ABUJA — Women are the backbone of African culture. Without African women the cultural diversity of Africa—the art, the music, the dances, the food, the clothing, the customs, taboos and mores—which other peoples from around the world so admire, and so covert, will not exist. Around the word, some cultures demonstrate this intrinsic character of African culture. Women design and sew the clothes and arrange the homes. Women teach the children and educate them for the next generation and beyond. Women, in cooperation with communities with other women, create music, art, cuisines, and other fabrics of life.
Women always have and always will contribute to, participate in, and provide the life for society’s cultures. Why then does feminism start at a point to presume that women are marginal and treated in meaningless ways? Not all cultures are like African cultures. And so why does feminism tell us that societies do not respect women enough and that women are at a disadvantage? How do we reconcile this feminist narrative with our reality that women have always been the integral people in society, such that we recognize dearly a Mother Earth and a Mother Africa? Before we readily and uncritically adopt feminism with open arms, we have to understand the position from which feminism makes its claims.
Feminism is a doctrine of the western world, a European, European American, Caucasian invention. It speaks from the position of European, European American, and/or Caucasian women and their cultures.
In these cultures, patriarchy is dominant. The woman’s place in society is ill-defined, and if at all, it is not integral to the making of civilization.
Take, for example, voting. In many traditional African cultures, voting and participation in forming the laws and customs took place at the level of the family unit or clan. Every person participated in this process and each family collectively voiced an opinion in those politics of larger society. In many African cultures, for instance, the Queenmother could not be overthrown, but the King could be overthrown by the Queenmother, and she wielded the power to enstool her own King. Every decision in such African cultures rested consequently in the hands of the Queenmother. (The Queenmother was not the mother of the King or Queen). In the United States, in contrast, only white-European-Caucasian-American-property-owning men were allowed to vote or even run for office. No political office allowed women to vie for it, or occupy it. When a president died, he was replaced by another man. More troubling, women (and people who were not white-European-Caucasians) were put aside in this framework and their rights were violently stripped from beneath them.
In European cosmologies, all Gods were men. They stay men. Women could become witches, and be killed for it, but it remained and still remains in Caucasian culture that God is a white man. In Africa the philosophy of religion does not allow this patriarchal system of phallus-envying Gods. The Supreme Being in many African religions, particularly Vodun, is Fe-Male.
Continuing with the United States comparison, many white women in the United States typically have little deep connections to their home lives and even to their own children as a result of the pervasive and insidious manifestations of Caucasian philosophy in daily life. Some white women who might themselves be capable of carrying their own children in the womb choose not to do so, but rather opt to have surrogate mothers birth their children. Some mothers who are capable of breastfeeding choose not to do so, but rather opt to retrieve breast milk from stored milk banks or even to have other mothers breastfeed their children. This practice was especially common during the transatlantic European American terrorism era of slavery (Kunyowu: Death Is Better) when white Caucasian women coerced African women who they forcibly enslaved and owned as property to take care of their children, which included breastfeeding, childrearing, consoling them, getting them dressed in the morning, and putting them to bed every night.
In that regard, many of America’s cultures—specifically the music cultures and the cuisine—retain much of what African women kidnapped from Africa and enslaved in the Americas brought to it. The idea of culture building and maintaining culture was outsourced by plantation white women to their enslaved African women.
Even today—perhaps close to a century after slavery—in a similar fashion that they outsource childcare, many white women in the United States outsource the cultural aspects of home life as well. They pay immigrant women and poor women from other cultures to cook their food and clean and arrange their homes. They pay for clothing which they purchase outside of the home and outside of their communities. They pay for music and art which they purchase outside of the home and outside of their communities. All of these activities are ones in which women from many of the world’s cultures bring to bear in Caucasian women’s homes. No matter how much pride women of other cultures feel they find themselves rather enriching Caucasian culture within a benign geopolitical enslavement in the American Empire. All of these prized facets of culture, white Caucasian women brush aside and leave for other women to handle.
