From Handball Courts to Ministries: The Cousins of Côte d’Ivoire

Nicolas, Claire

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-26909-8_9

Claire Nicolas¹⁰

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Sport and Politics ((PASSP))

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Abstract

Winners of numerous continental and national handball championship titles in the 1980s, the girls from the Lycée de jeunes filles of Bouaké, led by their French trainer, took it all in the eighties. According to the legend transcribed in the nationalist Ivoirian newspapers, their victories and fame allowed some of them to secure key positions within the sporting administrations in the 1990s: from Ministry of Education and Head of Sport (Sport and Leisure Ministry) to Sport teacher and Sport education inspector. Based on newspaper analysis, archives from the Ivorian Ministry of Sports and interviews with the players and their former trainers, this chapter aims at understanding how Ivoirian women secured such positions, which remained the prerogative of white male French cooperating partners until the late 1980s. This collective biography investigates the political, sporting and social networks of the “Cousines”. Thus, this chapter sheds light on leadership trajectories framed by race, gender and nationhood.

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Notes

1.
The Ministry had different names during the decades covered by this chapter. However, for consistency, I have chosen to refer to it only as the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
2.
Philip J. Foster and Aristide R. Zolberg, Ghana and the Ivory Coast; Perspectives on Modernization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).
3.
Yves-André Fauré and Jean-François Médard, eds., État et bourgeoisie en Côte d’Ivoire (Paris: Karthala, 1982).
4.
Dea Birkett and Julie Wheelwright, “‘How Could She?’ Unpalatable Facts and Feminists’ Heroines,” Gender & History 2, no. 1 (1990): 49–57.
5.
Barbara Caine, “Feminist Biography and Feminist History,” Women’s History Review 3, no. 2 (1994): 247–61.
6.
Jill Roe, “Biography Today: A Commentary,” Australian Historical Studies 43, no. 1 (2012): 107–18; Samantha-Jayne Oldfield, “Narrative Methods in Sport History Research: Biography, Collective Biography, and Prosopography,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 32, no. 15 (2015): 1855–82.
7.
Robert Price, “Politics and Culture in Contemporary Ghana: The Big-Man Small-Boy Syndrome,” Journal of African Studies 1, no. 2 (1974): 75.
8.
As part of my wider PhD research project related to sports history in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, I interviewed ten of the former female players, as well as three former coaches and two male handball players from the same age cohort. I conducted a first batch of interviews in April 2016, then a second round in April 2017.
9.
Most notably, I was part of various group events attended by the former players in April 2017.
10.
Published every Friday, Fraternité-Matin first appeared in 1959. The newspaper is mostly read by urban literates, and more specifically by State employees and local leaders of the single party, the Parti Démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire (hereafter PDCI). President Houphouët-Boigny is the political head of the newspaper; Louise Barré, “Des femmes ‘évoluées’ pour une nouvelle Nation (Côte d’Ivoire, 1964),” Cahiers d’études africaines 230 (2018): 378.
11.
Here, I only address European sports and physical education. Even though there are traces of local female games in Côte d’Ivoire, notably around the “generations celebrations” these are not addressed by this chapter, which is solely interested in so-called “modern” sports, i.e. the British games codified in the twentieth century.
12.
See for instance: Bernadette Deville-Danthu, Le sport en noir et blanc: du sport colonial au sport africain dans les anciens territoires français d’Afrique Occidentale (1920–1965) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997).
13.
This idea has been studied by various historians of Africa. For instance, one may refer to Tabitha Kanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya: 1900–1950 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005).
14.
