieved than this—that women, by theeffective discharge of new responsibilities here, should help to win a newdignity and a new freedom for their less fortunate sisters elsewhere.’1
-The Duchess of Atholl
INTRODUCTION
Gender and empire are two inextricably linked phenomena.2 Production and
reproduction, morality and cultural norms and colonial posts were all highly determined by
gender either out rightly or in effect. The campaigns of British women to improve the status
of native women in the colonies had a tremendous impact on the affairs of Britain’s African
colonies and the ways in which they were governed. Particularly, the role of British women
in shaping official policies toward female circumcision and female education in the African
colonies during the 1930s caused the Colonial Office to address the development of African
women. However, although primary resources are available, traditional historiography of the
British Empire neglects the contributions of British women to colonial policy-making.
Instead, it generally focuses on the grand adventures, or misadventures, of the ‘man on the
spot’; the Oxbridge educated colonial officer/hero/sportsman/manly man whose trademark
‘leadership’ and ‘character’ maintained the British Empire in Africa throughout the first half
of the twentieth century.3 British imperial history is dominated by its famous and sometimes
infamous male characters such as David Livingstone, Cecil Rhodes, Lord Lugard, Ian Smith
and Lord Delamere to name only a few. No doubt exists that those men, and many other men
like them, were indeed dominant figures in British imperial history. However, twentieth
century British women also proved to be key actors in the re-tooling of British colonial
1 K.M. Stewart-Murray the Duchess of Atholl, Women and Politics (London, 1931), p. 172.2 See P. Levine, Gender and Empire (Oxford, 2004), edited volume.3 A. Kirk-Greene, ‘The Thin White Line: the Size of the British Colonial Service in Africa’, African Affairs,79:314 (1980), pp. 41-44.
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development policies in Africa, especially when concerned with African women. This article
aims to illuminate the significant influence of British women on these policies.
Upper and middle-class liberal women throughout Great Britain in the late eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries viewed themselves as protectors of women and the lower-classes
worldwide. Victorian liberal ideology emphasized the role of Europeans as civilizers and
protectors of non-Europeans. British women’s interventions on behalf of colonized women
began in the late 1700s with the anti-slavery campaign. In the mid-nineteenth century,
women fought to end the practice of sati, or widow burning, in India.4 British women
viewed slavery, sati and female circumcision as practices of universal oppression of women
by men. Therefore, the ‘liberated’ British woman felt responsible for uplifting colonized,
backward women who could not free themselves from the oppression of their husbands,
fathers, brothers, chiefs, British Governors and tribal customs.5
World War I caused disruption in the development of the colonies, especially in East
Africa, but subsequently ‘Empire-consciousness’ increased during the 1930s with a renewed
public interest in and criticism of Britain’s imperial claims. 6 Shadle claims that the 1930s
were the peak of colonial officials’ hostility toward African women and metropolitan critique
of colonial policies.7 The changing status of women in Britain and the colonies caused
concern in the Colonial Office. Runaway women, prostitution and abortion were key worries
of local administrators in the colonies. Not surprisingly, these and other social and economic
problems in Britain and overseas prompted inquires into colonial conditions.8 Britain needed
to justify its colonial possessions by providing development and social progress in areas of
4 See C. Midgley, Feminism and Empire: Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 1790-1865 (London, 2007).5 S. Pedersen, Eleanor Rathbone and the Politics of Conscience (New Haven, 2004), p. 242.6 L. Mair, Native Policies in Africa (London, 1936), p. 1.7 B. Shadle, “Girl Cases”: Marriage and Colonialism in Gusiiland, Kenya, 1890-1970 (Portsmouth, NH, 2006),p. 56.8 S. Constantine, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy 1914-1940 (London, 1984), pp. 229, 233.
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health and education in the colonies.9 Furthermore, the British believed that they held the
solution to all the problems confronting African women.10 Thus, the social conscience of
empire was reawakened in the 1930s.
Also during the 1930s, women’s changing roles in Britain opened up public spaces
for women’s political participation in the colonies. The ‘foremothers’ of campaigns for
colonized women’s rights had no vote and no female representatives in Parliament.
However, throughout the first half of the twentieth century women’s roles in the British
government were expanding. According to Bush, the defining features of twentieth-century
Empire include the ‘feminization of imperial policy and the wider participation of
emancipated white women’.11 In 1918 women over the age of thirty gained the right to vote
in Britain, and in 1928 the right to vote was extended on equal basis to all women. The
inclusion of women in British politics increasingly focused politics on women’s issues such
as birth control, equal pay, family allowance and other social reforms. Social reform in
Britain was driven, in large part, by women, ‘… for women are certain to exercise a
boundless influence on all great questions of social reform’ because of their ‘moral
enthusiasm’.12 Furthermore, people presumed that British men, who dominated the Colonial
Office and local administration posts throughout the Empire, were less attuned than British
women to the suffering and needs of native women.13 Social reform in the colonies was
expected in order to bring African societies forward in civilization. White women assigned
9 Constantine, British Colonial Development, p. 233; NA: CO 866/33/1327 Correspondence from Jeffries toHale, 16.12.38.10 T. Kanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900-50 (Oxford, 2005), p. 89; KNA: PC/CP/8/1/1Secretary of Kikuyu Progressive Party to the Editor of the East African Standard, 7.9.29, in Kanogo.11 B. Bush, ‘Gender and Empire: the Twentieth Century’, Gender and Empire (Levine, 2004), p. 109; J. Lewis,Empire and State-Building, War and Welfare in Kenya 1925-52, (Oxford, 2000) pp. 10-13, 60-68.12 BLPES: JF/64 microfilm, extracts from the speech of Rev. William Tuchwell to the Warwick and LeamintonWomen’s Liberal Association; Women’s Gazette pamphlets and leaflets, No. 1, p. 3; Presidential Address, theCountess of Aberdeen, I.C.W. Executive Committee, Paris, June 1906.13 M. Perham, ‘The Future of East Africa II – working with the native, views in a diary’, The Times, Friday, 14Aug. 1930.
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themselves a superior role as saviors of Black African women. 14 Therefore, the role of
British women in domestic reform allowed them to exert influence over colonial policy-
making as missionaries, political activists, doctors, writers, settlers, nurses and teachers.
However, the notion of rights for African women created a dilemma for the Colonial
Office: as women’s roles in British government and their influence in colonial policy-making
increased, the degree to which colonial policies interfered in the lives of indigenous people
also increased. Issues that British women took up, such as female circumcision and female
education, often struck deep at the roots of African society and caused discord between the
colonial administration or missions and Africans. The Colonial Office was aware of the
dangers that reform posed, especially when the reformers attempted to change local customs
and threatened to limit the traditional practice of male control over female bodies. Therefore,
the Colonial Office proceeded with caution when at first the missions, then British women,
campaigned to change the conditions of native women. In the British African colonies,
native women were not consulted on their opinion toward female circumcision, but debates
on official Colonial policies for women’s education emphasized the need for the British
government to inquire into the status of African women. Even though British women’s
political interventions were not always wanted by the indigenous population or the Colonial
Office, and sometimes British women failed to show a complete understanding of indigenous
women’s desires or needs, the status of African women in particular would have remained
ignored for decades longer by the Colonial Office if it were not for British women activists.