There is no surprise then why white Caucasian women who have nothing and contribute nothing in terms of their own cultures want to embrace a thing called feminism. Absent from the production of culture, the white Caucasian woman’s place in society has always been uncertain and in limbo. White Caucasian women outsource the very aspects of culture-building that make African women have fixed and lauded positions in their societies. When white Caucasian women call for feminism to be recognized, we have to understand that this call is from a different place, a place of emptiness and void. They are calling to have what their men have (the geopolitical powers of the empire state), as they are not interested in what women from other cultures find fulfilling and meaningful.
At times, the pleas of white Caucasian feminism might find some overlapping concerns with issues that African women face, but these overlaps should in no way make African women feel that our situations are comparable to a large scale. When cries of feminism are heard, it is important to understand the place from which those cries emanate. They are cries from a distant land, which has immense oppressive powers on both men and women in Africa. Feminist cries from the west are Trojan horses and if we attend to them they will be the destruction of our own cultures. African women should not aspire to wield oppressive powers over other cultures. We must aspire to have power over our lives and maintain it, but the idea of looking up to what white women hope they can do in an oppressive-power sharing deal with their men should be nauseating to all Africans. For example, white women in America are not calling for a complete shutdown of the mass incarceration system that puts too many Black men and women in jails for absolutely no law enforcement reasons, but what they call for is equal rights to be CEOs of the mass incarceration institutions as well.
Before African women rush to soothe those cries of western feminists, they should understand the grave consequences of abandoning one’s culture built by our grandmothers and great-great grandmothers. There is a cost that is embodied in the destruction of culture—in the emptiness one inevitably feels when ordering dinner from a menu laminated in plastic in a foreign language; in the fatigue one feels after having to stand for hours in a long queue to purchase concert tickets at steep price just to one day hear sweet music; in the stress one feels having to arrange childcare at a moment’s notice to make it to a last-minute board meeting. Those feminist cries want misery as company. They want African women to be as empty and void as the white feminists who chase after violent power.
Africa’s many problems are the direct consequence of the violence from the western control of African resources. France is still on African welfare since the colonial period. Women in Africa have paid for centuries, and still pay for the livelihoods of French men and their women. The problem of poverty in Africa is inextricably linked to the same power white women enjoy in the west and it is linked to the same white women promoting feminism as the panacea for African poverty. Feminism is a joke, a shroud to hide the true source of poverty, and with it, the true source of why African women suffer to make ends meet. Africa does not have a culture problem. Africa has a barbaric western problem.
Our culture is the summation of all those taken-for-granted things about our lives, those intricacies that the modern capitalist secretly wishes we would all discard unknowingly. Feminism is no utopia for African women but the very ploy to destroy the essence of our cultures and our womanhood and make us remain subservient maids to powerful white women, who want to own and maintain all our resources in the same way that their men, through the American Empire, now surreptitiously do. Beware.
When White women call for equality with men do our African women think they want to be equal to Black men? They already know they are above Black men in society, they seek to be equal with the privileged rich White men. Those privileged white men do not seek equality with Black people so who is the African feminist really fighting for? At best she can only fight to be equal to her Black man who is below both the White female and male. So already the feminist movement is structurally unequal.
For many of our educated people who daily fight for issues of injustice in African society, but who conflate it with the ideology that Feminism actually is, it is difficult for them to challenge white women in the same way that the Jesus many of them worship challenged hypocritical people: “Take the log out of your eye before you take the speck out of my eye.”
Feminism isn’t the problem. It is the various interpretations given it Today that is the Bane. Many are forcing down their own interpretation suit their Selfish agenda, and This soon going to cause an Explosion in homes, families and Societies and then.. Ya gye y3 aniso!. At times I watch how some seriously weave their interpretation like the story of the Blind men who were made to describe the Elephant ?????????????.