Or Afrique Occidentale Française. Between 1895 and 1958, this federation of French colonies brought together eight territories, now known as Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger. The capital was Dakar, where the colonial power was concentrated (under a French governor-general who answered to Paris).
15.
Jean-Hervé Jézéquel, “‘Les ‘mangeurs de craies’: socio-histoire d’une catégorie lettrée à l’époque coloniale instituteurs diplômés de l’école normale William-Ponty (c.1900–c.1960)” (PhD diss., EHESS, 2002).
16.
Armelle Mabon, L’action sociale coloniale. L’exemple de l’Afrique occidentale française du Front populaire à la veille des Indépendances (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000), 32.
17.
Colette Dowling, The Frailty Myth: Redefining the Physical Potential of Women and Girls (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2000).
18.
“The woman shall be [educated] for the sole purpose of her natural balance and her role as a mother.” Quoted from: Services de l’Éducation générale et des sports, “La nouvelle méthode appliquée à l’enseignement féminin,” 1942 [ANS: O.513 (31)].
19.
Le Goff, Germaine (Headmistress of Rufisque’s female teachers training school). “Nécessité d’éduquer la femme indigène,” c.1947 [ANS: O.515 (31)].
20.
Barthélémy, Pascale, Africaines et diplômées à l’époque coloniale, 1918–1957 (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2010), 133.
21.
According to Paul Désalmands, there were around 11,000 schooled Ivoirian children in the early 1940s. And in her work on female schooling in French West Africa, Pascale Barthélémy underlines that the average schooling rate in French West Africa was around 10% in 1957. Paul Désalmand, Histoire de l’éducation en Côte d’ivoire. Tome 1: Des origines à la conférence de Brazzaville (Paris: CEDA, 1983); Pascale Barthélemy, “L’enseignement dans l’Empire colonial français, une vieille histoire?” Histoire de l’éducation 128 (2010): 5–28.
22.
“Rapport au Conseil Général de l’Assemblée Territoriale de la Côte d’Ivoire,” 1954, 277; “Rapport au Conseil Général de l’Assemblée Territoriale de la Côte d’Ivoire,” 1955, 161 [ANS: 2G54.70].
23.
“Memento d’éducation physique et sportive à l’usage des écoles primaires,” 1952 [ANS: po III 4° 181].
24.
Regarding the link between sports and manhood, we may once more draw comparison with an excellent work on Kenya. Paul Ocobock, An Uncertain Age: The Politics of Manhood in Kenya (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2018).
25.
Jean Jérusalemy, et al., “Rapport sur la mission d’éducation de base” (Dakar: Gouvernement général de l’AOF – Côte d’Ivoire, 1955) [ANS: O661 (31)].
26.
Political Affairs Department, “Incidents en Côte d’Ivoire,” circa 1950 [ANOM: FM 1 AFFPOL/2145/2].
27.
Elisa Prosperetti, “The Hidden History of the West African Wager: Or, How Comparison with Ghana Made Côte d’Ivoire,” History in Africa 45 (2018): 1–29.
28.
“Liste du personnel du Collège classique d’Abidjan,” 1951 [ANS: O501 (31)].
29.
Letter from Joachim Bony to headmasters and headmistresses of primary and secondary schools, December 8, 1961 [MJS: Correspondence].
30.
“Situation nationale des licences,” 1971; “Situation nationale des licences,” 1990 [Augustin Yavo’s Private Archives].
31.
Étienne Ahin (Minister of Youth and Sports), “Instructions et recommandations officielles adressées aux enseignants d’éducation physique et sportive,” 1975 [MJS: Miscellaneous].
32.
Interview, November 19, 2016, Hyères, France.
33.
Aristide R. Zolberg, One-Party Government in the Ivory Coast (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964): 150.
34.
Foster and Zolberg, Ghana and the Ivory Coast; Perspectives on Modernization.
35.
Interview, November 19, 2017, Hyères, France.
36.
“I am one of Mr Baldino’s daughters. Because every handball player who came, every sportswomen who came through the Bouaké Girls’ High School are being called Baldino’s children. Because in the high school we were like a family.” Interview, April 4, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
37.
Hélène Martin, et al., “Les relations d’amitié,” Nouvelles Questions Féministes 30, no. 2 (2011): 25.
38.
Interview, April 4, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
39.
Interview, April 4, 2017, Bingerville, Côte d’Ivoire.
40.
