Political instability in Africa can lead to considerable abuse of women. When the breakdown results in violence, it can include gang sexual abuse and physical mutilation. The recent political meltdown in Guinea-Conakry accompanied by open-air public rapes is a case in point. Conversely, political instability can have a silver-lining in gender relations. Such instability can create fluidity in the sexual division of labour. As men are killed in the upheaval, some women are forced to take control and forms of matriarchy emerge. Great precedents in upward mobility have been set by African women against backgrounds of political meltdowns.

Political glass ceilings have repeatedly been smashed by women in countries as unstable as Rwanda, Burundi and Idi Amin's Uganda. In March 1993, Africa had its first Head of Government. Agathe Umwilingiyiman was appointed Prime Minister of Rwanda by President Juvenal Habayarimama.

Shortly thereafter, Silvie Kirigi became the second female Head of Government in Africa's post-colonial history, President Malchior Ndadaye in Bujumbura appointed her Prime Minister of Burundi in July 1993. Although these two women broke the glass ceiling of upward political mobility, wider historical events were not kind to them. They did not last. In Burundi, as in Rwanda, anarchy has tended to last longer than matriarchy.

In 1974 ,Princess Elizabeth Bagaya of Idi Amin's unstable Uganda became post-colonial Africa's first female Minister of Foreign Affairs. That was long before Bill Clinton appointed Madeleine Albright as the United States' first woman Secretary of State in January 1997.

The most spectacular penetration of the political glass ceiling was in Liberia after its 15 years of brutal conflict. In 2005 Ellen Johnson-Sir leaf won the Liberian presidency. In November 2007, Johnson-Sirleaf was awarded the United States' highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.Johnson-Sirleaf must be regarded as the most spectacular case of an African woman breaking the glass ceiling of upward political mobility in a country just recovering from massive conflict. She has many times been described as 'the Iron Lady', echoing the admiring title that Margaret Thatcher had won at the height of her career as the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

There also have been cases of female religious leaders in opposition to the African governments of the day. Such female upward mobility has once again taken the form of matriarchal tendencies in conditions of instability. The most recent example was that of Alice Lakwena in Uganda, who succeeded in rallying macho Acholi warriors to join her rebellion against President Museveni.

To all intents and purposes, Lakwena was a Warrior-Priestess in the tradition of Joan of Arc in French history. Both women thought that supernatural divine forces would help them militarily. But Joan of Arc was disastrously defeated by the English. Lakwena was similarly vanquished by Museveni. Political instability in Northern Uganda in the 1990s under Museveni helped to nourish the matriarchal defensive tendencies, which in turn nurtured the rise of Lakwena.

Further South in Zambia was the case of Alice Lenshina who founded the Lumpa Church. The Lumpa church distrusted the post-colonial African politicians, and regarded them as pretenders to the power and authority to which they were not entitled. Lenshina's followers resorted to violence against the Central Government in the villages. President Kenneth Kaunda responded repressively early after Zambia's independence in the 1960s. Lenshina was also in the tradition of a Warrior-Priestess.

Political meltdowns in post-colonial Africa do hit women hard but those same unstable conditions sometimes produce strong women who become matriarchal defenders of their families and their rights. In sometimes unexpected situations, anarchy has given birth to matriarchy and historic precedents have been set by strong African women on the ladder of political ascent.

Prof. Mazrui teaches political science and African studies at State University, New York