Dade Afre Akufu Ama, with all due respect, Amara is an astute scholar in feminist thought (Black Feminist Thought and Feminism in general). This is not the first time she writes about feminism. You can check her views on the various tenets of the idea. I beg that you conflate issues of inherent social justice concerning women in Africa, which need attention, with the ideology of feminism, which is another matter altogether. Feminism is not about justice for women, which is what it has been portrayed as such, it is innately a doctrine of sorts. But Amara is more abreast with the topic than I am. You are welcome to engage fair mindedly with her.
It is also a such because African women have the time to themselves they deliver or give birth frequently. With the current system in place no population spill overs can be anticipated to the western world?
Your views on “white caucasian women” are rather bizarre. I invite you to visit me to my country of residence, come, see, experience, judge if u need to. I grew up in Africa, have lived in the US, Europa and African countries alike, and your view on “white caucasian women” (hurray for generalizing) is so judgmental and full of prejudice, it makes me really sad. Above all, u are completely wrong if you think feminism is something that is “coming from the West”. If you want to believe it or not, feminism has and will always exist in Africa too. Just that now some women and men are using the word to portray some women’s struggles as a demonic thing from the west. Do you think it’s Western “feminists” who have been fighting against Female Gender Mutilation or child marriage? Really? Or do you even feel African women should just keep quiet on that?
With all due respect Tina, what has “Female Genital Mutilation” or FGM got to do with feminism as an ideology, funded and supported by western governments in Africa? Are the Professors who descend on Africa from the US, Europe and the like pay themselves for their research on Feminism or are they funded by Federal, State government with a stake in the research?
Again, you are quick to conflate each and every issue facing women today in Africa with the idea that the introduction, and even wide acceptance of Feminism as a western ideology is indeed the solution to the issues of injustice facing African women. Are African women the only ones in Africa facing injustice? Should men also come up with a competing ideology of Masculinism to combat issues of male concern? And while we are it, why not enlist some -ISM for all injustice?
Injustice can be found anywhere, even in the many countries you claim to have traveled. In the US the issue of mass incarceration, just for kicks, does not receive the same Gendered Movement although it affects mostly Black men. Should African government fund Professors and Research that should descend on America with a Musculinism Doctrine and Agenda to combat the Mass Incarceration of predominantly Black men in America for absolutely no law enforcement reason by the American government in the same way that western governments continue to fund Feminist Movements in Africa?
Boy, you are quick to list all the ills of Africa but you are incorrigible in ignoring that poverty is a major contributing factor to these ills, and that this poverty in Africa is a direct consequence of colonial terrorism and neo-imperialism by western nations in Africa. What -ISM must resolve that poverty? Feminism – in much the same way and manner that the vaunted ideals of Privatization of Africa’s resources have solved Europe & American parasitism of Africa?
Tina, you claim that the author Amara generalizes the character of the Caucasian Women’s Movement pushing their Feminist Ideals in Africa, or you claim that Amara generalizes Caucasian women, but you forget that you generalize when you speak of FGM in Africa. Please, I have never seen FGM before; my father has never seen it before; my mother never; my grandmother, never; my great grandmother, never; my great-great grandmother, never; and I we have lived in Africa for more than three hundred years combined.
It seems that it is at least true that we romanticize the West and vilify our motherland. People have problems even marriages that started on 24/7 sex do end. Africa has problems, but we have African solutions to these problems if only, only if, and only if, white women can stop depending on Africa for their welfare. At least tell the French women to get back to work for once in their lives and stop sucking on the tits of French Africa. Enough is enough!
Wow. My God. What a piece. Thanks bro for sharing. This perspective is so apt. I just wish we will subject every Western thought that is being forced down our throats with this degree of intellectual rigor. It will really help us.
Well Done Amara, keep it up.. i couldnt believe what i was reading because it was like words been spoken right out of my thoughts, In my Opinion Amara has gone the right length to indulge us all into the very backbone of the topic FEMINISM and here we are, some of us dont seem open minded in reference to the matter at hand. Thank you Sisi.. for the Most interesting and educative piece. Keep it up with what ever you have i hope our sisters will adhere and evaluate their interest in being feminists to the right idea.
