African Feminist Research Articles

Female gender stereotyping and President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s political communication on Twitter: a blessing for female political leaders?

ABSTRACT This paper explores the Twitter communication of Tanzania’s first female President Samia Suluhu Hassan. Informed largely by African feminism, this study explores the relationship between Samia’s political discourse and gender perspectives on her Twitter account within the frame of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. Specifically, this study looked at the construction of her identity and leadership attributes as the country’s first female leader and found that her identity, ‘Mama Samia’, signals respect that evokes the African conception of a respected mother. Indeed, even though gender-constructed feminine roles as mother take precedence, gradually her stature as a national leader is eroding these stereotype labels a handful of hostile sexist comments notwithstanding. In effect, the president’s leadership attributes as constructed in her Twitter discourse are more feminine than masculine. Yet, it is these same feminine attributes of nurturance, wisdom, humility, humanity, collaborative-ness, calmness and politeness that present more of an advantage than a disadvantage in her leadership. Overall, netizens have been accommodative of these feminine attributes, which they find to be effective in addressing pressing national issues in the economy, political and social sectors.

Accommodation of Feminism in J. P Clark’s Wives Revolt

Feminism has become a major topic of discussion and research in African drama over the years. Playwrights as well as critics have written numerous works on different aspects of feminism in Africa, including J. P. Clark’s Wives Revolt. But the burden of the African feminist ideology and the different ways it is reflected in the African feminist dramatic texts (the different dimensions of feminism) have not gotten the needed critical attention. This caught the attention of the current study. The study used a literary qualitative and analytical approach, with the primary play text chosen for the study being critically analysed using feminism as the guiding theory. The study concludes that all of the play chosen for the study is feminist text because it deals with the burden of the woman. Beyond this portrayal, the play deals with the place of women and their responses in different ways, thereby attending to the different strands of feminism. The study concludes that the only way to wholly appreciate this play is by connecting the various strands of feminism in their appreciation.

“Victims or game changers?”: Exploring adolescent girls’ agency in the context of locally led climate action in rural Zimbabwe

abstract Over the past decade, Zimbabwe has experienced several climate-induced extreme events such as droughts, floods, heat waves and cold spells – all of which have challenged the education sector’s resilience to climatic shocks. At the same time, adolescent girls in rural communities continue to ‘fall through the cracks’ of education – failing to attend school, to stay in school and to complete a basic cycle of education. Climate change appears to be a limiting factor for girls in rural areas in addition to other barriers such as household poverty, distances travelled to and from school and gender-based violence. Based on a research study underpinned by human development, African feminist, and actor-oriented theory, this article explores the link between climate change and adolescent girls’ education in Ward 25 of Chivi District, an arid and remote rural region in southwest Zimbabwe. The study population consisted of rural, in-school, adolescent girls aged 10-19 years, whose families reside in or originate from the study area. Data was generated through a qualitative survey administered to twenty-one adolescent girls; sixteen key informant interviews with stakeholders at different levels; and eight focus group discussions (FGDs) with adolescent girls, adolescent boys, teachers and caregivers. Data was also generated through field notes, field observation, photography as well as drawings by adolescent girls. The findings highlight how climatic shocks pose challenges for adolescent girls’ education in rural contexts and the current and potential roles played by the adolescent girls and other actors in addressing climate change. By challenging the narrative that adolescent girls are victims of the climate crisis, this study positions adolescent girls’ agency as a game changer in locally led climate action.

We are not fully Citizens of our Universities

The post-Apartheid and #FeesMustFall higher education landscape has created opportunities for universities in South Africa to foster in transformation as it pertains to gender, language, sexuality, disability, race and other minority markers. More so, the accessibility of the student and staff demographic has meant that in some cases, African women can emerge to various positions of power. This paper, through phenomenological reflections of five African women leaders in South African universities, considers the ways in which citizenship and belonging are navigated through the mapping of their leadership journey. Furthermore, this paper explores the possibilities within the African feminist scholarship to argue that African women leaders use their agency to determine humanizing institutional cultures.