The imprint of women on colonial policies is less emphasized in scholarly works than
the roles of imminent male figures who actually lived and ruled in African colonies.
However, in the past ten years more has been written on the ‘civilizing’ role of British
women, but nevertheless, particular attention to British women’s interventions in Africa
14 C. Mohanty, Feminism without Borders: decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity (London, 2003), p. 55.
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remains scant with few exceptions.15 Burton explains some of the difficulties that researchers
face when they dig into the archives in search of women’s roles in imperialism and
colonialism including archive catalogs that lack easy-to-find and relevant categorizations.16
Although a healthy body of historiography, anthropology, sociology and women’s studies on
female circumcision exists, most accounts focus on decision-making by local administrators,
the role of the missions, and the impact of the campaign on African women and their
responses to it.17 Notably, Thomas’s Politics of the Womb examines how women’s bodies
were commoditized as objects of economic production or producers of African laborers.
Female bodies were considered resources subject to colonial policies and controlled by
African men. However, a closer examination of Colonial Office and Parliamentary files
testifies to the influential role that British women played in colonial affairs. Why did the
Colonial Office not increase its efforts to curtail female circumcision in Africa before the
1930s? After all, Christian missions campaigned against the practice for decades before
British women. The campaign against female circumcision in the early 1930s illustrates one
of many intimate connections between women of the metropole and the colonies, and the
results of such interactions on the metropole and the colony.
The historiography of British women’s influence on African female education suffers
similar deficiencies as studies regarding female circumcision. Christian missions were
primarily responsible for African education in the colonies. However, it was not until the
1930s that the Colonial Office took serious interest in female education in the colonies when
the relationship between education, and the health and wellbeing of colonized women was
15 S. Pedersen, ‘National Bodies, Unspeakable Acts: The Sexual Politics of Colonial Policy-Making’, TheJournal of Modern History, 63:4 (1991), pp. 647-680.16 A. Burton, ‘Archive Stories: Gender in the Making of Imperial and Colonial Histories’, Gender and Empire(Levine, 2004), pp. 281-94.17 L. Thomas, Politics of the Womb: women, reproduction, and the state in Kenya (Berkeley, 2003); Thomas,‘Imperial Concerns and ‘Women’s Affairs’: State Efforts to Regulate Clitoridectomy and Eradicate Abortion inMeru, Kenya, c. 1910-1959’, The Journal of African History, 39:1 (1998), pp. 121-145; and Thomas,‘“Ngaitana (I will circumcise myself)”: Lessons from Colonial Campaigns to Ban Excision in Meru, Kenya’,Gender and History, 8(3):338-63 (1996); Kanogo, African Womanhood.
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brought to their attention by some British women doctors. Yet, the influence of British
women on native health and education policies is under-researched, but research on the
political influence of White women on behalf of non-White women is not altogether absent
from historiography. For example, Paisley writes about the maternalist notions of the White
Australian woman’s duty toward Aboriginal women.18 However, similar works on how
British maternalism influenced decisions in the Colonial Office are less specifically
addressed. Why, again, after decades of mission education in the colonies and special
attempts to improve native women’s education did the Colonial Office not begin to pay
attention to female education in Africa until the 1930s? Questions regarding the specific role
of British women in influencing and making colonial policies in Africa are left largely
unexplored.
The purpose of this research is to look at documents from the Colonial Office that
suggest the ways in which British women influenced colonial affairs and policy-making in
Kenya from 1929-1939 within the context of the historical role of British maternalism,
Empire conscience and women’s changing roles in Britain. Kenya serves as a case study for
the debate on female excision and the status of women because of the subsequent importance
that the female circumcision crisis played in the 1950s state of emergency and because of the
wide availability of primary resources on the colony. The research pays special attention to
the issues of female circumcision and female education as they relate to the improvement of
the health, wellbeing and status of African women. The following article first explores the
role of British women on female circumcision in the colonies. The article then looks at how
the initial campaign against female circumcision generated debate and inquiry into the
general status of colonized women through an exploration of native women’s education.
18 F. Paisley, ‘Citizens of their World: Australian Feminism and Indigenous Rights in the International Context,1920s and 1930s’, Feminist Review, 58:1 (1998), pp. 66-84.
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 9
THE FEMALE CIRCUMCISION CRISIS IN PARLIAMENT
The campaign against female circumcision began in the first decade of the twentieth
century when the missions condemned the ceremony for being un-Christian. However, while
the Colonial Office grappled with the issue, no legislation was passed Empire-wide to ban the
practice. Governors of the colonies did not want to create conflict with the African’s,
especially over tribal customs, and especially when the primary objection to the practice was,
in view of the missions, its un-Christianness as opposed to economic concerns, which were of
paramount importance to the Colonial Office.19 By the 1920s, Christian missions began to
voice opposition to the practice based on medical concerns such as high infant and mother
mortality at birth as well as infections and sterilization in girls who underwent the procedure.
The argument of decreased birthrates appealed more to the economic sensibilities of Kenya’s
Chief Native Commissioner, G.V. Maxwell. He issued Circular Letter No. 28 in August
1926 to all senior commissioners asking that they attempt to limit the practice to simple
clitoridectomy ‘in the interest of humanity, native eugenics, and increase of population’.20
The issue was brought to the attention of Katharine Marjory Stewart-Murray, Duchess of
Atholl, in 1929 during a meeting of the Church of Scotland Mission to the Kikuyu. At the
meeting, a missionary wife, Mrs. Hooper, described the mutilation and pain suffered by girls
in a typical female circumcision surgery. Shocked by the gruesome details given by Mrs.
Hooper, the Duchess became determined to end the practice of female circumcision
throughout the British Empire. 21
The Campaigners
Nina Boyle, a woman’s rights activist who lived in South Africa for 14 years by the
time of the female circumcision crisis, called 1929 ‘the year in which the conscience of
19 J. Boddy, Civilizing Women: British crusades in colonial Sudan (Princeton, NJ, 2007), p. 243; NA: CO533/392/1 Correspondence from Grigg to Passfield, 12.10.29.20 NA: CO 533/391/1 Circular No. 28 from Native Affairs Department, Nairobi, 23.8.26.21 Boddy, Civilizing Women, p. 234; S.J. Hetherington, Katharine Atholl, 1874-1960 (Aberdeen, 1989), p. 135.