A very compelling argument; I stan! But what many (like this author) fail to note, is that even what many are clumping together as “African cultural values” aren’t exactly so. The African woman, today, is very much subjugated, ideologically and practically due to borrowed Victorian ideals on womanhood and on being. What we have now, are contested notions on “What used to be” and “What is.” The colonial and Christian missionary effect on many African societies is currently what many feminists like myself are tackling. Personally, I live for us to reset back to when we recognized the earth as WOMAN and valued her so. But I’m sorry, as long as teachings from the pulpit and school text books continue to propagate the woman as second class and inferior to men, Feminism would continue to be a huge source of refuge for some of us. Because currently, I don’t see anyone or any major movement tackling these.
But, I am in awe of this perspective, particularly because I am also a “Sankofa” advocate. Cheers!
I also find it interesting that the author of this piece only makes reference to matrilineal African cultures through her examples. And this is the problem with the idealization of our “African Cultures” in countering feminism. Not all African societies were matrilineal. Not all African societies valued the woman as an equal to a man. Not all African societies accorded women autonomy over their choices and their bodies. Marriage was practically decided for by her parents/guardians and mostly when many were only girls and not fully developed. So let’s begin this conversation by being specific in our African cultural references. We can’t make these claims to African cultures by ignoring the many African cultural practices that don’t fit in our current dispensation. We shouldn’t also forget, that the modern African man’s mindset has been corrupted by colonial legacies that sought to replicate the Western social construction of the two genders here in Africa. And as at now, African feminism is the only agenda trying to reset these mindsets back to the original African “matrilineal” order where women’s biological contributions to their societies weren’t considered inferior to that of men’s.
As a cultural Anthropologist from Ghana and knowing the power that women yield in traditional politics and family level, I duff my hat up for such a wonderful writeup. The benefactors from the concept feminism will come at you. But soldier on. Bless you.
It would be awesome if some of you did not conflate the ‘Western feminist movement’ with feminism. Feminism means equal rights & opportunities for women. It did not begin in the West. It just so happens that white people invented the word ‘feminist’ to describe this ideology which man ancient native societies around the world geared towards.
Long before the Western, mostly white women-led feminist movement was created arround suffragette struggles, Africa had had Yaa Asantewas & Nzingas & Aminas- Queens who ruled & fought side by side with and better than many men. Did women in Africa have absolutely equal rights as men circa 1500s when the first European settler/ colonizer landed in sub-Saharan Africa at then “El Mina?” Absolutely not. But any student of history will tell you that as compared to European women at that time, African women had and were venturing towards more equal rights!
Our African family laws & divorce laws allowed women to have their own lives beyond that of a husband. No African culture required a woman to bear a man’s name. Many African societies gave African women agency. Women were free to divorce at will. Cultures like akotoagyan & a lack of the bastards vs heirs concept that existed in other lands helped African women to exercise autonom over their own sexuality for premarital sex was not stigmatized only underage sex (hence puberty rites to show that a woman was ready for sex). Women worked for their own money & property & kept it.
And so African feminists who seek equal rights & opportunities are merely seeking to continue what our female ancestors did. Moreover this idea of ‘culture’ as being static should change. African prints, are not our culture. Schnapps for libation isn’t our culture. Heck, even corn isn’t native to Africa & was introduced from the Americas by these same colonizers & yet across Africa, we now eat many staples made with corn & proudly call it our culture.
Our ancestors knew how to change with the times & so should we. Same Africans who type in foreign languages like English, use social media created by & operated by white people & drink coca cola will insist women shouldn’t have equal rights because of culture. That nonsense must stop.
I wanted to take a short break from Facebook but looks like I can’t catch my breath yet. There is an article published on one of my favorite websites, Grandmother Africa. The article is captioned, “Why Feminism is the Ploy to Destroy African Cultures.”
