Patriarchal Anxieties and Masculine Sexual Privilege in Contemporary Urban Mali

• Published in: Afrikaspectrum Vol. 58; no. 3; pp. 294 - 311
• Main Author: Whitehouse, Bruce
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.12.2023; Sage Publications Ltd; SAGE Publishing
• Subjects: Adultery; Capital; Demography; Dependents; Economic stabilization; Ethnicity; Ethnography; Females; Gender; Households; Housing authorities; Husbands; Ideology; Males; Marriage; Marriage customs; Masculinity; Men; Mothers; Neoliberalism; Political activism; Prestige; Sex roles; Sexual intercourse; Sexuality; Social life & customs; Transformation; Wives; Women; Mali; Männlichkeit; gender; sexuality; Mali; polygyny; Polygynie; Sexualität; masculinity; Geschlecht
• ISSN: 0002-0397; 1868-6869
• DOI: 10.1177/00020397231185158

The neoliberal transformation of Mali's burgeoning capital city, Bamako, has undermined men's capacity to provide for their households and dependents even as it has boosted women's economic participation, leading senior males to express mounting anxieties over their declining economic power. As more men find themselves unable to assure economic stability for the women and children under their charge, many double down in their bid to exercise authority over women, particularly their wives. Some men use polygynous marriage as a means of performing certain masculine ideals, acquiring social prestige despite their diminished roles as breadwinners. Others find maintaining multiple female partners outside marriage similarly useful for offsetting their economic disadvantages. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with men and women in Bamako, this paper examines the extent to which modern masculinity in the city remains predicated on the control of women and their bodies.