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feminism overflowed into imperial channels’.22 British women were key campaigners
against the practice of female circumcision in Kenya from 1929 through the early 1930s. In
particular, the Duchess of Atholl and Eleanor Rathbone, both MPs and founding members of
the Committee for the Protection of Coloured Women in the Crown Colonies, were
influential in Parliament and determined in their efforts. The two women met in 1929. The
influence of Rathbone and other feminists led the Duchess to become ‘rebellious’ and to
speak out on new matters due to ‘a growing awareness of human misery’.23 In their eyes, the
African rite of passage was tantamount to the Indian practice of widow burning, which
British women had fought against during the previous century, and subsequently the Colonial
Government intervened to outlaw the custom.24 British women in Parliament placed a new
pressure on the Colonial Office and administration to take decisive steps to end what they
viewed as a ‘cruel, immoral and degrading’ practice.25
The Duchess and Rathbone were both influenced in 1927 by Katherine Mayo’s
controversial and shocking book, Mother India.26 The book told of the horrific physical
consequences of child marriage for young girls in India. As a result, Rathbone began to
campaign for changes to colonial legislation regulating child marriage. However, after
Rathbone’s unsuccessful campaign on behalf of Indian women – where she was severely
criticized by Indian women’s rights activists – her attention turned to Africa where similar
conditions of ‘sheer slavery’ existed among native women.27 Rathbone was an advocate of
women’s rights and was concerned with the conditions of colonized women throughout the
22 Pedersen, Rathbone, p. 247; BLPES: ‘Retrospect’, Woman’s Leader, 21:48 (1930); BLPES: ‘FeministPolitics’, Woman’s Leader, 22:4 (1930), p. 27.23 Hetherington, Atholl, p. 134.24 NA: CO 323/1067/1 Extracts from J.W. Arthur M.D., ‘Girl’s Unsuccessful Fight for Freedom’, East AfricaStandard, 17 Sept. 1929, enclosed in correspondence from the Duchess to Passfield, 4.12.29.25 BLPES: ‘Women of the Coloured Races’, Women’s Leader, 22:24 (1930), Memorandum by the NUSEC forconsideration of delegates at the Colonial Conference.26 Pedersen, Rathbone, pp. 241-42; Hetherington, Atholl, pp. 130-31; Mayo, Mother India (London, 1927).27 Pedersen, Rathbone, pp. 242-43, 247.
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Empire.28 For Rathbone, female circumcision signified the universal subjectivity of women
by all men, and she believed that the British held the solution to all the societal ills of its
subject people under the ‘universal applicability of progressive ideals’.29 Unlike Rathbone,
the Duchess was a conservative and not a feminist. However, she supported women’s rights.
She believed that women should learn about politics and participate in public administration,
especially of poor law, education, public health, maternity and child welfare.30 She found
Mayo’s book ‘sad and shocking’.31 The Duchess believed not only that British women were
empowered to create positive change in the colonies because of their new public roles in
Britain, but that it was their duty.32 Therefore, according to the Duchess, British women held
responsibilities especially for women in Africa who were, as she described them, ‘in the grips
of native customs’ which caused physical pain and danger in childbirth.33
Action in Parliament
The Duchess and Rathbone exercised their maternalist obligations with the Colonial
Office in December. First, the Duchess established the Committee for the Protection of
Coloured Women in the Colonies in autumn 1929. Josiah Wedgwood, a Labour MP, was
committee chair, and members included Rathbone, Ormsby-Gore and others. One of the
Committee’s first tasks was to push the Colonial Office for stricter legislation on female
circumcision in the colonies. The Committee members spent several months gathering
evidence before they took their case to the Colonial Secretary, Sidney Webb.34 Webb met
with Wedgwood, the Duchess, and Rathbone on December 3, 1929. The Committee
members asked Webb for a select committee to be set up to inquire into the status of African
women in general and the practice of clitoridectomy in particular. Although Webb refused to
28 B. Stobaugh, Women and Parliament, 1918-1970 (New York, 1978), pp. 33, 45.29 Pedersen, Rathbone, p. 260.30 Hetherington, Atholl, pp. 63-5.31 Ibid, pp. 131-132.32 Atholl, Women and Politics, p. 172.33 Ibid, pp. 169-70.34 In correspondence Webb signed his name ‘Passfield’.
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establish a new committee, he agreed to send a questionnaire to the African governors
regarding the prevalence of the practice and the status of women in their respective
territories.35 The outcome of the first meeting with Webb shows the influence that the
Duchess and her Committee had on the Colonial Office: Webb was willing to reopen the
extremely sensitive topic of female circumcision in the colonies and press it upon the colonial
governors.
From the beginning, the Duchess proved her persistence on the matter. The following
day after she met with Webb, the Duchess sent a letter informing him that she would send a
draft questionnaire inquiring into the status of women that the Committee wished to have
circulated to the governors. Enclosed with her letter were several documents intended to
persuade Webb: a graphic description by a missionary of the Church of Scotland Mission in
Tumutovo of a circumcision of African girls that she witnessed; a statement by Mrs. Hooper,
the wife of Reverend Handley Hooper and a staff member of the Church Missionary Society,
regarding the origins and significance of the custom in Kikuyu society; extracts of two
articles in the East Africa Standard regarding objections to the practice on moral and medical
grounds; and photographs.36 The Duchess sent Webb the suggested questions for circulation
to the colonial governors on December 23.37 In addition to interactions with Webb, the
Duchess and Rathbone employed other outlets through which to pressure the Colonial Office.
As Members of Parliament, the Duchess and Rathbone took advantage of their
positions to bring the oppression of colonized women to the attention of the British
government. They brought the debate to the House of Commons in December. On two
35 RP XIV.2.1 ‘Suggested Questions for Circulation to Governors and High Commissioners of Colonies andProtected Mandated Territories’ in Pedersen, Rathbone, p. 247; NA: CO 323/1067/1 dispatch from ColonialOffice to East African Governors, 8.3.1930.36 NA: CO 323/1067/1 Correspondence from Atholl to Passfield, 4.12.29.37 NA: CO 323/1067/1 Correspondence from Atholl to Passfield, 23.12.29, Suggested Questions for Circulationto Governors on the origins of female circumcision, the tribes that engaged in the practice, the extent of physicaland moral injuries caused by the operation, and actions the governors took to combat the practice or to protectgirls who were trying to escape the operation. The questionnaire also asked about the legal status of Africanwomen, the provisions for women’s health services, and education for girls.
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occasions during meetings of the House of Commons, the Duchess raised questions regarding
the practice of female circumcision in the colonies and asked what the colonial government
was doing or proposed to do in response. The Duchess enjoyed a great deal of influence in
the House of Commons. Elected in 1923, she was the first woman in the House of
Commons, and in 1925 Austen Chamberlain personally asked her to join the delegation to the
annual League of Nations meeting to work on welfare and morals, and youth education.38
The influence of the Duchess in Parliament provided the power and force that the Christian
missions lacked to trigger renewed interest on the part of the Colonial Office and Parliament
in the question of female circumcision. Therefore, Dr. Thomas Drummond Shiels, Under-
Secretary of State for the Colonies, advised Webb that something more must be done in the
colonies to stop female circumcision, or the concerned (and influential) members of the
House would not be satisfied.39 Because the women were MPs, their pleas to the Colonial
Office could not be handled quietly or pushed aside. Their inquiry was public record and as
such, gained the interest of women’s groups in Britain. Thus, the two-front attack on the
Colonial Office and in Parliament by the Duchess and Rathbone was effective.