Forget the cliche and click-bait caption, go read it. It makes a very compelling argument. As a “Sankofa” advocate, there’s nothing I’d want to see more than Africans upholding their indigenous way of life. The way of our forebears. The wholesome, organic and healthy living and sustenance. There’s nothing I’d rather have than that.
But, when we make such arguments around gender advocacy, I can’t help but object.
First of all, not all traditional African societies were “Matriarchal” in nature. A social system were women had autonomy over their choices and their bodies. A social system that valued, if not prioritised the feminine. So when we idealize our “African societies” we must be very careful. Not all our societies were that “perfect.”
Secondly, the current mindset and orientation of men in our African societies has been corrupted. The African male mentality now is a custodian of Western colonial legacies that sought to replicate their backward gender construction of the West, here in Africa.
I am a sucker for English classic literature because of the many ways it helps me learn about the backward orientation of the White man. I am currently binging on PBS’ “Victoria”, a lifetime series on Queen Victoria, one of Britain’s most notable monarchs. The role and position of women in traditional Western societies should not be replicated anywhere! White women “needed” Feminism more than African women.
But unfortunately, the Abrahamic religious influences (Christianity and Islam) on our men, call for feminism in Africa too!
There’s nothing more I’d wish, than for us to go back to where we were. Where African women (unlike European women) didn’t need marriage to a man to be considered fully human. Let’s go back, to when African women could own properties, start and own businesses without needing a man’s covering first. The time when women could be fully autonomous human beings and own their vaginas.
But…
Not all African societies were Akan in nature and philosophy. Not all African societies valued the biological contributions of women like this society did. Not all African societies “worshiped” their women. Not all societies included women in the decision-making and governmental proceedings like the Akan society.
So let’s stop kidding ourselves already!
It was feminists who came to remind you to “send your girl child to school.” It is feminists who led and continue to lead the fight against harmful African cultural practices like FGM. It is feminists who speak up against Child Marriages, Domestic Violence, Sexual violence and toxic masculinity.
Statements like the caption of that article only empowers unrepentant misogynists like Ibrahim Irbard! A man who has come out in many ways to justify why it should be okay for a man to lay his hands on his wife!
Is this the “African Culture” you want us to hold on to???
Stop enabling misogynists! Especially because what we have now are only contested notions of what our”African Culture” is.
You know what’s sad is, we waited for the west to give a name to something our grandmothers were doing centuries ago; and now want to claim it’s wrong because they named it.
If you have honest conversations with your grandmothers you’d understand that our rebellion is pale in comparison.
Exactly what this is. The White woman only gave name to it. But the principal concept and goal remains the same. African were already in the habit of seeking equality!
Efe Plange History has shown us ,feminismn is innate, talk about the likes of our very own Yaa Asantewaa who led a fight against British colonialists., how about Queen lozikeyi who led the battle of the red axe ?
All these heroines were feminist who fought for lasting changes.Just like Lydia rightly said ,
There was not a name for it then but it’s always been a part of our culture and history as a people.
Esinam Danae exactly, the akan women were very powerful and ruled their Kingdom through their men, other tribes gave the powers to the men and sat back which they used in their betrayal, so how did yaa asantewa lead such a battle, a female commander cos women were lords
Lydia this is why I laughed at the irony when a certain journalist we all know went on BBC to embarrass our ancestors talmbout Yaa Asantewaa being feminist saying feminism is a Western concept all in the same sentence! ??♀️??♀️
There’s still one thing I struggle to reconcile in my mind. In the places we often cite as examples of how integral women were (and no doubt they were), we also see evidence of the kinds of narratives and practices that were not positive for women. I often think about that and struggle to make sense of that disconnect.
For example, a good friend once said, women have always had power because the queen mother has the final say in who becomes paramount Chief. Fair enough, but in that same context, again we read of and see things that disempower women.
I just am confused how to make sense of it all.
Exactly! These societies weren’t all that “perfect” too!
Yeap which is why I struggle to accept the notion that feminism is purely a western thing and will destroy us.
