By contrast, fish traders today still operate within the dual-sex status system. The fish traders in Moree are less likely to find themselves in the situation of many women in urban Africa. The urban and rural women have experienced change or modernization of two different kinds, and these imply two different kinds of gender systems: One in which men and women compete and the latter lose, and one in which production and the management of resources depend on the co-operation and complementarity of work tasks between the sexes, and where they compete for positions in separate prestige hierarchies.
In Moree the introduction of new technology was articulated through a traditional form of production, and this modernization process occured in a system of fishing which was and still is clearly divided by gender, and where men and women pursue social status in separate hierarchies. The canoe fishing sector exemplifies a case where women have gained economic positions leading to high social status and in some cases considerable political power as women, for example as market Queen Mothers, or as canoe owners and "matrons" running family businesses. They have achieved their positions from within the female part of the dual-sex hierarchy, through entrepreneurial activity, which is highly valued in Fante society, based on the traditional division of labour. The social construction of gender in Fante society, which did not place major constraints on women's involvement in the fishing industry, gave them unique opportunities when it became profitable to invest in outboard motors and equipment. In their intermediary roles in the market system, combined with their roles as wives, mothers and daughters, entrepreneurial women in the fisheries in many cases outclassed men, as when they have been able to combine the positions of fish trader and canoe owner. The large scale fish traders have become crucial as creditors for the financing and running costs of canoe companies, and the increasing number of female canoe owners now compete in the same niche as male canoe owners. They have so to say "crossed over" into the male sphere.
In line with the entrepreneur perspective, we can see this as a case where women have been able to exchange value from the female sphere into the male sphere through the channels of their gender defined role in the fishing economy; fish processing and marketing. Although processing and distribution certainly must be seen as an integral part of fish production, it is through the "reproductive channels" of marriage and child birth, as strategies to get access to the resources of fish supply and recruitment of labour, that some women have been able to cross over into the male sphere of owners of means of production and managers of canoe companies.
The exchange of values from the female to the male sphere is not exactly unproblematic, as we have seen in the management problems of female canoe owners, and in their marriage problems. To minimize conflicts with men, female canoe owners aim to get control over men who are economically dependent on their enterprises, such as fishermen and crew members or to divorce her husband if he cannot accept the wife's success, or is a burden in the management of her enterprises. The woman's way of succeeding in their enterprises is to "behave like a woman"; marry, cooperate with her husband in the fisheries, feed his children, then try to become economically independent, establish her own fie, and use her reproductive resources to mobilise labour. These are acceptable female entrepreneurial strategies, which makes it possible for women to become so rich that they can afford the social costs, such as divorce, when they cross over into the male sphere.
The modernization of the canoe sector gave opportunities to a large number of women in fishing communities to earn a living, and made the large scale traders extremely wealthy by local standards. The expansion in fisheries clearly led to accumulation of wealth in the hands of canoe owners and wholesalers. However, the accumulation of wealth did not happen on the premises of men, and the resulting social stratification took place within separate, gendered hierarchies. Thus the modernization process has not first and foremost led to a greater dependency of women on men, but of small scale fishermen and fishmongers on "patrons" and "matrons", as we particularly see in the dependence of fishermen and small scale traders on canoe owners and large scale traders.
