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Inequality of women in africa
Essays on african feminism
Essays on african feminism
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Title
For many Westerners, Africa is stereotyped as a continent of tribes with primitive social structures and hierarchies. Included in this stereotype is an idea of the African woman as subservient, vulnerable and in need of protection. However, reality shows these notions are incredibly misguided. Although there is no denying that males functioned as the dominant sex in Africa, there are many historical analyses which show that women often had an active social role. One such analysis is “The Iyalode in the Traditional Yoruba Political System,” an essay by Bolanle Awe, which describes the role women played in the governing systems of the Yoruba people of West Africa. In “Rebels or Status Seekers: Women as Spirit Mediums in East Africa,” author Iris Berger details the social role spirit-mediums held in that area, including southern and western Uganda. Moreover, Deborah Gaitskell accounts the impact of Christianity on women in “Devout Domesticity: A Century of African Women’s Christianity in South Africa.” Though there are many other accounts of female agency, these three articles show that many African women have effectively engaged in politics and have innovatively responded to both the social restraints imposed upon them and to the cultural shifts resulting from colonialism. The three situations the authors have detailed provide evidence of women’s active role in African history. By comparing and contrasting the different roles these women played in society—and how colonization affected these roles—I wish to explain and analyze the often neglected contributions women had in African history.
The situations described by these three articles cannot be used to make grand, sweeping statements about women’s roles in all of Africa;...
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...ention any change in female agency. Although other authors have provided details on women’s societal roles, one cannot transfer those experiences onto the women on Niumi; two separate places will always have two distinct histories, particularly on the ethnically varied African continent. It is unfortunate that Wright fails to mention female agency, but given outside evidence it is safe to assume that women probably had an active function in Niumi. Women’s actual function in African culture is hardly relatable to the general conception of their role. The notion of the weak and socially inept woman is quelled by descriptions of female political leaders and communal congregations of hundreds of exuberant, devout women worshipers. Women’s resourcefulness and adaptability in African history demonstrates how active they were in shaping their own identities and cultures.
Thornton is a graduate from Millersville University, Pennsylvania. He is an American historian specialized in the history of Africa and the African Diaspora. He is also a history professor in Boston University. My paper speaks about the legitimacy of Nzinga’s coming to rule. I use Thornton’s piece for information about her rise to power.
“Segu is a garden where cunning grows. Segu is built on treachery. Speak of Segu outside Segu, but do not speak of Segu in Segu” (Conde 3). These are the symbolic opening words to the novel Segu by Maryse Conde. The kingdom of Segu in the eighteenth and nineteenth century represents the rise and fall of many kingdoms in the pre-colonial Africa. Therefore, Segu indirectly represents the enduring struggles, triumphs, and defeats of people who are of African decent in numerous countries around the world. There are three major historical concepts that are the focus of this book. One is the spread of the Islamic religion. Another is the slave trade, and the last is the new trade in the nineteenth century and the coming of new ideas from Europe (legitimate commerce). However, Segu does not simply explain these circumstances externally, but rather with a re-enactment that tells a story of the state of affairs on a personal level, along with the political one. By doing this, the book actually unfolds many deceitful explanations for the decline of West African countries in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
The idea of women holding authority was unheard of in ancient times and more recently in Colonial America up through the mid twentieth century. It has always been thought that men are superior to women and that women are not strong enough physically and mentally to hold any true authority. For instance, women did not receive the right to vote in the United States until 1920; the first female senator wasn’t appointed until late 1922. In Chinua Achebe’s novel Thing Fall Apart, however, women do hold authority and some even hold more authority than men. Achebe describes how in the Ibo culture women hold the main positions in Ibo religion as priestess and Oracle and that even the strongest man in the Ibo village and the main character of the novel, Okonkwo, must obey the commands of these women.
Zahan, Dominique. The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa. Trans. Kate Ezra Martin and Lawrence M. Martin. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1979.
Clenora Hudson-Weems, founder of Africana womanist theory, defines Africana womanism as “an ideology created and designed for all women of African descent. It is grounded in African culture, and therefore, it necessarily focuses on the unique experiences, struggles, needs and desires of Africana women” (Hudson-Weems, 2007). Finding the existing philosophies dealing with women’s issues lacking, Hudson-Weems sought out a new perspective that would reflect the unique experience of Africana women. This paper explores the formation of Africana womanism and how it departs from traditional feminist theory. While Africana womanism claims to better meet the needs of Africana women than traditional feminism, there are a number of fundamental deficiencies in that theory as well. This paper will focus specifically on Black feminism in examining this failings.
