Women and warfare in Ethiopia

This study examines the history of women and warfare in Ethiopia, with particular reference to their role in the Italo-Ethiopian wars of the 1893s. It is based on both primary and secondary sources. It also draws on oral sources, with information gathered by interviewing elderly people mainly regarding their experience of the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935-41. The study looks at the status and role of women in war. The study shows that though wars were fought mainly by men, women, too, played a significant role in the mobilization of troops, organization and transportation of supplies and provisions, raising the morale of fighters, gathering intelligence information, nursing the wounded, and in the actual fighting. Women that did not go to battlefields had to carry the burden of men's work at the home front. The study also indicated the impact of the frequent wars on the life of Ethiopian women.