Summary

While understudied compared to men, women in Rwanda have played critical roles in economic, social, religious, and political activities. From the earliest Stone Age settlements, women likely acted as spiritual mediums, laborers, caretakers, and links between kinship groups. These roles evolved with the rise of the Nyiginya kingdom and neighboring polities, as women became more visibly involved with agricultural, spiritual, and political leadership. Women’s access to power arguably declined, however, with Rwanda’s colonization by the Germans (1895–1916) and Belgians (1916–1895), and the accompanying spread of Christianity. With the nation’s independence in 1962, women continued to be marginalized. However, in the twenty-first century, women have claimed new roles in an increasingly globalized society, as entrepreneurs, teachers, health care professionals, and intellectuals.

Historically, women’s roles in Rwandan society have differed based on many factors, including region, proximity to central state authority, socioeconomic status, age, and in modern times, ethnicity. This final designation has earned the most scholarly attention, because of the 1994 genocide, in which Hutu Power extremists and their supporters murdered Tutsi civilians, as well as political moderates of different ethnicities. The extremists also specifically targeted Tutsi women with sexual violence. Since then, Rwanda has become the world leader in promoting gender equality in politics: its post-genocide constitution mandated women’s equal representation in government. Although women’s experiences in the genocide and its aftermath have gained the most attention, they merit deeper analysis throughout the nation’s rich history for their many significant contributions.