Are we saying that if we search long and hard through our history over centuries, we will not find evidence of women advocating for issues of primary concern to women?
We may not have called it feminism but I will be surprised if nothing of that sort existed before these “western feminists” showed up on our shores
John Osae-Kwapong the was no need for feminism cos women were the leaders with male assistants,, religion changed everything,, why do you think religion condemned women, originaters of sin paa, it’s not kwa, but the African man accepted this filthy religion cos it made you the head of what you don’t even understand
Efe Plange no society can ever be perfect but Africa before the west was a paradise
What is so threatening about feminism? I just don’t get what they feel threatened about? To me, I think these men really didn’t love their mother’s because every woman becomes a mother to a son and if they don’t like that the woman get equal recognition as the man on earth, where is love they claim they have for their mothers? Where was their manhood when Yaa Asantewa was leading a war front with men behind her? And this was in Africa? Did they hear Dahomey had a woman all women army that went on battle against the foreign army? This abomination of a man being superior to a woman is a foreign culture non African. They should stop consulting the foreign books for the knowledge of what’s African and ask the old Africans what is really African. They need to do more research on how Africans lived before foreigners arrival. It will do them a lot of good.
I honestly can’t tell why many seem threatened by feminism.
Yes they need to do more research on how Africans lived before foreigners,, thank you
Eunell Tomety Edem there’s also the story of the Aba women!!!! This ignorance of our history dierrrr 3ha mi kakra!
They are so ignorant and it’s annoying how they are making public ridicule of themselves.
If you researched about your spirituality you would know women were sacred in yes all African societies,, things fell apart when they accepted religions which condemned women,, if you needed a womb to reincarnate tell me won’t you worship her, how many Africans believe in reincarnation today,, instead heaven and hell,,, we were all matrilineal in Egypt,, the akan people put women in powerful positions which preserved their powers, one of the biggest monarchs in Africa the Ashanti Kingdom, still has it’s king married to one woman,, but common ashanti men can preach polygamy, other women lost their powers to religion
Reading this, I felt I was reading words I’ve said before!!! So glad to have this Writer expresses this so eloquently. Like this Writer I too believe African women have always been empowered and the feminist agenda is destructive. I’m not a feminist. I attended an all girls boarding school for 8 years and grew up never doubting what women could achieve! I became a single mother at age 26. In all my 49 years of life, nobody gave me any push simply because of my gender. I often complain that I’m unlucky with men because I have NEVER had a man finance me (the most was £20 from my son’s dad!!! ?????). For my first degree I opted for Gender and Society as one of my choices for my BA(Hons.)Social Science. So by the time I was in my 20s, I knew abit about feminists such as Germaine Greer. When I came to Ghana in 1995, I noticed that yes the men were more touchy and more sexually suggestive than guys in UK. Common courtesy such as ladies first is not common! However, in terms of the workplace, I found that alot of women worked in Ghana – markets, offices, salons, shops, restaurants, banks, streets, kiosks, sewing, teaching, etc. Indeed, it’s the women keeping the economy alive! I genuinely don’t see discrimination in the workplace. Yes, there have been instances where men have demanded sex, but by and large, I would say, there is equal opportunity in the workplace. Looking at random kids walking to school, I see equal numbers of boys and girls. Where Ghana has a problem is the practice of men cheating. That is the real issue. African women have ALWAYS been empowered. Don’t let the White women fool you into destroying your society. Feminism as practiced by them has failed them. Today in the Western world women are powerless, single parenting is the norm, the Black woman no longer respects the Black man etc. I’m not a feminist because from where I stand, Ghanaian women are already doing it all. Ghanaian women may not been seen (by the Whites and the new Ghanaian feminist) as the head, but I tell you there is something powerful in us being the necks!
Its so sad because those behind it in Africa refuse to research its roots and how it continues to destroy African lives. They just dont think. Did anyone see the feminist group rally around Serena Williams when she was bullied on court? No because she was not white.