The impact of the public inquiry into the status of women in the colonies drew the
attention of Parliament, the Colonial Office and the British public to the low status of native
women. In January 1930, Webb sent a letter to Sir Edward Grigg, Governor of Kenya,
stating that the issue had received ‘great prominence’ in debates and questions in the House
of Commons. Furthermore, he mentioned the growing negative sentiment in Great Britain
regarding the custom and that public opinion was dissatisfied with previous measures taken
to curb it. 40 However, Webb did not send the Committee’s questionnaire to colonial
governors as he had agreed in December 1929 because he ‘thought it better to consult
governments by means of a dispatch couched in somewhat more general terms and drawing 38 Hetherington, Atholl, pp. 111-12; Stobaugh, Women and Parliament, p. 3.39 NA: CO 533/392/11 Correspondence from Shiels, 21.12.29.40 NA: CO 533/392/10 Correspondence from Passfield to Grigg, X.15943/29 (No. 3), No. 26, 8.1.30.
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attention to the need for a strong forward policy in the promotion of better health
conditions’.41 Although care was taken to satisfy the questions of the Committee, members
of the Colonial Office tried to avoid creating trouble with the natives in the colonies by way
of the inquiry.42 Ultimately, the dispatch was ‘couched’ in fiscal concerns with regard to the
stagnant or dwindling native population. Webb conceded that it was suggested to him that
female native initiation rites were the cause for the decline in population. He applauded the
efforts of the Conference of East African Governors in 1926 concerning the practice of
female circumcision, but he encouraged the ‘most serious consideration whether it would not
be possible to take steps towards the complete abolition of this and similar practices’.43 His
caution was based in the fear of tribal unrest, which remained of great concern to the colonial
administration of Kenya in the 1930s.44 Nevertheless, the Duchess and Rathbone, among
others, continued to pressure Parliament and the Colonial Office to institute stricter
legislation to ban female circumcision.
Empire conscience tugged at women’s groups across Britain to stop female
circumcision in the colonies, but unlike previous maternalist campaigns such as anti-sati, this
time they were armed with a strong voice in Parliament. The Woman’s Leader, a weekly
publication that covered women’s domestic and international issues including the actions and
current undertakings of various women’s organizations and in Parliament, urged its readers
that women faced ‘new problems of a changing world…the solution of which all the force
and fire of the suffrage movement must be rekindled’.45 Because women had the vote and
41 NA: CO 323/1067/1 Correspondence from Boyd to Atholl, 19.4.30.42 NA: CO 323/1067/1 Notes by C.J. Jeffries, 21.2.30.43 NA: CO 323/1067/1, Colonial No. 65, 8.3.30; NA: CO 533/391/1, Reference to Circular Letter No. 28,23.8.26, “ the practice of female circumcision, which was of very ancient origin, should not be interfered with,but that the respective Governments concerned should endeavour to persuade such tribes as to return to the moreancient and less brutal form”.44 NA: CO 533/392/10 Correspondence from Shiels to Ormsby-Gore. Shiels, while concerned not to interfere intribal customs, insisted that everything possible would be done to end female circumcision. However, theColonial Office expected that the younger men and the KCA would be very much opposed to any change in theinitiation customs, 6.1.30.45 BLPES: ‘Feminist Politics’, Woman’s Leader, 22:4 (1930).
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were represented in Parliament, their ability to demand change was more powerful, and they
felt compelled to exercise that power to its utmost. They believed that the issue of female
circumcision could no longer be left to the missions or to local agencies. Women demanded
that Parliament and the Colonial Office respond to the crisis. The National Council of
Women of Great Britain, Edinburgh Branch, wrote to Shiels in support of the Duchess’s
Parliamentary question of December 11 and requested his attention to the matter. Shiels
assured the Council that the Colonial Office was concerned about the practice and was doing
everything possible to stop it, but he expected ‘very strong and bitter opposition from the
Kikuyu’.46 Even so, women’s councils, committees, action groups and concerned individuals
pushed Parliament to take action on behalf of the women of the colonies for whom Britain
was responsible.
The Colonial Office was in fact opposed to the most severe form of clitoridectomy,
which included excision of the clitoris, labia minora and labia majora, but they found no
offense in the ‘less severe’ operation, or simple clitoridectomy. Even Shiels claimed that the
‘badness was only a matter of degree’.47 Indeed, the purpose of female circumcision seemed
morally desirable—to prevent promiscuity, unwanted pregnancies and abortions.48 However,
even with all of the ‘force and fire of the suffrage movement’, women’s groups were unable
to convince their male counterparts that the clitoris was a sex organ and that any form of
excision was undesirable.49 As a result, the focus of the debate shifted from abolition or
limitation of female circumcision to the general improvement of native women’s status with
the hope of eventually ending female circumcision as a result of that improvement.
Furthermore, Empire conscience was better attuned to the wide suffering of native women
and their low social status in comparison with that of British women.
46 NA: CO 533/392/10 Correspondence from Shiels to Turcan, Secretary of the National Council of Women ofGreat Britain, Edinburgh Branch, 6.1.30.47 NA: CO 533/392/11 Correspondence from Shiels to Passfield, 21.12.29.48 NA: CO 323/1067/1 statement of Mrs. Hooper, 1929.49 Pedersen, ‘National Bodies’, pp. 666-74.
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The male-dominated Colonial Office and local administration may have ignored the
misery of native women because men were believed to be naturally less able to empathize
with the status of native women than British women. The focus of British women’s actions
on behalf of their colonized sisters took shape in a series of conferences throughout the 1930s
inquiring into the status of native women. The 1930 Conference on Domestic Slavery in the
British Empire focused on ways in which British women could improve the status of native
women and to appoint women officials to the Colonial Office and the Slavery Commission of
the League of Nations.50 Women such as Boyle ‘devoted labours on behalf of the women of
some of the native races for which we are responsible’ and pressed the issue on the
‘sympathy and political efforts’ of women’s societies.51 British women recognized an
opportunity to increase their political strength through their historic role as maternalists.
Women participated in Parliament, so they felt they should also participate in the Colonial
Office, especially on issues related to native women.
Women tried to become more involved in decision-making processes in the Colonial
Office in order to provide a voice for colonized women. The Conference on Women Slaves
in the British Empire hosted representatives from forty women’s organizations where the
Duchess and Rathbone spoke as members of their non-party Parliamentary Committee. A
resolution passed at the conference urged Parliament to (a) create a commission on slavery
under the League of Nations that paid particular attention to the enslaved status of colonized
women, which should include both men and women in the deliberative body; and (b) to
appoint a woman advisor to the Colonial Office to collect and disseminate information about
the status and wellbeing of both British and colonized women in the Colonies, Dependencies
and Territories.52 However, in June 1930, the Colonial Office held the Imperial Conference
without women delegates. In reaction, an article in the Woman’s Leader adamantly argued 50 Pedersen, Rathbone, p. 247; BLPES: Woman’s Leader, 22:3 (1930).51 BLPES: Woman’s Leader, 22:3 (1930).52 Ibid.