Holloway’s experiences in Mali regarding childbirth and the difficulties of women shed light on the topic of ethical and moral issues in other countries. Prior to reading Holloway’s “Monique and the Mango Rains”, I had only heard about FGM and poverty in Mali. Transforming data and numbers into descriptions of people, Holloway reveals the faces and voices of the people of Mali.
In chapter 8 of Global Issues, Local Arguments, June Johnson exposes the concept that women are being used as a tactic and war as well as being sexually abused. In “Defending Human Rights: Human Trafficking, Forced Child Labor, and Rape as a Weapon of War, (384-439)”developing countries women are being treated unfairly as well having little say in the government leading to a delay in fixing the issue. Johnson also includes “Ten Radical Acts for Congo the New Year (434-41).” These issues were caused by the end of slavery and thus leading to people needing a new source of workers. The effects of the Ill treatment consist of children and women dying. Many stake holders to fixing the problem is to involve the women in the government. Unless stakeholders
Awa Thiam speaks on the topic of the daughters of black Africa trying to find themselves. She also states the comparison of the black women struggle with the European women. Thiam is arguing the point that the European feminist imposed the false argument “Rape is to women what lynching is to Blacks” (Thiam 114). Women in the text suffered from double domination and double enslavement by the colonial phallocratic. Thiam explains the false consciousness of the black women as well. The goal for the women is to achieve total independence, to call man bluff and all alienating influences.
The Earth Goddess is known to occupy “a greater part in the life of the people than any other deity. She [is] the ultimate judge of morality and conduct. And what more, she [is] in close communion with the departed fathers of the clan whose bodies had been committed to earth (36).” At first glance, Igbo culture appears to render women to be inferior to men, however it associates its most powerful god as a woman. Rituals hold a significant role in Igbo culture and are deemed to be influential in the engagements of the clan. In addition, Ani’s role as a woman in Igbo society is further advanced through her essential role in the yam harvest. People of the Igbo village “honor [their] great goddess of the earth without whose blessing [their] crops will not grow (30).” Yam harvests hold a great worth to the people of Igbo culture since it dedicates status and wealth. Hence, relying on a female figure to establish a man’s position in his village is symbolic of the importance of a women’s role. The significance of portraying a spiritual character whom is imbedded in the morality of individuals and the future of crop growth as a woman urges readers to grasp the idea that women do possess a powerful role in Igbo
Liberia, located in the west part of Africa, was a settlement to native Africans in the 1800’s would eventually stablish a settlement consisting of thousands of individuals, freed or non-slaves. This was an attempt of resolving the moral issue of enslavement by colonizing Liberia with freed, or ex-slaves. Not only were freed black men transported across the Atlantic, but women as well. No provisions had been made to ensure equality as a foundation to colonize which causes the issues misogyny and with the lack of historical content of women in Liberia the need for further analysis it is noted that women were hardly acknowledged and only seen as an object in creating a bigger population needed
In this text Mohanty argues that contemporary western feminist writing on Third World women contributes to the reproduction of colonial discourses where women in the South are represented as an undifferentiated “other”. Mohanty examines how liberal and socialist feminist scholarship use analytics strategies that creates an essentialist construction of the category woman, universalist assumptions of sexist oppression and how this contributes to the perpetuation of colonialist relations between the north and south(Mohanty 1991:55). She criticises Western feminist discourse for constructing “the third world woman” as a homogeneous “powerless” and vulnerable group, while women in the North still represent the modern and liberated woman (Mohanty 1991:56).
Aldridge, Delores P., Carlene Young. "Africana Womanism: An Overview." Out of the Revolution: The Development of Africana Studies. Lexington Books, 2000: 205-217. The University of Missouri-Columbia. Web. 11 April 2014.
The Middle Passage presents very clearly the traditional European held notion of African savagery. In essence, everything about African people such as their religious views, cultural practices, and physical make reveals their lack of civility and class in relation to the western world. Of the most notable European notions about African religi...
Davidson, Basil. Modern Africa A Social and Political History. Ney York: Longman Group UK Limited, 1983.
A feminist analysis on the other hand shows that Anowa is a woman who is struggling against the 1870’s African feminist identity (the identity of weakness). The drama surrounds the story of a young woman called Anowa who disobeys her parents by marrying Kofi Ako, a man who has a reputation for indolence and migrates with him to a far place. Childless after several years of marriage, Anowa realises that Kofi had sacrificed his manhood for wealth. Upon Anowa’s realisation, Kofi in disgrace shoots himself while Anowa too drowns herself. In a postcolonial analysis of “Anowa”, we can see some evidence of colonialism.