Women in the Economy

In the economic sphere of traditional Igbo society, women possessed sole the right to harvest cocoyam, the second most important crop in Igboland. They were also fundamental in the processing of lucrative cash crops such as palm kernels (which produced palm oil, the main agricultural produce of Igbola

nd in the late 19th and 20th centuries). Men would scale the towering palm trees and hack down bunches of palm kernels which their wives would process, so as to extract the palm oil which would then be sold. As a result, the cooperation of women in this process was necessary and ultimately determined a man's ability to harvest and trade palm oil.