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that a conference meant to formulate policy for the Empire was of as much concern for
British men as British women in regard ‘to their sisters in countries where domestic slavery’
still existed.53 Women’s groups worked feverishly to change policies that would ensure the
protection and improved status of native women in Africa, and to include themselves in that
policy-making process.
Broadening the Issue
The Colonial Office received the colonial governors’ responses to the dispatch it sent
in March regarding the status of native women. The Colonial Office discussed and debated
how to ‘edit’ or ‘doctor’ the findings without appearing deceptive or raising questions
especially by MPs such as the Duchess and Wedgwood. Individuals suggested that various
statements of ‘frankness’ and ‘criticisms of what has been done in Kenya’ be omitted, as well
as mention of the proposal to amend the Penal Code which considered the major
clitoridectomy operation a “maim” because that proposal was deemed ‘impracticable’. To
reduce circulation of the report, members of the Colonial Office suggested making only a
limited number of copies, charging it at a high price and not advertising its existence. 54 The
Colonial Office did not pursue the question of female circumcision directly with the
Governors because it was an explosive topic. Everyone involved in colonial affairs knew
from experience with the indigenous people and the missions that interfering with native
traditions, even those customs most appalling to European sensibilities, would unleash fierce
resentment and protest from the natives. As a result, the issue of female circumcision was
never directly broached by a serious and targeted inquiry. However, although the Colonial
Office avoided the problematic issue of female circumcision, the ongoing debate in Britain
prompted a general inquiry into the status of African women.
53 BLPES: ‘Women at the Imperial Conference’, Woman’s Leader, 22:19 (1930).54 NA: CO 323/1067/1 Notes between members of the Colonial Office regarding the nature of the dispatch andhow to handle the results, February 1930 – March 1931.
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British women not only faced obstructions from the Colonial Office in their labors on
behalf of their ‘oppressed sisters’ in Africa, but also many Kenyan women and girls fought to
preserve the initiation rite. British women failed to recognize the role that the initiation of
girls played in Kenyan society. To Kenyans, the initiation was a door into womanhood, and
girls who did not participate could not enter into the space of womanhood. This space was
not only ideological; it held real physical space within the tribes’ compounds. It also allowed
girls to marry and have children and to participate in important decision making within the
tribe. Louis Leakey described the important role of initiation and membership of the
individual to the initiation group in Kikuyu society in his 1936 book, Kenya: Contrasts and
Problems.55 In addition, the influence of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) was strong
and natives were ‘advised to preserve their old customs, good or bad, and strenuously to
resist all attempts by the Missions or by Government to control or to suppress the customary
operations and ceremonies in connection with female circumcision and the initiation of girls
to womanhood’.56 Young girls and women who refused circumcision were subject to all
sorts of abuses by their tribe. Songs were sung to taunt, humiliate and ostracize
uncircumcised girls.57 Their own families would refuse to recognize them, and they might
even be beaten and then forced to be circumcised. For these reasons and many others, British
women faced unrealized opposition to their benevolent, though somewhat racially biased and
unwieldy, aims. Female circumcision could not be suppressed by legislation or force.
Instead, it ignited an inquiry into the general health, wellbeing and education of native girls.58
HEALTH, WELLBEING AND EDUCATION OF GIRLS AND WOMEN
During the mid-1930s the aim of British women to improve the depressed status of
native women in Africa shifted from the focus on female circumcision to include broader
concerns for the general health, wellbeing and education of native girls and women. 55 L. Leakey, Kenya: Contrasts and Problems (London, 1936), pp. 96-7.56 NA: CO 533/392/1, Governor Confidential, No. 130, Grigg to Passfield, 12.10.29.57 Ibid, Correspondence from S.I. Luka (C.I.D.) to Major E.A.T. Dutton, Private Secretary to the Governor, n.d.58 NA: CO 822/1137, Legislation for the control of female circumcision in Kenya, Wallis response, 14.11.56.
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Legislation banning or limiting the female initiation surgery proved ineffective and caused
mass dissention from Kenyan women and men, girls and boys. Therefore, British women,
colonial officials and missionaries believed that education was a better solution than
legislation to fight the battle against female circumcision, abortion, prostitution and
degeneration in Kenya.59 The belief that education would correct perceived social evils was
also influential during the late nineteenth century campaign to end sati in India.60
Understandably, the education of girls in England shaped attitudes about female
education in Africa. In England, girls were seen as a force for social and moral progress.
The purpose of their education was for ‘the good of the community’.61 Religious institutions
instilled a ‘deep sense of justice’ that led girls ‘to undertake work for their less fortunate
neighbor’.62 Therefore, because the education of English girls was linked to the civilizing
mission and the role of women as social improvers, the education of African girls and women
was believed to be a necessary first step for the social improvement of native peoples,
especially native women.63 Rathbone, among others, believed that the status of women
provided an indicator of the level of civilization of a country or people.64 Essentially, native
society only could progress as a whole, as British society had, through the education of
girls.65
However, social progress was limited and uneven in Kenya. Poor native health and
hygiene, limited government resources, isolation of native populations, the ignorance of
authorities on dealing with problems facing African women, and the fact that education and
59 WL: 3AMS/D/28, 26-28 May 1936, 12th Annual Conference of the British Commonwealth League in Africa,Miss G. Saunders, p. 44; Pedersen, Rathbone, p. 248; WL: 3AMS/D/01 ‘Health and Progress of NativePopulations in Certain Parts of the Empire’, Colonial Office publication no. 65 (1931).60 Midgley, Feminism and Empire, p. 74.61 A.G. Percival, The English Miss To-day and Yesterday (London, 1939), p. 284.62 Ibid, p. 309.63 Mair, Native Policies, p. 17.64 Pedersen, Rathbone, p. 242; Kanogo, African Womanhood, p. 90.65 NA: CO 822/1137, Jones, ‘It would be impossible to try to suppress it by force. Rather Government isattempting to educate African opinion to accept a voluntary renunciation of a custom that would not beacceptable in anywhere in the civilized world’, 5.11.56.
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women’s health training usually were consigned to voluntary agencies and missions were
factors that made official policy on native girls’ education difficult to formulate.66 The
Colonial Office generally ignored the education of African girls because its aims for native
education were dependent on economic interests.67 Native girls did not stay in school or
contribute to the labor pool because they married and had children young, and they were
needed for agricultural and other domestic work in the reserves and villages. As a result, the
Colonial Office or African girls’ parents had little incentive to provide education to them.68
The education of girls was often referred to as ‘wastage’ because it was viewed as a pointless
endeavor.
Members of the Colonial Office and missions also commonly believed that native
women held on to their ‘absurdly primitive ideas’ more than native men.69 According to Dr.
