• Home
  • Bio
  • Media
    • Read
    • Watch/Listen
  • Speaking
  • Work with me
  • Contact

MsAfropolitan

FEMINISM. PAN-AFRICA. SOCIAL CRITICISM. DIASPORA. CULTURE.

  • feminism
  • Africa
  • Pop Culture
  • Social Criticism
  • decolonisation
  • Afropolitanism
  • seven
  • Sensuous Knowledge
    • Sensuous Knowledge references and recommended reading
    • International
    • Sensuous Knowledge news
  • Other Books
  • The MsAfropolitan Philosophy Book Club @ Waterstones

The real reason African patriarchs have a problem with African feminism

March 20, 2012 By MsAfropolitan 11 Comments

PossessionsUpon hearing the term African feminist, many African men and women will say, we as Africans don’t need feminism, we just need to return to our roots to see that there was harmony between the genders.

The first problem with such a statement is that Africa is not that simple. African pasts are complex and not necessarily the utopias that Afro-romanticists would like to (re)produce. African philosophy, like others, was at times to the benefit and at times to the detriment of community. For example, whilst the kingdom of Ife produced art that Europe would not be able to match until a century later and that was so sophisticated the Guardian now calls it a “place richer than Atlantis”, its art also reveals customs that most of us would disapprove of today, like slavery.
Secondly, and more importantly, modern African nations have no intention whatsoever of reinstalling this glorified African gender equilibrium. It’s like expecting white people to be at the forefront of confronting institutional and everyday racism that negatively affects non-whites; it just not realistic, as we have seen in recent tragedies like the murder of Trayvon Martin, the cringing Kony2012 campaign and Europe’s continued underdeveloping of Africa.
Therefore, although the past is a necessary point of reference, the question that matters is how can we develop out of the present, not the past.

Looking for example at how, during pre-independence struggles, African women were out on the streets side by side with men, and also without them, demanding autonomy from the colonial occupiers. Why is it, then, that women’s role in post-independent nation-building has no symmetry with their past role in actually creating the nations? Instead, and quite bizarrely considering the damages of colonial dictatorship, women’s roles mirror certain 18th century white western philosophical ways (Roussaeu, anyone?) of thinking about gender, where women are to biologically, culturally and symbolically reproduce nationalist ideas without having a hand in shaping policy and democratic processes.

Nationalism and patriarchy go hand in hand, that’s why. If the nation, as we know it, doesn’t control women, it runs the risk of collapsing and African feminist critique exposes this fragility. This is a thorn in the African patriarch’s backside.

Actually, for African politics to give gender equality significance, it is crucial that African feminist ideas are merged with Gender and Development (GAD) because otherwise GAD can more easily fit into the patriarchal definition of progress where it unthreateningly poses a mere micro-political concern.

As the latest UN report on Development shows, “increased prosperity for a nation as a whole won’t necessarily make it any easier for a woman to get an education, start a business, or have access to birth control”. Whilst I’m by no means wishing to devalue development work, the truth is that equality can’t be achieved as a side effect of it, rather equality needs to be part of social and political culture which fully examines, and opposes, the machinery that subordinates African women.
Creative Commons License photo credit: Zeal Harris

Filed Under: Africa, Decolonisation, feminism, Social Criticism Tagged With: African feminism, African women, Afrocentric, decolonisation, gender, identity, women's issues

Comments

  1. MbA says

    March 21, 2012 at 11:52 am

    Absolutely agree. Even in the developed world, is is clear that women don’t have any more rights just because their economies are stable and their politics are more democratic. We need to make a concerted effort to ensure the same does not happen to us and to be sensitive to the differences in situation across the continent when searching for and applying solutions.

    Reply
    • MsAfropolitan says

      March 21, 2012 at 1:17 pm

      Thanks for the comment. Absolutely, the same situation everywhere pretty much. By the way, do you read Feminist Africa? The current issue has, amongst others, a brilliant piece by Zambian feminist Sara Hlupekile Longwe about her legal action against discrimination she experienced in a hotel, you can download the issue here

      Reply
  2. yebo says

    March 26, 2012 at 10:53 am

    You raise a very pertinent issue, about the overly patriarchal and autocratic nature of African nationalism. It subordinates not only women, but even powerless men, although women are more visible as occupying the lowest rung. I think the complex and contentious thing is how to own feminism in a way that African women find avenues for their own self-expression. Some of the resistance towards certain forms of feminism is that they remain elitist, and expropriatory, perpetuating the same colonial gaze that has characterised other disciplines, theories, and practices, besides feminism. For me, its a question of trying to not revert to an overromanticised past, whilst also claiming ownership, as Africa, to the modes of expressing, as well as dealing with, numerous forms of female marginalisation that we encounter. And that is a cause we all have to take up, male, female, and whatever else exists in-between!