Under 1% according to the official statistics. Even though under-reporting might have an impact on this figure, we need to consider that access to Western medical tools and practice were quite low in the 1980s, especially in rural areas. There, alternative contraceptive methods were more common, while a daily and costly practice such as the contraceptive pill might not have been used. Moreover, in a context which favoured multiple children, birth-spacing was not so common. Direction de la Statistique et ministère de l’Économie et des Finances, “Enquête ivoirienne sur la fécondité 1980–81, Rapport principal” (Abidjan: Direction de la Statistique et World Fertility Surveys, 1984), 117–22.
41.
Raoul Obrou, “Le sport et la femme,” Jeunesse et sports (1986): 13–15 [AP: Nicolas].
42.
Barré, “Des femmes ‘évoluées’ pour une nouvelle Nation,” 374.
43.
Interview, April 10, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
44.
Once again, such fear is not novel. Pascale Barthélemy notes in her book on colonial female education in Senegal that sporting practice was highly debated. The routes taken by the girls travelling from the school to the sports pitch were a key concern, as school students had to go through the city in light sports clothes, displaying their legs. Barthélémy, Pascale. Africaines et diplômées à l’époque coloniale, 1918–1957 (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2010).
45.
Anaïs Bohuon, “Sport et bicatégorisation par sexe: test de féminité et ambiguïtés du discours médical,” Nouvelles Questions Féministes 27, no. 1 (2008): 80–91.
46.
J.-B. Akrou, “Les championnes d’Afrique à Bouaké,” Fraternité Matin (October 5, 1984): 14.
47.
Anaïs Bohuon and Grégory Quin, “Quand sport et féminité ne font pas bon ménage,” Le sociographe 38 (2012): 27.
48.
Ministry of Youth and Sports, “La formation des cadres de la Jeunesse et des sports à l’Institut national de la jeunesse et des sports,” 1979 [MJS: Miscellaneous].
49.
Some studied abroad, such as Ms. C., who graduated from the University of Lancaster after a bachelor’s degree obtained at Abidjan University.
50.
To use Sasha Newell’s terminology. Sasha Newell, The Modernity Bluff: Crime, Consumption, and Citizenship in Côte D’Ivoire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
51.
Francis Akindès, “Inégalités sociales et régulation politique en Côte d’Ivoire,” Politique Africaine 78, no. 2 (2012): 126–41.
52.
According to Marc Le Pape, only 16% of students were admitted to secondary schooling in 1981 and 1985, and 37.5% of them went to high school. Finally, from 1984 onwards, the high school diploma no longer granted admission to the university. Marc Le Pape, “Les statuts d’une génération: Les descolarisés d’Abidjan entre 1976 et 1986,” Politique Africaine 24 (1986): 104–12.
53.
Sandra Stanley Holton, “The Suffragist and the ‘Average Woman’,” Women’s History Review 1, no. 1 (1992): 11.
54.
Price, “Politics and Culture in Contemporary Ghana,” 175.
55.
Interestingly enough, even though the Lagos players were women, the Minister used the masculine in his speech: “heroes,” not “heroines.” Laurent Dona Fologo speech, in Geoffroy Baillet, “La reconnaissance de la nation aux héros de Lagos,” Fraternité Matin (January 13, 1981): 14.
56.
Interview, April 10, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
57.
Interview, April 5, 2016, Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire.
58.
Interview, April 6, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
59.
Interview, April 6, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
60.
Letter from Alphonse Bissouma (Sport Minister) to the President of the National Office for Sports, July 18, 1966 [MJS: Correspondence].
61.
In Ms. D.’s cohort for the Maitre de sport diploma, there were about 40 students, including 30 Ivoirians. And only five women. Interview, April 6, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
62.
As underlined by Pierre Désalmands, the Southerners, most notably from Abidjan, were more likely to attend school. This disparity originates in colonial school mapping. Désalmand, Histoire de l’éducation en Côte d’Ivoire.
63.
Interview, November 19, 2016, Hyères, France.
64.
Interview, April 10, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
65.
