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Palabres, Revue d’Etudes Africaines, Vol. III, n°1, 2000.
have been considered. Thus, where could or should any attempt to specify end if
inadmissible generalizations are to be avoided?
In view of the difficulty of this issue I have - despite the complexity and
diversity of the situation and positions of African women - decided to deal with the
whole of Africa. In the attempt to argue in a way that applies as much as possible to
most parts of Africa, I am forced to make generalizations which do not offer much
room for the consideration of any regional or individual peculiarities. In order to take
Africa's heterogeneity at least somewhat into account, I will make use of the plural and
specify regionally, whenever inevitable and possible.
African Perspectives on Feminism
The fact that many African women are uncertain what attitude to take toward the term
and the concept of feminism is closely tied to the fact that anti-feminist positions are
rather common in Africa. These antifeminist reactions stem mainly from a
stereotypical notion of (Western) feminism which may apply partially, but does not do
justice to the heterogeneity of (Western) feminisms. In fact, feminism is mainly
equated with radical feminism and this in turn with hatred of men, penis envy, the nonacceptance
of African traditions, the fundamental rejection of marriage and
motherhood, the favoring of lesbian love and the endeavor to transform the
relationship of the genders into its opposite. 8 Chikwenye Ogunyemi’s question
whether I have considered why Africans adapt this reductive approach is illuminating
in this respect: Of course, this kind of stereotypification is as a rule a conscious
simplification of reality. For one thing, as the Nigerian literary critic points out herself,
« it makes the other easier to manage, even if it is theoretically rigorous» 9 . For
another, this simplifying reduction is psychologically logical. In this way, that which is
frightening can more easily be denigrated. For - as was also stressed by Molara
Ogundipe-Leslie - feminism is «a kind of red rag to the bull of African men » 10 . Many
women as well, above all those to whom Ogundipe-Leslie refers as the Married
Women Incorporated, 11 meet feminism with reservations. These men and women fear,
by no means without reason, that feminism could challenge and transform existing
gender relationships. The main concern of men is in this respect that they could lose
their privileges. 12 Though feminism would, for example, undermine the power motherin-laws
have over their sons’ wives, the possible loss of privileges is not at the heart of
8 Some of these and further stereotypical anti-feminist views are held in Nnolim, Charles, « A House Divided:
Feminism in African Literature », in Helen Chukwuma (ed.), Feminism in African Literature, Enugu, New
Generations Book, 1994, 249; Chinweizu, Anatomy of Female Power. A Masculinist Dissection of Matriarchy,
Lagos, Pero, 1990; Acholonu, Catherine O., Motherism: The Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism, Published
under the Let’s Help Humanitarian Project (LHHP), Women in Enviromental Development Series, 3, in
collaboration with the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), 1995 (first published 1991), 82 - 85,
108 - 109, 198.
9 Letter from Chikwenye Ogunyemi to Susan Arndt from October 30, 1997, emphasis mine.
10 Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara, « Stiwanism », in Id., Re-Creating Ourselves. African Women and Critical
Transformations, Trenton, NJ, Africa World Press, 1994b, 229.
11 Cf.: Ogundipe-Leslie 1994b: 210 - 211.
12 Cf.: Ogunyemi, Chikwenye, « Women and Nigerian Literature », in Yemi Ogunbiyi (ed.), Perspectives on
Nigerian Literature: 1700 to the Present, 1, Lagos, Guardian Books, 1988, 65.