ABSTRACT

An Ethnographic Study of Gender Dynamics in Benin Religion and a Pentecostal Congregation in Benin City, Nigeria

By

Itohan Mercy Idumwonyi

Pentecostalism empowers its adherents, women, and men, equally. Such impulsive avowal merely points to the deficit in gender equality that places currency on one gender and limits another in an increasingly diverse twenty-first-century Nigerian (Benin) society. This thesis examines the framing of gender dynamics, and suggests that cultural beliefs and social constructions have exploitative impacts on gender relations in ways that are imagined, not real; this conception that Pentecostalism empowers all gender equally is not practical because specific practices show Nigerian Pentecostalism’s (NP) unwavering commitment to male dominance. This dissertation engages insights from the study of power, domination, society, and culture to analyze categories that are considered “normative” in a tradition that continues to be patriarchal but whose categories function to ignore, deny, or fight against recognition of women through a confrontation with cultural beliefs and social constructions. This ethnographic study of a well-known Nigerian Pentecostal congregation—the Church of God Mission International (or CGMi)—acclaimed by many to be at the vanguard of modern NP, offers the ideal lens through which to consider the subtle relegation of women to second-class status in the Nigerian Pentecostal tradition (NPT). It suggests that the hegemonic forms of masculinity shaped by the concepts of cultural beliefs and social construction arrangements present and rooted in Benin religion still influence and structure NPT in Benin. Though not limited to Benin, historically the NPT has been unwilling to embrace the concept of inclusivity. I foreground the trope of “tokenism” and theorize that the token number of women who preach in Nigerian Pentecostal churches is nothing more than symbolic and should not be the only lens by which one views gender in/equality. I suggest instead that we consider the acceptance of women in significant leadership positions. I also consider how individual Pentecostal women devote most of their energy to forming organizations or situations that help them express themselves both inside and outside of the mainstream church. Finally, I suggest that it is crucial that women and men create and inhabit equitable relationships and roles in a world where interdependence is imperative and that this involves correcting male dominance. I focus on the effects of male dominance on females who desire authoritative leadership positions in the male-founded and dominated Pentecostal domain specifically and African religions broadly.