Women in villages and the last-bench seat

In all my visits to villages around here, i've come to learn that our women take the backest last-bench seat or the peep-hole post outside. I remember in one village where we went for one of our oral culture recordings, it was the women group who performed most of the cultural songs and dances but after the performance when we came back from the fields to the Village Council Hall for interviews, discussion and refreshments, there was not a single woman except me! I was a part of this elite meeting only because i was a guest, a stranger to the village. I saw the same women who did all the hard work for our recordings standing outside, looking  through the windows, waiting for the signal from one of the men inside to bring in the food to serve us. In another village, the cultural item we were recording included an enactment of feasting as done in the ancient times so when the time was given for drinking and eating, only the men feasted, after a hard day's work under the harsh sun of toiling in the fields by both men and women. Almost all villages I observed have no women who are important enough to join the guests from outside or are in the group of important people of the village. All posts of Village Council Chairman are obviously occupied by men, all Chiefs of villages are men, all Head Pastors are men and all important personalities who welcome guests are men and i also have to add this... all those who eat the special food prepared for the event first are men.

In the most recent program and one of the biggest events in our team's series of travels to villages, i couldn't help but notice that all the 'big shots' of the event were men who were given the privilege to sit inside the extremely well-decorated traditional house.