    Reply
    • MsAfropolitan says

      March 27, 2012 at 9:31 am

      Thanks for the great comment. Although African feminist ideas don’t reach a wide enough audience, they are out there and the are owned by us. FeministAfrica.org or Agenda.org.za are great places to hear these voices and here of course 🙂

      Reply
  3. Poto lo says

    March 27, 2012 at 1:20 pm

    I’m sorry but the Africa I know has not been romanticised by any stretch of the imagination. And in fact, has been played down to the point that so many find it difficult visualizing the greatness that Africa was and still is able to achieve. When the word slavery comes mind the vision of American slavery is applied to the past. If we take an event and use it to define something that was not the same event we will always be confused. Like if we decided that Dancing with the Stars is what stars were, aka celebrities instead of constellations in the sky, we will get confused.

    I mean, I could use the word slavery to describe what’s taking place at modern banking institutions. Of course I disaprove if this. But just because I am using that word it does not mean the event is the same. Most patriarch have redefined words so that when you think of them instead of seeing the actual you are diverted to something that was not the same thing. Modern African feminism in my opinion is an attempt for African women to get back to Queenship. Or can you visualize you never left that post. You only forgot what your responsibilities were?

    Reply
    • MsAfropolitan says

      March 27, 2012 at 6:04 pm

      Thanks for sharing thoughts on this. Although there’s no disputing that African civilization is constantly undervalued and played down historically, I don’t believe any history should be romanticised for intellectual purposes. It’s especially important that when dealing with current challenges that we critically and diligently look to understand our his- and herstories without modifying up or down to compensate. This does not take away from the greatness, rather it solidifies it even further

      So for example, speaking of queenship (although like slavery that word too must be applied in its non-imperialist context) I’d say that the idea is to go back but to also look at how queenship in precolonial times wasn’t granted all women. How can we demand it for all women and dismantle patriarchy whether ancient or modern, that’s too in African feminism

      Reply
  4. joe says

    May 22, 2012 at 2:57 pm

    Wish as we might, there is no “going back” to whatever came before. And, frankly, it’s not to be wished for anyhow. There was never any “harmony between the genders” – if there was, please provide evidence of it. Harmony is not really possible nor to be sought for. Harmony is a political idea. Equality is a right and as a right, a tool to be used to ensure women are not exploited. The problem here is power – who has it and who doesn’t. Harmony might come if people gave up their quests for power (in all forms) but that is as unlikely as it is unrealistic. Men seek to control women. They use public policy to achieve it. It’s not that complicated, it happens everywhere across the world. My own take is that this began with human biology – in sustaining our species, women were for roughly 9 months beholden to men, necessitating their protection. Then, with religion, women were pegged with being the source of all evil for “tempting” men into sin. This created more impetus to control women. Even today, across Africa, and around the world, men try to control women. Sure, women try to control men but the way it plays out is that women have not succeeded generally in doing so; men have. They control the discourse, the public policy, the tools of the state, the commercial resources. To imagine that there was at some point in the past a harmony is absurd, not just romantic. The way forward is to continue to break in to the power suites where men continue to dominate: the offices of big companies, the presidential offices, etc. Harmony will not be the end result; an end to exploitation will.

    Reply
    • MsAfropolitan says

      May 28, 2012 at 8:01 pm

      You’ve elaborated on the same argument I made engagingly. Thanks for that and for stopping by. Patriarchy goes far back indeed, too far back :/

      Reply
  5. Patricia Amira says

    May 22, 2012 at 4:46 pm

    Thanks for this piece, comments included. Feminist semantics aside, continuing under this system of patriarchy is of no benefit to the human race (the planet). Nothing ‘exists’ to the detriment of the other. Re-dressing this oftentimes slippery balance must, as you rightly state, ‘be part of social and political culture’, whether in Africa or otherwise.

    Reply
    • MsAfropolitan says

      May 28, 2012 at 7:57 pm

      Thanks for your thoughts. Agree that tis’ a human problem and not only a feminist or an African problem. However, we need to find the tools that will continue to resist patriarchy. How do you think we can make it a part of our social and political culture?