Janet Welch, a medical officer of the Church of Scotland Mission Hospital in Nyasaland,
native beliefs and customs were the most difficult obstacle that the local administrators had to
overcome in order for the education of African girls and boys to be equal.70 Therefore, it was
thought that closing the gap between men’s education and that of women depended on ending
the superstitions, prejudices and fears passed from one generation of women to the next. It
was regarded as essential that native women be taught about proper health and hygiene
particular to the tropics to bring African societies forward and to improve the status of
African women.
66 M. Blacklock, The Development of Women’s Education and the Employment of Women in Health Work in theColonies, p. 3; NA: CO 847/3/15 Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, ‘Memorandum on theEducation of African Communities’, Colonial No. 103, 58-103, 1935.Col. No. 10367 Mair, Native Policies, p. 15; Blacklock, Development of Women’s Education, p. 7.68 NA: CO 847/3/15 Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, ‘Memorandum on the Education ofAfrican Communities’, Colonial No. 103, 58-103, 1935.69 BLPES JV/258, Address by Major the Honorable F. W. Cavendish-Bentinck (Member for Agriculture andNational Resources in the Kenya Government) at a Private Meeting of the Colonial Affairs Study Group of theEmpire Parliamentary Association, Mr. A Creech Jones, M.P. in the chair, 20.6.46, p. 18.70 NA: CO 859/1/9 1939 SCWE 3/39 Article for January No. of Overseas Education.
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 21
African Women’s Education and Improved Status
Traditionally, missions were the main provider of African education in the colonies.
However, they relied on grants-in-aid from the government to carry out the work. As a result
of the female circumcision crisis the Duchess became generally concerned with the health
and wellbeing of African women. During the December 11, 1929 meeting of the House of
Commons, the Duchess asked Shiels about the expenditures by the governments of
Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda on services for women including midwives, hospitals, child
welfare and education of women and girls that were supplied directly by government and
missionary bodies using government grants. Shiels agreed to answer her questions in an
official report. While his report cited the amount spent on the upkeep, construction and
repair of hospitals, and the amount of grants awarded to missions in each colony, he failed to
report on amounts spent on maternity and child welfare, health services and female
education.71 Apparently unsatisfied with Shiels’s response and distressed by newly received
information on the lack of attention shown by Kenya’s Colonial Government to services for
girls and women, the Duchess probed Shiels further. On February 28, 1930, the Duchess
asked Shiels if he was aware that the grant funds given to missionary societies in Kenya for
the purpose of girls’ education had been reduced. Shiels reputed the claim and insisted that
the grant actually had been increased from the previous year, but he did not know how much
of the funds would go specifically toward education for girls.72 The following week
Rathbone asked Shiels about the reduction of grants for girls’ education in Kenya in light of
recent findings regarding the conditions of native women in the colony. She asked that he
consider increasing the grants to provide additional and improved education, medical and
nursing services for women. Shiels simply replied that it was already being done.73
71 NA: CO 822/21/13, The total government expenditure for medical and public health in Kenya was £199,198for a population of 2,838,022 Africans, only £1,847 was spent on maternity and child welfare services. Nonumbers for female education were available, but £2,000 was spent on domestic training, 1929-30.72 BLPES, Woman’s Leader, 22:5 (1930).73 BLPES: Woman’s Leader, 22:6 (1930).
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 22
Inquiries into the status of native education began in earnest as a result of the 1925
Command Paper regarding the education policy in Africa. However, work stopped short of
any result or thorough inquiry due to difficulties in enacting native education, shortages of
funding and other matters that demanded the attention of the Colonial Office. However,
work resumed under the Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies (ACEC) in 1935.
Under the Advisory Committee, special attention was paid to the education of native women
in a memorandum asserting that health was the ‘basis for retardation’ of native education and
that women were important mediators in changing attitudes, practices and beliefs about
health and hygiene among native communities.74 The memorandum required the Colonial
Office to intervene directly in women’s education to improve the status of women and, by
extension, that of the entire native society. The Advisory Committee made this
recommendation because African tribal society faced innumerable irreversible changes due to
interactions with Europeans – new bonds, loyalties, customs and traditions had to be
established before old ones could be abandoned.75
Cultural upheavals among African women caused alarm in the Colonial Office as
women escaped from their husbands and fathers to live in Nairobi.76 Those women often
became prostitutes or brewed beer to generate an income. The increasing interference and
influence of Europeans in African tribal customs created a gap in women’s instruction on
‘sex ethics’ as the traditional practice of female circumcision declined. The initiation
ceremony was the time when older women taught female initiates about tribal customs and
sexuality. Earlier concerns proved true for local administrators and missionaries. They
agreed that old customs had to be replaced with new ones or else African society would fall
into degenerate chaos. Thus, the report of the Sub-Committee on the Education and Welfare
74 NA: CO 847/3/15, ACEC, ‘Memorandum on the Education of African Communities’, Colonial No. 103,1935.75 ibid.76 I. Berger and E.F. White, Women in sub-Saharan Africa: restoring women to history (Bloomington, 1999),pp. 37, 46.
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of Women and Girls in Africa suggested that the Colonial Office ‘must provide new
sanctions for conduct to replace dying tribal customs’.77
Christian education replaced female circumcision and initiation practices.78
According to two Kikuyu women, one who was a young girl during the Mau Mau Emergency
of the 1950s and one born after the Emergency, education provided an alternative to excision.
They explained that if a Kikuyu girl was not circumcised she was unmarriageable and
therefore of less value because she would not fetch a bride price. However, the opportunity
for education meant that women could learn valuable skills such as nursing, teaching and
homemaking.79 Therefore, a girl’s identity was no longer necessarily tied to her initiation age
group. She had options for other social groups in which to belong. Other women interviewed
by Kanogo provided similar accounts of the role of girls’ education in providing a life
alternative to that associated with female circumcision.
Furthermore, according to Kanogo, the goal of a mission education for a young
woman was to produce marginally literate girls steeped in Christian ideals and suitable as
wives for Christian men.80 Correspondence and pamphlets from the Colonial Office support
the ideas revealed in Kanogo’s interviews. For example, wives of men at the Jeanes
Teacher’s Training School received instruction on how to maintain a model house in the
reserves when their husbands retuned as Jeanes teachers.81 This attitude reflects what the
Christian mission claimed was the desire of Christianized African men to have a
Christianized, civilized African wife. Education provided the prospect of marrying an
educated Christian man who desired a wife who he considered his moral and intellectual
equal. African attitudes about female education and native customs began to change
77 NA: CO 859/42/2 African No. 1169, p. 12, confidential, printed for the Colonial Office, adopted in early 1941but printing delayed until February 1943.78 Berger and White, Women in sub-Saharan Africa, p. 40.79 Interview: Sarah Ainley and Francesca Kaime, March 23, 2008, Greensted International School, Nakuru,Kenya.80 Kanogo, African Womanhood, p. 203.81 Leakey, Kenya, (London, 1936), p. 161.
