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48
Palabres, Revue d’Etudes Africaines, Vol. III, n°1, 2000.
(1) a self-namer and (2) a self-definer, (3) family-centered, (4) genuine in sisterhood,
(5) strong, (6) in concert with male in struggle, (7) whole, (8) authentic, (9) a flexible
role-player, (10) respected, (11) recognized, (12) spiritual, (13) male compatible, (14)
respectful of elders, (15) adaptable, (16) ambitious, (17) mothering and (18) nurturing 64 .
Although Hudson-Weems proceeds on the assumption that only women can be
Africana womanists, she nevertheless proclaims the necessity of co-operation between
men and women. This is another difference to Walker’s womanism.
The Nigerian literary critic Mary E. Modupe Kolawole also holds that it is necessary
to conceptualize a Black alternative to feminism. This is due to the cultural
imperialism of many western feminists and feminisms, their west- and gendercenteredness,
the fact that white women are privileged in many respects and the
necessity of focusing on the peculiarities in the situation of African and African
American women. 65 Equally decisive is the fact that «[s]elf-naming is very central to
African world-view [...] This is at the heart of the search for new terminologies of selfdefinition»
66 . When naming the alternative concept, however, her terminology is not
clear. She speaks of womanism as well as of African womanism and Africana
womanism - thus using three different concepts that already exist synonymously, thus
neglecting the striking differences between them. In fact, when she discusses the
concepts of Walker, Ogunyemi and Hudson-Weems, as well as Ogundipe-Leslie’s
stiwanism, which will be dealt with here later, she fails to compare them and
consequently does not mention differences in content. Thus, for example, nothing is
said about the decisive fact that Ogunyemi's and Ogundipe-Leslie's concepts assume
an alliance of African women, whereas Walker's and Hudson-Weems' concepts
include all Black women. Interestingly enough, Kolawole herself is not very clear as
far as this question is concerned. According to her definition of womanism «[a]ny
woman who has the consciousness to situate the struggle within African cultural
realities by working for a total and robust self-retrieval of the African woman is an
African or Africana womanist» 67 , thus implying that to be a womanist means to be
concerned with the situation of African women. In fact, this definition would even
allow one to argue that her concept of womanism does not explicitly deny white
women’s participation, but is in fact open to any woman who is committed to
improving the situation of African women. Other remarks, however, make it clear that
Kolawole - like Walker and Hudson-Weems - has a movement of Black women in
mind, disassociated from white women. 68 Simultaneously, however, Kolawole argues
that «womanism bears some resemblance to any theory about women», hence also to
feminism. Whereas «some of the arguments in contemporary feminism are
superfluous» in the African context and therefore can be neglected by womanism, it
also «has very distinct characteristics emerging from African values» 69 . Here the
example of lesbian love should be mentioned, which is, similarly to Ogunyemi,
64
Ibid: 143.
65
Kolawole 1997: 16 - 18, 34.
66
Ibid: 26 - 27.
67
Ibid: 34.
68
Cf.: ibid: 27.
69
Ibid. Also cf.: ibid: 202.