Within a broad analysis of colonial oppurtunities for physical, social and educational mobility, Kanogo Kanogo explores the history of African womanhood in colonial Kenya. She shows how African and British male authorities tried, with uncertain opinions and from different perspectives, to control female initiatives, and how, to very varying degrees, women managed to achieve increasing measures of control over their own lives. She examines the legal and cultural status of women, clitoridectomy, dowry, marriage, maternity and motherhood, and formal education. By following the effects of the all-pervasive ideological shifts that colonialism produced in the lives of women, the study investigates the diverse ways in which Kenyan women's positions were diminished, or enhanced, or placed in ambiguous predicaments by the consequences, intended and unintended, of colonial rule. North America: Ohio U Press; Kenya: EAEP