Here, I follow Broqua et al.,` when they draw from Paola Tabet’s concept “economico-sexual exchange.” Their analysis of “transactional sexuality” shows the ties between sexuality, gender and economic status. In this perspective, Claudine Vidal’s paper on “the sex wars” in late-1970s Abidjan is enlightening. She shows how marriage and affairs are monitored by money issues, in a context of a rising “petty urban bourgeoisie.” Christophe Broqua, Catherine Deschamps, and Cynthia Kraus, L’échange économico-sexuel (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2014); Claudine Vidal, “Guerre des sexes à Abidjan. Masculin, féminin, CFA,” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 17, no. 65 (1977): 121–53.
66.
This question was bluntly discussed during ethnographic observation and informal conversations with both former players and former trainers. However, during recorded interviews, this issue was barely answered by the former players, and then quite elusively (hence the ambiguous quotation enclosed). This methodological issue during fieldwork highlights the difficulty to go beyond established narratives. Interview, April 10, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
67.
Holton, “The Suffragist and the ‘Average Woman’,” 11.
68.
Interview, April 5, 2016, Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire.
69.
Patrick Clastres, “Le Comité international olympique: allié ou rival de l’ONU,” Outre-Terre 3, no. 8 (2004): 27–37.
70.
As we previously highlighted regarding OISSU’s special case.
71.
As Joachim Bony (Minister of Sports) stated in 1966: “We have to build the Nation … I will take an exceptional care that everything comes from sports.” Alfred Wahl, “Sport et politique, toute une histoire!,” Outre-Terre 3, no. 8 (2004): 18.
72.
For a detailed account of the 2000s and 2010s, one may read the following special issues and books. Bruno Losch (ed.), “Côte d’Ivoire, la tentation ethnonationaliste,” Special Issue of Politique Africaine 2, no 78 (2000); Richard Banégas and Ruth Marshall-Fratani (eds.), “La Côte d’Ivoire en guerre: dynamiques du dedans et du dehors,” Special Issue of Politique Africaine 2, no. 89 (2003); Mike McGovern, Making War in Côte d’Ivoire (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011); and Francis Akindès (ed.) “Côte d’Ivoire sous Alassane Ouattara,” Special Issue of Politique Africaine 148 (2017).
73.
Francis Akindès, “‘On ne mange pas les ponts et le goudron’: les sentiers sinueux d’une sortie de crise en Côte d’Ivoire,” Politique Africaine 148 (2017): 8.
74.
Borrowed from: Boris Samuel, “Planifier en Afrique,” Politique Africaine 145 (2017): 6.
75.
Jo Burr Margadant, The New Biography: Performing Femininity in Nineteenth-Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 3.
76.
“Légendes Du Sport Ivoirien (1ère Partie): Les Reines Du Handball. Que Sont-Elles Devenues?” Life 73 (October 2012): 45.
77.
Ministry of Youth and Sports, “Reconversion des anciennes handballeuses,” July 2010 [MJS: Miscellaneous].
78.
Interview, April 5, 2016, Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire.
79.
As highlighted by the various interviews conducted as part of my PhD thesis field work.
80.
“Légendes Du Sport Ivoirien (1ère Partie): Les Reines Du Handball. Que Sont-Elles Devenues?,” 45.
81.
Interview, 4, April 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
82.
For an interesting parallel regarding suspicions of women’s professionalism, one may read Jeffrey S. Ahlman’s analysis of gender issues in a bureaucratic workplace, in early 1960s Ghana. Jeffrey S. Ahlman, “Managing the Pan-African Workplace: Discipline, Ideology, and the Cultural Politics of the Ghanaian Bureau of African Affairs,” Ghana Studies 15, no. 16 (2012–13): 337–71.
83.
Interview, April 4, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
84.
Marlène Benquet and Jacqueline Laufer, “Femmes dirigeantes,” Travail, genre et sociétés 1, no. 35 (2016): 21.
85.
Their precocious access to birth control led them to space births and wait longer than their sisters or cousins, even if their families used to fear for their sexual openness due to sporting activities. They usually have fewer than four children. In the 1980s, Ivoirian women had their first child at around 18 years old. See: Direction de la Statistique et ministère de l’Économie et des Finances, “Enquête ivoirienne sur la fécondité 1980–81, Rapport principal” (Abidjan: Direction de la Statistique et World Fertility Surveys, 1984): 87.
