Feminisms, WPS Agenda and Women’s Peacebuilding and Peacemaking Networks in Africa: Solution or Quandary?

Abstract

The concept and practice of feminism continues to raise multiple contestations on the African continent, despite the varied contributions that feminists and gender advocates have made on the social, economic and political spheres. Feminism and gender continue to be perceived with suspicion, and as foreign importations that destabilise rather than edify the African governance, peace and security discourse. Through a desk review of existing literature, this chapter provided a qualitative exploration of the contested relationship between feminism and the existing patriarchal modes of governance in Africa, what this means for the future of feminism and the WPS agenda, as well as for the future of the governance, peace and security agenda in Africa. Strategically juxtaposing the gains that feminism has brought on the African landscape against the persistent exclusion of women from the key governance and political processes on the continent, the chapter made a case for the multifarious yet imperative role that African women have played to non-violently challenged patriarchal political models and set the standard for possible egalitarian political relations, further highlighting the major barriers to the women’s empowerment agenda that are causing the fissures through which the said gains are getting lost. The chapter concluded that despite its achievements and impact socially, economically and politically, the existing contestations in the understanding of feminism and its related theories nd practices is a huge fissure that threatens its future existence on the continent. The analysis further shed hope on the possibility of reconciling this stated contestation by proffering recommendations that African feminists can adopt to continuously refine their strategies to impact on the currently prevailing patriarchal modes of governance, peace and security in order to perpetuate the seemingly lost gains of Beijing.