Abstract
The first chapter of the book provides an overview on women's roles and status in Botswana. It also explores gender–sexual relationships and the changes in society, lifestyle, and employment that Botswana has experienced since independence in 1966. The book makes the claim that Botswana, being a signatory to some of the international instruments that are challenging gender inequality, has been a positive factor in the lives of women. These international conventions, Starling maintains, have influenced feminist movements in Botswana and challenged laws that discriminate against girls and women.
The second chapter of the book discusses the author's positionality. A reflexive account of Starling's positionality is explored as she investigates the intersection of race and social class in her personal and professional background. Power imbalances between the researcher and her study's participants are noted. The author uses the systematic inequality framework and details her approach to recruitment and sampling. The result is a book that provides rich and thick data. The author notes that her being a woman might constitute an advantage while interviewing women but can also distort other inequalities. She uses these perspectives to explore contradictions that might appear because of the limitations of her sample. The author emphasizes that interpreters should be used with caution in qualitative research. Lastly, she notes the safety challenges that researchers can face during data collection in the community.
In the third chapter, the central themes are the significance of marriage and childbearing. The author stipulates that to achieve womanhood in Botswana, as in other parts of the world, women must either bear and raise children or get married. The relational identity that women in Starling's study derive from marriage and childbearing tend to overshadow the abuse, violence, and unromantic unions they experience in marriage. In Botswana, those women who do not marry or have children are viewed as social deviants. As a result, women who neither marry nor have children earn no respect in their communities. For some women, female honor and status come at the cost of their lives. The author writes that some women stay in loveless marriages due to their economic vulnerability, creating a dependency which leaves them subject to intimate partner violence.
In Chapter 4, the author presents diverse views on how women are taken for granted, especially at home as well as in the formal sector. The gendered division of work is evident in both sectors. On the one hand, educated women in Botswana have career aspirations and seek to achieve senior positions. However, sexism and the gendered division of work are reported as barriers to gaining seniority. The belief that men are natural leaders has made it impossible for most women to climb up a career ladder. On the other hand, women, regardless of the demands they face at work, are expected to assume all the caregiving roles at home. Men are not expected to share the stress and burdens of caring for a family. In the formal sector, women are offered and accept low-level positions to avoid conflicts at work with colleagues and at home with their partners. Some women, especially in rural areas (who are often uneducated and without paid employment), are comfortable with the gendered division of work in the home as they believe it is the woman's responsibility to care for children, elders, cooking, sewing, and cleaning. These women also think that the man should work outside the home and provide economically for the family. The author notes that while women are expected to be conforming to social ideals of femininity, they are also trying at the same time to manage male dominance.
Chapter 5 explores how changes in the sociocultural, economic, and political environment over time have had an impact on the lives of women. The author highlights key clashes between past and present assumptions about gender roles in the community. Views on the performance of womanhood, however, differ depending upon whether one lives in the country or the city. Some women who were interviewed think that women's subservience to men contemporarily is influenced by the grip of patriarchal norms held by older generations. The chapter alludes to the influence in the country of global communications, cultures, and commerce and how they have impacted the lives of women in Botswana. Starling reports that some women are pleased that global influence is relaxing gendered norms; other women find global effects to be negative.
In sum, Starling finds that women's lives are at risk because full womanhood can only be achieved through marriage and childbearing. Furthermore, women who refuse to take part in these two institutions are not recognized as adults. Social instability and tension result.
