The Womb and the Guidance: How Colonialism Transformed African Women into Permanent Infrastructure

Introduction

The legacy of colonialism extends far beyond political boundaries and economic systems—it fundamentally altered the social fabric of African societies, particularly the role and treatment of African women. This article examines how colonial powers systematically transformed African women’s bodies and labor into permanent infrastructure supporting imperial ambitions, creating a debt that remains unpaid to this day.

Key Points

Background

Colonialism’s impact on African women was systematic and strategic. Rather than viewing women merely as workers within colonial systems, they were positioned as structural components—forcibly placed to absorb economic shocks, reproduce labor, and maintain social order. This transformation was neither accidental nor culturally neutral but represented deliberate mechanisms of domination embedded in colonial governance.

The exploitation manifested in multiple forms: women were forced to work on farms, subjected to sexual abuse, brutally mistreated, and exhibited as sexual objects in Europe. Their labor in fields, homes, and communities functioned as invisible infrastructure supporting colonial investment and capitalist accumulation. This exploitation was justified through narratives that framed domestic labor as natural female responsibility, concealing its economic value while normalizing its exploitation.

Analysis

The Weaponization of Reproductive Labor

According to Margaret Mbira, a human rights activist with the World March of Women, the transformation of African women into infrastructure was fundamentally about weaponizing reproductive labor. Enslaved and colonized African women were forced to reproduce populations that could be exploited while simultaneously maintaining daily life through food production, caregiving, and community maintenance.

Their wombs became economic assets controlled through violence, legislation, and social coercion. This reproductive exploitation ensured the continuity of the labor supply while denying women autonomy over their own bodies and futures. As Mbira explains, “Women were extracted and exploited to sustain slavery and colonial economies. A lot of the work done in the colonial system was done to sustain the colonial masters and a lot of this work was done by women.”

Domestic Labor as Invisible Infrastructure

Beyond reproductive exploitation, domestic labor further entrenched African women’s role as infrastructure. In colonial households, African women cooked, cleaned, cared for children, and provided emotional stability to colonial administrators and settlers. This labor enabled colonial officials to function effectively while simultaneously eroding African women’s family structures and social status.

By framing domestic labor as natural female responsibility, colonial systems concealed its economic value and normalized its exploitation. This created what Mbira calls the “afterlife” of colonial gender economics—a persistence of these exploitative structures in post-independence states that continue to rely on women as economic shock absorbers.

The Continuing Legacy

The post-colonial period has not delivered the promised liberation from these exploitative structures. Structural adjustment programs, austerity policies, and neoliberal reforms have disproportionately increased women’s unpaid care burdens while excluding them from formal employment and political power. Women continue to stabilize economies during crises through informal labor and community support, replicating the infrastructural role imposed during colonialism.

As Mbira notes, “Post-colonial, it is the same. Compensations were not given to women and still aren’t.” This continuity demonstrates how colonial gender economic environments have been institutionalized rather than dismantled.

Practical Advice

Frameworks for Structural Change

For meaningful reparations and transformation, Mbira outlines several critical frameworks:

**Land Rights and Ownership**: Women must secure land ownership and inheritance rights, which have historically been denied to them through colonial and patriarchal systems.

**Compensation for Unpaid Labor**: Social protection mechanisms must recognize and compensate unpaid care work that has sustained communities and economies for generations.

**Investment in Women’s Economic Participation**: Resources should be directed toward women’s agriculture, economies, and cooperatives, creating pathways for economic independence and leadership.

**Education and Cultural Awareness**: Organizations must prioritize education about history and culture, ensuring that African people understand the full scope of exploitation and the necessity of collective action.

Organizational Imperatives

Pan-African organizations like the Pan-African Progressive Front (PPF) play a crucial role in advancing these frameworks. Mbira emphasizes the importance of education: “Educate our African people. We need to study our culture and history from one another.”

For PPF specifically, she commends their work while urging them to “hold the torch high and our voices heard far beyond borders.” This educational mission is essential for building the consciousness necessary to demand and implement structural change.

FAQ

Conclusion

The transformation of African women into permanent infrastructure during colonialism represents one of history’s most systematic forms of exploitation. This transformation was not merely economic but fundamentally altered social structures, family dynamics, and individual autonomy. The persistence of these exploitative patterns in post-colonial states demonstrates that liberation requires more than political independence—it demands economic sovereignty and social transformation.

Reparations must be understood not as charity but as justice owed. They require radical public investment, redistribution of land, sovereign economic governance, and recognition of the full value of uncompensated labor. This is not merely about correcting historical grievances but about terminating an ongoing system that views people as tools of extraction rather than sovereign economic actors.

African women are not infrastructure; they are architects of survival and builders of nations. True reparations must restore their autonomy, authority, and rightful place at the center of economic life. By shifting from a paradigm of “assistance” to “restitution,” we can end the cycle of exploitation and begin an era of absolute self-determination. Reparations represent the final act of closing a predatory ledger and opening a future defined by autonomy, dignity, and complete restoration.