The Banality of Gender Violence: The Everyday Lives of Women in Northern Nigeria

This presentation draws on recent empirical research and analysis of the banal gender violence that pervaded their everyday lives into the ways young women in rural contexts of Adamawa State in Northern Nigeria. Using participatory visual methods over an extended series of workshops, a space was created for them to voice their concerns about the difficulties they faced in their daily lives and to develop their own agendas for change. In these workshops, we engaged with two groups of young women, one Christian and one Muslim (14 in each context). Twelve young women from each context also participated in life history interviews. Their accounts illuminated the multiple forms of gender violence to which they were subject, in the home, at work and in education. The emphasis in this presentation is on the banality of this gender violence and its centrality within the family in both contexts, Christian and Muslim. We highlight in particular the reproduction of a patriarchal gender regime sustained by pious masculinities that depended on the systematic subordination of women in every aspect of their lives. Importantly, while some young women questioned this gender regime, our analysis shows how women themselves were integral to the reproduction of gender violence in their different communities.