“I Am Not a Church Person!” Gendered Cultural Politics in the Portrayal of Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave on Social Media in Zimbabwe

Women musicians in Zimbabwe continue to be subjugated because there are residual patriarchal attitudes driven by religion and cultural norms and values. This article discusses the nexus between culture, religion, and patriarchy as gauged by the portrayal of women musicians. The study looks at how Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave was bullied on social media after collaborating with a Zimdancehall artist in the song “Vanondibatirana.” The study aims to ensure gender parity in a context where women are still being objectified despite Zimbabwe being a signatory to United Nations gender equity statutes. The African feminist concept of equality between females and males provides the theoretical framework for this qualitative study. The song’s message is explored using textual analysis. The findings show that traditional views on women’s roles continue to hinder women artists’ identity and self-esteem. Objectification of women is noted as a result of the way colonialism, religion, and culture influence some members of society to judge women musicians. The findings also show that women are denigrated and relegated to the subaltern, and recommendations advocate that women musicians reclaim equality alongside men in the musical performing arts.

African Technocultural Feminist Theory (ATFT)

ABSTRACT Multiple layers of subjugation, including imperial, colonial, economic, and political, frequently inform considerations and rhetoric about the African continent and its varying populations. Unequal global relations which result in negative/one-sided as well as under representation of Africa and African people, particularly women, in western media characterize these rhetorical subjugations and create erroneous generalizations about the entire continent. The proliferation of new media technology presents multiple opportunities for African people to share complex stories of their respective nations and cultures. However, there are currently insufficient theories examining the ways African people comprehend and operate technological platforms for sustained sociocultural narrative making. This study presents African Technocultural Feminist Theory (ATFT) as a theoretical framework that considers the intersection between technology and cultural practices in its explication of the ways African technology users approach and engage with new media technology, while prioritizing historically underrepresented and marginalized African identities. ATFT articulates three tenets to explicate technocultural praxes among African technology users: new media technology, African cultural systems, and African feminism. These tenets ensure African traditions are preserved, valued, and respected while gender/power negotiations are focalized in technological discourse.

Feminism: Critical Analysis of Barclays Ayakoroma's a Matter of Honour

Over the years, feminism has grown to be a crucial subject of debate and study in African literature. A Matter of Honour by Barclays Ayakoroma is one of several plays and criticisms on many facets of feminism in Africa. However, the weight of African feminist ideology and the many ways it manifests itself in African feminist dramatic texts (the various facets of feminism) have not received the necessary critical attention. The present research was interested in this. The core play text selected for the research was critically assessed using feminism as the guiding principle. The study used literary, qualitative, and analytical methods. The research comes to the conclusion that the play used for the study is a feminist text since it addresses the responsibilities of being a woman. Beyond this representation, the play addresses the many strands of feminism by addressing the position of women and their reactions.

The disregard of mothers’ knowledge and experiences in violent extremism discourse in Kenya

This article argues for the inclusion of women’s epistemology in discourse about violent extremism and approaches to tackling it in Kenya. It focuses on mothers of male recruits to violent extremist organisations, arguing that, although mothers have critical insights to offer, their knowledge and experiences remain unacknowledged and unheard in Kenyan responses to violent extremism. Although women, including mothers, are understood to be useful contributors to the fight against violent extremism, their voices remain peripheral in masculinised discourses and actions. This article uses an African feminist theoretical approach, informed by ‘Motherism’, and gendered peace – as well as security frameworks including UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR 1325 and 2242) on women, peace and security and women’s inclusion in efforts to address violent extremism – to argue that policy development and implementation processes in Kenya have failed to capture the meaningful contributions that recruits’ mothers can make to addressing violent extremism.

GENDER IN WOMEN’S WRITING: RESTORING THE WOMAN IN AMA ATA AIDOO’S CHANGES: A LOVE STORY AND PEGGY OPPONG’S THE LEMON SUITCASE

Purpose –– This study investigates genderism in Ghanaian women’s writing with women’s empowerment as the centre of interest in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story (1991) and Peggy Oppong’s The Lemon Suitcase (2010) Methods –– The study adopts a textual analysis of the novels under study and the authors’ novels as controversial works which promote the ideals of the feminist movement in Africa by presenting issues that address nuances in gender roles and social constraints. Findings –– The findings unveil the progression of female roles over the period in the male-dominated Ghanaian society. Also, this study contributes to debates on feminism in Africa as well as promotes gender equity and women’s empowerment through education. Conclusion & Recommendation –– The study presented the representation of the female figures in a patriarchal Ghanaian society. It sought to empower women as leaders in their contributions to the society. There is more room for improvement in spite of the career progression women have achieved. Keywords –– Feminism, The Lemon Suitcase, Sustainable Development, Genderism, Empowerment

Une redéfinition du féminisme africain dans Femme nue, femme noire de Calixthe Beyala, romancière à contre-courant