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 24
throughout the 1930s and after. For example, one man said that he wished his wife was
educated so that they could eat together, but he said she was boring and she smelled, so they
could not eat together.82
While the missions were the main source of native education in colonial Kenya, the
Colonial Office was pressured to take more responsibility in providing government services
to improve the status of native women. Unlike the campaign by the Duchess and her
Committee regarding female circumcision, native education was more familiar to the
Colonial Office and local administrators. The results of changes in the lives of native women,
along with the campaigns of British women for the improvement of the health, wellbeing and
education of native women provided the impetus needed by the Colonial Office to spend
money and energy to increase women’s education, especially in home sciences.83 However,
female education posed special problems such as opposition from native chiefs, which is one
reason that it was not pursued earlier. The fact that traditional teachers were replaced with
missionary women threatened African elders.84 Therefore, any legislation on the matter
required a thorough inquiry before action could be taken, for which the Colonial Office
proved more willing to conduct than surveys of an extremely sensitive topic such as female
circumcision.
Changing Attitudes and Colonial Policies
The inquiry into female health, welfare and education intensified in 1937 when the
Colonial Office responded to a paper written by Dr. Mary Blacklock on the ‘Welfare of
Women and Children in the Colonies’ in the Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology.
On January 22, 1937, the Colonial Office initiated the inquiry into the status of native women
with a dispatch to all of the colonial dependencies. The dispatch asked the governors to
conduct an inquiry into the status of women’s education and health services in their
82 NA: CO 859/1/9 SCWE, 1/39, M. Wrong, Year Book of Education, August 1939.83 Berger and White, Women in sub-Saharan Africa, p. 46.84 Kanogo, African Womanhood, p. 206, 208.
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 25
respective colonies. It also included a copy of Dr. Blacklock’s article. The actions of the
Colonial Office illustrated a marked change in attitude about colonized women – it finally
recognized them after nearly a decade of British women demanding that it do so. This
inquiry was different from the one that Webb sent to the governors in 1930. The inquiry was
not the result of the immediate request of any women’s group, committee or individual.
Therefore, the reaction of the Colonial Office to Blacklock’s article illustrates how women
such as Rathbone and the Duchess called the attention of the Colonial Office to the important
connection between native women’s social progress and the development of the colony. The
inquiry was not couched in vague terms about a dwindling native population and its
ramification upon the colonial balance sheet. It was a targeted and purposeful inquiry.
Blacklock received the responses from the governors, and she compiled the findings
for each colony in a report. In general terms, Blacklock determined that African colonies
lagged behind other colonies in women’s education. In regard to Kenya, she included an
extract of the Kenya Colonial Government’s reports stating that ‘Up to the present no special
arrangements had been made for the development of any of the Government African
hospitals as training institutions for African girls as nurses.’85 Blacklock linked the general
lack of women’s education in Africa to the lack of women nurses which, she claimed,
contributed to poor health and hygiene standards.86
Several months after the Colonial Office sent the first dispatch, a second one followed
in response to a memorandum by Dr. Philippa Esdaile on training African women in
domestic sciences. The Colonial Office found the information in the two dispatches
overwhelming and the task of compiling and responding to the reports too daunting for them
to address. The result was the establishment of a sub-committee of the ACEC in September
1939. The Sub-Committee on the Education and Welfare of Women and Girls in Africa was
85 Blacklock, ‘The Development of Women’s Education’ (1937), p. 2.86 Ibid, pp. 3-4.
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 26
charged to ‘survey the whole field of women’s education and make recommendations for its
advancement’ as a ‘means of accelerating social progress in the Colonial Empire by increased
education of women and girls and by welfare among them’.87 According to members of the
Sub-Committee, not until the mid- to late 1930s did the Colonial Government begin to view
African women as an, ‘influence of far-reaching effect upon whose education and
enlightenment depend the well-being and development of their respective territories’. 88 The
Sub-Committee issued its findings and recommendations in February 1943 and emphasized
the ‘special importance of Women in African society, and the need for making up the lag in
their education’ because of the changed status of African women predicated by colonialism.89
The efforts of first the female circumcision campaigners and then the female
education and health campaigners raised the consciousness of the Colonial Office to a new
issue – the advancement of native women as vital to the economic and social progress of the
colony. The Colonial Office could not ignore the influence of British women campaigners in
Parliament and on public opinion. The Honorable Member for Education, E. A. Vasey, paid
tribute to the influence of British women in solving social problems throughout the Empire in
his opening speech to the 1950 Conference of Women Educationists:
It has perhaps taken people a long time to realize the importance of educating womenand girls. This century has, however, seen a great change in the social structure of ourtime. The influence of women has been recognized not only from the home point ofview, but in connexion [sic] with the many social problems which can only be solvedthrough the leadership of women by women.90
Vasey’s words acknowledged the struggle that British women engaged in since the British
Empire came onto the map. Indeed, it took a long time for the creators and maintainers of
empire to see that the status of a whole native population depended on the progress of the half
87 NA: CO 859/1/9 SCWE, 6/39, Female Education in the Colonial Empire, Summary of Facts Showing thePresent Position, p. 1, n.d.88 Ibid, p. 11.89 NA: CO 859/42/2 ACEC, Report of Sub-Committee on Education and Welfare of Women and Girls inAfrica, 24.2.45.90 NA: CO 533/565/9, pamphlet, Conference of Women Educationists, 15-17 Aug. 1950.
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 27
of that society which were viewed as its lesser members – women. In the same way that
Britain saw internal changes to the status of its women, those changes were reflected on the
status of native women in African colonies. The aims of education for British girls were
reflected on policies regarding education of native girls. However, the status of colonized
women remained a special concern for British women to address rather than part of
mainstream colonial policy-making; it did not quite deserve the attention of all of the
Members of Parliament or the Colonial Office. At the same time, it created a niche that
British women owned. On March 6, 1951 the Governor of Kenya wrote to James Griffiths,
MP, Secretary of State for the Colonies, about the results and status of the Beecher Report.
He noted that Members of the House of Commons ‘laid emphasis on the importance of the
education of women and girls’ during a debate about the Beecher Report.91 The Colonial
Office expected British women to inquire into and inform colonial policy on the education of
African women.
CONCLUSION
Despite the conflicted role of the Colonial Office and some opposition from native
women, the Duchess’s actions in Parliament encouraged British women to fulfill their
responsibilities toward colonized women by pressing the needs of midwifery, child welfare
and education for girls in Africa upon the Colonial Government.92 Rathbone also made
important contributions to women’s interventions in the colonies. In 1936, she made a trip to
Africa for which ‘the conditions of native women’ was her special political concern.93
Ultimately, the Colonial Office could not completely end female circumcision in Kenya and
other colonies. Indeed, the Colonial Office was hesitant to try. However, the efforts of the
Duchess and her Committee forced Parliament, the Colonial Office and colonial governors to
91 Ibid.92 Stewart-Murray, Women and Politics, p. 172.93 Pedersen, Rathbone, p. 276; WL, 7/ELR/28, EFR to Mona Hensman, 3.2.36; RP XIV.3.4, ‘Miss EleanorRathbone’s Election Address’ (1935), p. 2.