Beijing UN women’s conference 1995 introduced feminism to Afrikan Pipo n was da beginning of da demise of traditional Afrikan family #ifyouknowyouknow
Fungai Kambamura what must we do King?
The truth is never about the western ideas, yes they brought their awareness, but the world is moving,, those culture were brought by men,, and men will keep changing from time to time,, so will be beneficiary,,others won’t,, but it unstoppable
The african culture mess up the right of women woefully though it was like that round the world,, not just africa,,
Western industrialisation is just a necessary precursor for all common people to work to produce for the middle class and upper class to enjoy.
How could a society force nursing mothers to leave their babies to go and work?
Because the industrialised society has no place for idle hands: even to nurse babies.
And yet women today believe that women actually fought for a right to work.
We need more information.
I have always believed that western feminism was largely engineered by western industrialization. .
Although, it is said women fought for rights to work and to receive equal pay; that whole desire was engineered by the emerging industrilization that needed more hands from the common people to produce consumer goods for the middle class and the upper class.
And the tragedy, is that the modern African feminist is discontent with her status here because she compares herself to the western woman; not because she is not enjoying a certain freedom here.
Unfortunately, tbe feminist here haven’t appreciated the privileges that the woman here enjoy which the western woman doesn’t.
Interesting read.
” Some white women who might themselves be capable of carrying their own children in the womb choose not to do so, but rather opt to have surrogate mothers birth their children. Some mothers who are capable of breastfeeding choose not to do so, but rather opt to retrieve breast milk from stored milk banks or even to have other mothers breastfeed their children”
Hardly anyone who goes this route does so because they simply couldn’t be bothered ??♀️.
Feminism comes in many guises and we need to work on our specific afro feminism but to say it is craving violent power -men’s fears – and to talk about farback matriachal culture which no longer stands in modern day Africa is laughable.
P.s. not all African societies are matriachal, plenty are patriarchal.
Checking out of that article.
We will never bow down to blind feminism. Each group has got its roles and responsibilities in society.
Well i am against feminism in the same way im against maxism but i cant agreed that women are in the position mentioned in the article. In my community many are alienated and if not for the fathers many of our students wouldn’t be in school. I suspect it has to do they are raised. Its kind of the man in the family taking the responsibilities and woman given secondary roll. My experience with most of our school staff is that man is giving some value to their work and trying to improve much more than the ladies. Perhaps it happens in the community i m in. Here Most ladies don’t read books and expend time in church and dressing hair
First of all, it’s needed to say that feminism was originally created by racists in Europe during slavery. Saying that feminism had existed in Africa before Europe is both ignorance about the origin of feminism and low self-esteem since it’s willingness to associating to whatever comes from white countries. Then, Africans shouldn’t consider themselves feminist, and it’s more intelligent to adopt a term as “women’s emancipation”, for instance, instead of “feminism”, which is a slave master’s creation.
Feminism has destroyed the Black communities in countries such as Brazil and the USA. A typical young Black Brazilian or Black American woman is a feminist who doesn’t talk about the real problems of their people, and also gives her share of contribution to the maintainance of Black people’s oppression. It is fair to say that a Black feminist was brainwashed by Western society, and History shows us how the West has been treating Africa, African people and their culture. Black feminists are traitors of Blackness and are ashamed of their African roots!
We Africans must try hard to follow our tradition and be very careful with Westernization. If feminism is a disgrace to Blacks here in the Americas, you can be sure it has the potential to be even more harmful there in Africa.
If feminism isn’t helpful to the Black community in Western countries (single motherhood, mass encarceration of Black men, and lack of respect towards the elderly are some of the problems caused by feminism), can anyone truly believe it can give Africans a hand?
Great text, Amara Jali!
Feminism is much worse than cancer now, and the only way for many of us good innocent single men to go now is MGTOW. MGTOW is a real lifesaver today.
Keep up the good work. I continue to be enlightened by your pieces. Please keep going!!