This article examines the issues of literary impudence and homosexuality so much repudiated by African feminist theorists in Calixthe Beyala’s erotic novel, Femme nue, femme noire. It reflects on the pertinence of using African feminist ideologies in the criticism of Beyala’s fictions considering the fact her novelistic themes run contrary to the African feminist postulation where homosexuality, sex work and other transgressive tendencies constitute a strange and imported phenomenon. This article analyses the radicalization of African feminism through a close reading of Calixthe Beyala’s Femme nue, femme noire by highlighting recourse to subversion as a radical tendency in Beyala’s writings, which consists not only subverting the status quo through engaging in taboo-related discourse but also defending the sexual independence of the modern African woman as a form of emancipation. It concludes that the novel exhibits a new African feminism which is neither adapted to the collective feminist ethics nor to the African literary canon but to the individual feminine reality aimed at the total emancipation of the African woman.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling In Kenya: Defining Attributes Of Trailblazing Women in Higher Education Leadership Positions

Patriarchal issues, in which the women's role was to always take care of the family and pursue motherly duties have hampered women’s quest for ascendency to leadership positions, and more so in Africa. Yet, as the years and generations pass, women are just as capable to be a leader in big companies, yet due to past traditions they are still viewed as the caretaker of the family. The objective of the study was to presents in detail the attributes of the women trailblazers in higher education leadership in Kenya. A feminist approach problematizes the gendered relations in universities which research has pointed to inequalities in the distribution of resources and opportunities.This study is situated within the African Feminist theoretical framework because it is central to the fight against oppression of women in Africa and has granted women a platform to voice their concerns. The plank of African feminism postulates that, in many parts of Africa, women strive to bear and rear children in addition to having economic and political roles. This theory underpinned this study because African feminist perspective problematizes the blatant discrimination against women in all cadres, particularly in leadership levels across institutions. The study was qualitative in nature and was based on a census survey design. The research targeted 107 women in leadership ranks of principals, research centers’ directors, deans, and heads of departments, as well as deputy vice-chancellors and vice-chancellors across the 32 public universities.The results from the study are mainly based on a verbatim narrative of 18 women leaders in response to the research questions. Some of the 18 participants currently occupy senior leadership positions and small number of former leaders that have since completed their terms, retired or moved on to leadership positions outside the university. Overall the respondents are associated with 12 of the 32 public universities in Kenya. The study answered the research question: What is the defining attributes of the women in higher education leadership in Kenya? The study found that the attributes can be broadly categorized as leadership style and quest for identity, the right skillset, education, and training, activism and collaboration, reliance on role models and mentors, demonstration of ambition and standing out, and being an embodiment of spiritual values. The study concluded that it’s through the exposition of this attributes that the women in higher education leadership have been able to break the glass ceiling.

Women in Zimunya and the musha mukadzi or umuzi ngumama philosophy for sustainable livelihoods

The musha mukadzi (Shona) or umuzi ngumama (Ndebele) is an African gendered philosophy that means women make up the home. This philosophy has been researched in African traditional religions (ATRs) and is interrogated from interdisciplinary angles in academia. African feminist research has highlighted how this philosophy can be derogatory, stereotyped and oppressive to women if it is naïvely used in domestic contexts. As a result, contemporary African feminists and gender scholars attempt to expose both the liberative and oppressive nature of this philosophy. This study seeks to interrogate how women from the grassroots understand this philosophy. It draws from in-depth interviews with women from Zimunya, Mutare, in Zimbabwe who describe this philosophy as a resource for sustainable livelihoods. Methods used to collect data involved in-depth interviews from a sample of 10 women whose ages ranged from 35 to 50 years. The findings highlight that for both single and married women in Zimunya, the musha mukadzi or umuzi ngumama philosophy has empowering traits that enhance women’s agency and sustainable livelihoods in the domestic household. They describe how this philosophy has empowered them to initiate income-generating projects that include rearing of poultry (road runners), membership to a sewing club, selling dried traditional foods and money savings (mikando).Contributions: This article explores an African gendered philosophy, musha mukadzi or umuzi ngumama [women make the home], and how this has been used as a resource by women in sustaining livelihoods.

