Gender in African Women´s Writing

The identity of African women juxtaposed to the Western women’s identity is a hard concept for one to grasp. The word feminism is merely looked at from one perspective, the western perspective. The reality of feminism is that everywhere in the world has a different idea of what feminism is defined as and what it should look like. However there is one central theme that applies to feminists around the world, which is a feminist is someone who goes against traditional roles of a woman in their society to better their gender as a whole.

These strong, and independent African women authors use insightful and educational language, which invites the western world to be a part of their world through the power of literature. One of the most influential texts written by an African women writer is Sindiwe Magona’s, “Mother to Mother”. This text explains in great depth how such injustice for women could possibly occur. Magona delves right into this issue and does such a good job of explaining the culture of South Africa we as readers feel for the murderers of an innocent American girl. A westernized women would call Amy Biehl a feminist because of her courageousness and willingness to go against what others her age were doing and her selflessness to help others. However someone of African culture may consider Biehl tremendously ignorant. Someone of African culture see this woman as foolish for thinking that she could walk into a foreign culture, “Was she blind not to see there were no white people in this place?” (Magona 2). Many would say Amy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, which she was to westerners, but in reality to South Africans there was never a right time or place for her in those parts.

As Americans we wou...

... middle of paper ...

...el sorry for them by any means, they write to explain their stories and to explain how such oppression could occur in a society. They write as a revenge to the pain they have gone through and possibly as a shout out for help from the western world. The write for future generations in hopes that things will be better for them.

Works Cited

Abbenyi, Nfah. Gender In African Women's Writing. Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1997. Print.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus: a Novel. Chapel Hill: Algonquin of Chapel Hill, 2003. Print.

Aidoo, Ama Ata. Changes: a Love Story. New York: Feminist at the City University of New York, 1993. Print.

Aidoo, Ama Ata. Our Sister Killjoy. London: Longman, 1977. Print.

Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions: a Novel. Seattle, WA: Seal, 1989. Print.

Magona, Sindiwe. Mother to Mother. Boston: Beacon, 1999. Print.