African Womanism

Abstract

This article evolves from my study (see Dove, 1993, 1996) of the life herstories2 of African mothers who send their children to culturally affirming schools. I focus on conceptualizing and defining the racialization of the world through European domination/White supremacy. In doing this work, I find it impossible to ignore the specificity of the oppression of African women living in male-centered Western society. My original study included 21 herstories. A significant number of these mothers had experienced negative relationships with men who played critical roles in their lives. In what seemed to be a paradox, these women neither hated nor separated themselves from men. To the contrary, those who had sons, for instance, recognized their responsibilities to their sons. They feared for their sons' survival and for the safety of African men living under White supremacy. They wanted their sons to be fearless and to respect women. To be true to their feelings required that I not only use their words to tell their stories but develop a culturally based theory that could be sensitive to their experiences as African women. Theories pertaining to the particularized nature of African women's experiences have largely been inadequate. Those related to the feminist tradition, both White and Black, have critiqued the social conditions of women within Europeanized societies and sought solutions within European paradigms. In a departure from this pattern, Hudson-Weems's (1993) Africana womanist theory critically examines the limitations of feminist theory and helps to