An African Feminist Interrogation of Existential Epistemology: Women as the “Other of the Other” in (Post)Colonial Africa

Abstract

The African peoples’ colonial experience raises some fundamental existential questions that should not be ignored. There is no doubt that the process of decolonizing contemporary Africa is going to be difficult, if not outright impossible, without addressing those existential questions. It is worth noting that in addition to altering, distorting, and destroying part or all of the political, economic, relational, moral, and social structures that existed before colonialism, colonizers also imposed some existential ideals upon Africans, which have continued to affect how many contemporary Africans perceive and define themselves, their continent, and other Africans too. As colonizers, they endeavored to change the existing existential narratives and beliefs the colonized held about themselves for centuries to give way to a new narrative. Regarding human dignity and worth, colonialism was a system of control and dominance that relegated Africans and other colonized peoples to the lowest ebb of human existence. There was a common misconception that Africans were inferior to the ideal human being or subject in their society. As a result, it became pretty easy to rationalize their commodification (during the transatlantic slave trade) and dominance (during the colonization) of Africans during this period. However, colonialism did not give African women the existential identity of “the other,” but that of “the other of the other.” This chapter argues that many of the problems associated with underdevelopment, social inequality, and neocolonialism, many of which African states have battled for decades, will remain unsolved until the existential epistemology which reinforces the marginalization of African women is critiqued and deconstructed.