86.
Ethnographic observation, April 11, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
87.
Interestingly, “rigour” might be deemed as specific to sports practitioners at large or to women, according to the interviews.
88.
Interview, April 10, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
89.
Burr Margadant, The New Biography, 3
90.
This refers to “sewing” in the quote, but we could also draw this analysis from their way of performing themselves. They maintain a longstanding practice of sports (either running, aerobics or team sports) and refer to it freely; they drive SUVs, own smartphones and wear expensive clothing (between European suits and hand-tailored African fabric). All these features fit their status as rich Ivoirian businesswomen in their fifties.
91.
Abdou Touré, “Paysans et fonctionnaires devant la culture et l’État,” in Yves-André Fauré and Jean-François Médard (eds.), État et bourgeoisie en Côte d’Ivoire (Paris: Karthala, 1982), 231–49.
92.
Former Handball glories.
93.
Sasha Roseneil, “Mettre l’amitié au premier plan: passés et futurs féministes,” trans. Françoise Armengaud, Nouvelles Questions Féministes 30, no. 2 (2011): 67.
94.
Camille Popineau, “Prendre la craie. La mobilisation des enseignants rebelles dans le Nord de la Côte d’Ivoire (2002–2011),” Politique Africaine 148 (2017): 27.
95.
Abidjanese outdoor restaurant.
96.
Interview, April 6, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
97.
Michel Baldino’s personal archives.
98.
Interview, November 19, 2017, Hyères, France.
99.
Ethnographic observations, April 7, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
100.
Interview, April 10, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
101.
The RDR, funded in 1994, was led by the current President Alassane Ouattara from 1999 to 2017. A former PDCI member, he was Houphouët’s Prime Minister (1990–1993) before working for the IMF. Formerly discarded from the 1995 and 2000 elections, he was accused of being non-Ivoirian. He conducts a liberal and interventionist politics.
102.
Akindès, ‘“On ne mange pas les ponts et le goudron’,” 13.
103.
Ms. C.’s mother took part to the famous 1949 “marche de Grand Bassam.” This event was a key component of women’s involvement in the anticolonial fight. Women were involved in the anticolonial PDCI fight from its inception, notably during the 1949 protests, marching to Grand Bassam’s jail. Vincent Joly, “Femmes et décolonisation en Afrique Occidentale Française Autour De La Marche Des Femmes de Grand-Bassam (Décembre 1949),” in Luc Capdevila and Marc Bergère (eds.), Genre et Événement (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2015), 105–17.
104.
Interview, April 10, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
105.
Interview, April 4, 2017, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
106.
Jean Cartier-Bresson, Blandine Destremau, and Bruno Lautier, “Les mots du développement et trajectoires et pouvoirs,” Revue Tiers Monde 200 (2009): 725–34.
107.
Akindès, ‘“On ne mange pas les ponts et le goudron’,” 10.
108.
Louise Barré, “Compter pour planifier: dénombrement de la population et ‘capitalisme d’État’ État Côte d’Ivoire (1954–67),” Politique Africaine 145, no. 1 (2017): 109–28.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Michelle Sykes for generously reading and commenting on this chapter.

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University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Claire Nicolas

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Claire Nicolas
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The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
Georgia Cervin
University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Claire Nicolas

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Nicolas, C. (2019). From Handball Courts to Ministries: The Cousins of Côte d’Ivoire. In: Cervin, G., Nicolas, C. (eds) Histories of Women's Work in Global Sport. Palgrave Studies in Sport and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26909-8_9

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26909-8_9
Published: 30 November 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-26908-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-26909-8
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