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46
Palabres, Revue d’Etudes Africaines, Vol. III, n°1, 2000.
that men are to be involved in the process of gender transformations. 53 Thus,
Wicomb's reproach does not do justice to Walker and Ogunyemi. Both writers are
mainly interested in an overcoming and a transformation of existing gender hierarchies
and they do not aim at an empowerment of men to keep existing gender relationships
alive.
For another, however, Wicomb criticizes Ogunyemi's and Walker's fundamental
demarcation from white women and Western feminism: «[D]ivergence and conflict,
centered around the material reality of women's oppression, point to areas of
commonality between womanism and feminism. To suppress commonality is as
dishonest as Euro-feminism's denial of 'difference'.» 54 Since Walker's and Ogunyemi's
womanism do not interrelate the socio-political categories of race and gender, they are
not suitable to the South African context. Resistance against apartheid has always been
gendered.
For instance, many [women] are drawn into the conflict as mothers defending their
homes and their children. This politicization of women's domestic role is indeed a
departure from the Euro-feminist view of motherhood as a condition of passivity and
confinement but, whilst recognizing such difference, I can think of no reason why black
patriarchy should not be challenged alongside the fight against apartheid 55 .
The South African situation thus asks for a theory that insists on the incorporation of
gender and race, as well as class, as interlocking factors. In this respect, as for
Wicomb, Walker's and Ogunyemi's approaches are not complex enough.
The African-American Clenora Hudson-Weems developed the concept of
Africana womanism - «an ideology created and designed for all women of African
descent» 56 . Thus, Africana womanism is also separatist by nature. While the distance
to feminism which characterizes Walker’s and Ogunyemi’s conceptions of womanism
is a product of the proclaimed self-understanding of womanists, the uncompromising
demarcation from Western feminism forms the starting point of Hudson-Weems’
theory. Stating her reasons for this, she expresses her conviction that feminism was
brought into being by white women and was conceived solely according to their
needs. 57 In this tenor she stated at the conference Women in Africa and the Diaspora in
Nsukka (Nigeria):
I think that to talk of the terminology, feminism, we have to deal with the inception of
the term itself and what its original design was. Who designed it and what were the
needs of the women who designed it? It was a term created, designed and defined by
white women [...] It was exclusionary. Black women were not accepted; they were not
invited to be part of it [...] when I think of strong black women from Africa, from the
total diaspora, I never think of them as feminists, because I know what feminism means
to me, I know that it means ’get back’ 58 .
53
Cf.: Ogunyemi 1988: 65; Ogunyemi 1985/86: 71 - 72; Ogunyemi 1996: 121.
54
Wicomb 1996: 46.
55
Ibid: 47 - 48.
56
Hudson-Weems, Clenora, Africana Womanism, Troy, Bedford Publishers, 1995 (first published 1993): 24.
57
Cf.: ibid: 21.
58
Hudson-Weems, cit. in: Nnaemeka 1995: 82.