International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Review

This study examines gender debate as it affects the choice or availability of traditional occupation before colonial incursion of Africa and Nigeria in particular and introduced the new economic relations (capitalism) which has ushered in some inevitable changes. Warife community in Oruk Anam Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria is used as a case study. The Post Modern Feminist Theory that was made popular by the works of Chafe (1992), and Gilles and Lavine (1990) was adopted as its theoretical framework. The method of study is qualitative. The Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and In-depth Interview (IDI) methods were adopted. The FGD consisted of ten (10) participants, and one research assistant. The researcher purposively selected the participants who were all above sixty years based on the research objective. The study findings were that: i) there was demarcation between what constitutes women’s activity and also that of the men ii) The study also found out that men access to economic and political resources made them more powerful and in turn limit and humbled the women before the men in the area of traditional occupation in Warife community; iii) Another finding of the study was that, Warife community was male dominated such that the females were always taking orders from their male counterparts. Women are discriminated against especially in schools, work places, homes and some professional occupational areas. Therefore, to reverse this, this study recommended that women must be part of local, national and international development aspirations as being advocated for by a good number of world development agencies. In addition, that this advocacy should be the concern of all those saddled with these functions both locally and internationally for the liberation of women across the globe.