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Cheeky bride price app may be a joke, but it's not funny » NaijaPlus says:
    July 5, 2014 at 1:18 pm

    […] tradition goes far back in Nigerian, and much of African, history, and reveals a story of enduring patriarchy and uninterrupted patrilineal lineage. Marriage by purchase was the most commonly practiced form of betrothal in historical African […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Feminism. African Studies. Social Criticism.

Hi! I'm Minna Salami, I'm a Nigerian-Finnish and Swedish writer and social critic, and the founder of this blog. Read my full bio here

View My Blog Posts

Subscribe to my newsletter

* indicates required

Follow My social media

Visit Us On InstagramVisit Us On FacebookCheck Our Feed

The New Institute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go_ddI8Lu9k&t=7s

Sensuous Knowledge – Get the book (US version)

Sensuous Knowledge – Get the book (UK version)

Recent Comments

  • Evgen on There were no matriarchies in precolonial Africa
  • ทางเข้าเล่น joker on The challenge for western feminism in the 21st century
  • Schües on On Abortion
  • AneM on Polygamy in Africa has little to do with sex
  • Khalifa on Polygamy in Africa has little to do with sex

Archives

  • March 2023 (1)
  • February 2023 (1)
  • August 2022 (4)
  • May 2022 (1)
  • January 2022 (2)
  • December 2021 (1)
  • August 2021 (1)
  • May 2021 (5)
  • April 2021 (3)
  • March 2021 (4)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • October 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (3)
  • May 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (2)
  • March 2020 (4)
  • February 2020 (2)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (1)
  • November 2019 (1)
  • July 2019 (1)
  • May 2019 (1)
  • March 2019 (4)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (2)
  • November 2018 (1)
  • October 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • July 2018 (2)
  • June 2018 (2)
  • May 2018 (2)
  • March 2018 (2)
  • February 2018 (2)
  • January 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (1)
  • November 2017 (1)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (3)
  • August 2017 (6)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • June 2017 (3)
  • May 2017 (6)
  • March 2017 (2)
  • February 2017 (3)
  • January 2017 (2)
  • December 2016 (1)
  • November 2016 (3)
  • October 2016 (3)
  • September 2016 (2)
  • August 2016 (2)
  • July 2016 (2)
  • June 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (3)
  • April 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (2)
  • February 2016 (2)
  • January 2016 (3)
  • December 2015 (2)
  • November 2015 (3)
  • October 2015 (4)
  • September 2015 (4)
  • August 2015 (3)
  • July 2015 (2)
  • June 2015 (3)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (4)
  • March 2015 (10)
  • February 2015 (4)
  • December 2014 (3)
  • November 2014 (5)
  • October 2014 (1)
  • September 2014 (2)
  • August 2014 (4)
  • July 2014 (3)
  • June 2014 (3)
  • May 2014 (5)
  • April 2014 (4)
  • March 2014 (2)
  • February 2014 (4)
  • January 2014 (3)
  • December 2013 (3)
  • November 2013 (4)
  • October 2013 (3)
  • September 2013 (4)
  • August 2013 (5)
  • July 2013 (4)
  • June 2013 (4)
  • May 2013 (6)
  • April 2013 (3)
  • March 2013 (7)
  • February 2013 (3)
  • January 2013 (5)
  • December 2012 (4)
  • November 2012 (9)
  • October 2012 (8)
  • September 2012 (4)
  • August 2012 (6)
  • July 2012 (6)
  • June 2012 (5)
  • May 2012 (8)
  • April 2012 (7)
  • March 2012 (5)
  • February 2012 (4)
  • January 2012 (6)
  • December 2011 (5)
  • November 2011 (6)
  • October 2011 (6)
  • September 2011 (8)
  • August 2011 (6)
  • July 2011 (5)
  • June 2011 (5)
  • May 2011 (5)
  • April 2011 (4)
  • March 2011 (7)
  • February 2011 (6)
  • January 2011 (7)
  • December 2010 (5)
  • November 2010 (9)
  • October 2010 (7)
  • September 2010 (5)
  • August 2010 (4)
  • July 2010 (6)
  • June 2010 (5)
  • May 2010 (3)
  • April 2010 (3)
  • March 2010 (1)

more articles

Black feminism and the polycrisis

March 17, 2023 By MsAfropolitan Leave a Comment

… [Continue Reading...]

New writing on the Eco Gender Gap

February 16, 2023 By MsAfropolitan Leave a Comment

… [Continue Reading...]

Privacy Policy

https://msafropolitan.com/gdpr

Copyright MsAfropolitan © 2023