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 28
pay attention to the wellbeing of native women. The result of British women’s political
struggle to ban female circumcision in Kenya had profound, broad-reaching and lasting
effects on the colony. The female circumcision crisis ignited a struggle for many Kikuyu,
Meru and Embu, which, in the case of the Kikuyu, politicized the issue and helped the KCA
gain mass support for its activities. It also strained the relationship between Africans and
missionaries and created problems for the local authorities that were exacerbated during the
Mau Mau Emergency.94
However, the political struggle to end female circumcision also resulted in
progressive outcomes. The aims of British women in matters such as female circumcision
and female education in Kenya were often in opposition to the policies of the Colonial Office
and local administrators to allow continuance of traditional control of native women’s bodies
by native men.95 Despite the resistance of the Colonial Office and local authorities, British
women brought debates on female circumcision and the need to improve the general health
and wellbeing of native women through education to the forefront of colonial development
policies in Kenya during the 1930s.96 Without the persistence of dedicated women MPs such
as the Duchess of Atholl and Eleanor Rathbone during 1929 and 1930, the status of women in
the colonies may have remained neglected by the Colonial Office. However, these women
paved the way for other women – doctors, sociologists, educationalists, missionaries and
anthropologists, among others – to petition the Colonial Office on behalf of colonized
women.
Renewed public interest in and criticism of Britain’s imperial claims during the 1930s
plus women’s increasingly political roles in Britain opened up public venues for women to
participate in formulation of colonial policies. The moralizing and civilizing roles of British
94 NA: CO 533/391/1, Governor confidential, No. 130, Grigg to Passfield, 12.10.2995 P. Levine, ‘Sexuality, Gender, and Empire’, Gender and Empire (Levine, 2004), pp. 134-155; Pedersen,‘National Bodies’; Thomas, ‘Imperial Concerns’.96 A. Bashford, ‘Medicine, Gender, and Empire’, Gender and Empire (Levine, 2004), pp. 112-133; Mair, NativePolicies, pp. 15-18.
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 29
women as the conscience of empire allowed Britain to justify its possession of colonies. 97 It
also enhanced women’s places in British government and society. Rathbone elucidated the
special role that women played in British politics when, in her final presidential address to
the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship in 1929, she asked whether a
‘wave-length set up by human suffering, to which the minds of women give aspecially good reception’ existed, and whether ‘the results of the new citizenship ofwomen…will be a changed attitude on the part of society…especially towards thehappiness and suffering of its less powerful and articulate members’?98
British women urged the Colonial Office to inquire seriously into the rights and privileges of
native women in the colonies, especially in Africa.
In terms of historiographical accounts of the role of British women in imperial policy-
making, evidence is plentiful but scholarship is lacking with regard to Britain’s African
colonies in the twentieth century. This article sought to shed some light on the important and
formative roles that British women played in policy-making in the Kenya colony. The
Duchess of Atholl and Eleanor Rathbone brought the issue of female circumcision in Kenya
to the attention of Parliament and the Colonial Office in 1929. Their campaign was persistent
and more influential than missionary societies had been in the past. Subsequently, the status
of native women became an urgent concern of the Colonial Office during the 1930s and
beyond. British women from all walks of life became interested in the condition of native
women. Doctors such as Mary Blacklock wrote articles about the lack of female education
and the corresponding poor health and hygiene that African societies suffered, which
provoked action by the Colonial Office. Women’s societies interested in protecting
colonized women sprang up across Britain. They became a force to be reckoned with and
one that neither the Colonial Office nor Parliament could ignore.
97 P. Graves, Labour Women: women in British working class politics, 1918-1939 (Cambridge, 1994), p. 161.98 Pedersen, Rathbone, p. 240; E. Rathbone, ‘Victory – And After?’, Milestones: Presidential Addresses at theAnnual Council Meetings of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (Liverpool: Lee &Nightingale, 1929), pp. 44-9.
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Women’s roles are often sidelined in studies of empire because they generally are not
the conquerors or public officials responsible for empire. However, it is clear from the
evidence presented in this article that not only were women much involved in empire in some
of the same ways as men but also in ways in which men were believed to be unable,
uncomfortable, or ill-suited. Treasure troves of documents about women’s roles in the
British Empire await the eyes and minds of historians. This article has only begun to scratch
the surface of the rich documentation on the acts of individual women, committees, sub-
committees, councils and societies concerned with the status of colonized women. The
actions of these advocates were rooted in the changing roles of British women and reflected
by the changing status of native women. The importance of further inquiry into women’s
actions in colonial policy-making is to enhance the complexity and fullness of debates on the
history of the British Empire, and to demonstrate the extent that empire penetrated British
society and that colonial policies were influenced by the domestic climate.
The need to further the inquiry into the nature of women’s roles in empire and the
impact of women on colonial policies also is apparent when examining modern relations
between nations and legacies of empire. The work of non-profit, government and non-
governmental organizations, corporations and individuals in the former colonies remain
influenced by colonial ideologies and often initiate the same civilizing missions as those of
the early twentieth century British Empire. Women of the developed world still claim to
represent and act as advocates for the advancement of women in developing countries. Like
their predecessors, modern women’s organizations such as V-Day, a global movement to stop
violence against women and girls, speak publicly on behalf of women in developing
countries. The study of British women’s roles in twentieth century Empire is relevant and
important to help understand modern relations between people and nations. After all, history
is not a dead thing, and women are not passive extras in British imperial history.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Nakuru, Kenya.
Published:Arthur, John W., M.D., ‘Girl’s Unsuccessful Fight for Freedom’, East Africa Standard,
17Aug. 1929.
Atholl, MP, Katharine Marjory Stewart-Murray, The Duchess of, Women and Politics(London, 1931).
Blacklock, Mary, The Development of Women’s Education and the Employment of Women inHealth Work in the Colonies (1937).
Leakey, Luis, Kenya: Contrasts and Problems (London, 1936).
Mair, Lucy, Native Policies in Africa (London, 1936).
Mayo, Katherine, Mother India (London, 1927).
Percival, Alice G., The English Miss To-day and Yesterday (London, 1939).
Rathbone, Eleanor, ‘Victory – And After?’, Milestones: Presidential Addresses at the AnnualCouncil Meetings of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship, 6 Mar.1929 (Liverpool: Lee & Nightingale, 1929).
Woman’s Leader, Vol. 22 (1930).
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Constantine, Stephen, The Making of British Colonial Development Policy 1914-1940(London, 1984).
Graves, Pamela, Labour Women: women in British working class politics, 1918-1939(Cambridge, 1994).
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British Women’s Roles in Colonial Policy-Making 33
Hetherington, S.J., Katharine Atholl: against the tide, 1874-1960 (Aberdeen, 1989).
Kanogo, Tabitha, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900-50 (Oxford, 2005).
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