Intersectionality in African digital organizing: a Ghanaian perspective

Abstract Although there is growing scholarship on intersectionality in African feminist movements, there are still gaps in scholarship on intersectionality on the continent when it comes to various identity categories. I examine intersectionality within the Ghanaian context using African feminisms as a backdrop. I argue that to drive African feminisms toward emancipatory praxes, it is imperative to center identity categories that are often erased from feminist conversations and to pay attention to organizing from these margins to amplify the erased narratives about marginalization. I theorize these silenced narratives drawing on my experiences as a Muslim Dagbana woman and my work in African and Ghanaian feminist digital spaces. Here, I focus on ethnicity as an identity category that is often overlooked within feminist discourses in national contexts in Africa. I point to organizing strategies that can facilitate the centering of identities and feminist issues that have historically been pushed to the margins.

Abandoning the idealized white subject of legal feminism: A manifesto for silence in a Lusophone register

AbstractThrough an account of white feminisms and white privilege, this article examines the tensions between local and international knowledge frames. The article considers the possibility of a feminist approach to global constitutionalism and argues for a twofold critique: first, a feminist interrogation of the dominance of a specifically male history of Western and Anglo-European knowledge frames; and second, a self-critique within feminist approaches to global legal regimes that acknowledges the complicity of mainstream feminist tools in the racist histories of knowledge production. To this end, the article examines the space of gender expertise to explore how this can be both an aperture for plural feminist encounters and a refinement of diverse feminist approaches into a form digestible by the contours of international institutions. To explore alternative, decolonized encounters, the article centres Lusophone African feminist silence and action in Luanda, the capital of Angola. The article explores how Angolan gender relations, informal labour and histories of protest unsettle the frame of a feminist manifesto, to argue for a place for active silence as a methodology for undoing the status quo of global constitutional expectations of how knowledge arrives at the global and transnational levels.

Analysing the Plight of HIV-positive Women in South African Society as Represented in Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift

Statistics show that South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV/Aids in the world, with a prevalence of 18.9% of adults afflicted, and women much more vulnerable to the infection than men. Although anti-retrovirals are widely available, social injustices such as poverty and the low status of women contribute to this gendered disparity. In the novel Beauty’s Gift (2008), the author Sindiwe Magona relates a narrative in which four women lose their best friend to Aids, prompting them to take decisive action as women who play a significant role within the domain of the family. The Aids activist Jackie Achmat has called this novel “one of the most important books about HIV/AIDS in our country.” This article examines the fictional representation of the plight of HIV-positive women in South Africa through an analysis of the characterisation and the author’s representations of socio-cultural injustice suffered by these women. The paper further explores the advocacy and agency of these women characters during the time of sickness. With respect to stigma and discrimination, in the context of HIV and Aids, I argue that despair and hopelessness thrive in situations where women are plagued by sickness. I further argue that shame and secrecy are social conditions that perpetuate the spread of HIV, leading to a common response of silence. Lastly, the representations of bereavement and grief are analysed in this article. My examination of the agency of women characters in the chosen novel is underpinned by the theory of African feminism, which engages with, critiques, and develops Western feminism, influenced by African women’s resistance to Western hegemony and its legacy within African culture. Charged with the duties of transforming societies through both intellectual and pragmatic approaches, African feminists illuminate ways women manage and challenge multiple oppressions. Using this theoretical lens that reveals ways in which Magona elicits identification and empathy on the part of readers, which can assist in stimulating positive change as depicted in Beauty’s Gift, thus re-imagining and reconfiguring the Rainbow Nation.

And their voices were everywhere: Myesha Jenkins and the Pan-African feminist performance strategies of liberation

ABSTRACTFeminist poet, editor, and anti-Apartheid activist Myesha Jenkins brought – possibly for the first time on South African public radio – a deliberate feminist agenda that validates poetry as political action. This paper documents and analyses her amplification of poetry on public radio and the feminist collectives that came before it, with specific focus on Jenkins’ Pan-African feminist imagination and movement building. I suggest that Jenkins’ body of work – particularly Poetry in the Air (PitA) – provided wider access to the featured poets as well as a place for self-writing and self-representation. I argue that PitA, along with Jenkins’ other work building feminist poetry and performance collectives, made important contributions to South African women’s performance strategies of liberation, in a country (and world) that actively (re)produces the ‘Female Fear Factory’. As a co-creator with Jenkins on some of these Pan-African feminist poetry collectives and productions, I use the oral histories that I conducted with her between 2016 and 2017, the transcripts of PitA, and the social history of contemporary South African feminist poetry collectives to examine her legacy.

Analysing the Plight of HIV-positive Women in South African Society as Represented in Sindiwe Magona’s Beauty’s Gift

This article proceeds from the understanding that literature is the mirror of society, reflecting problematic features, failures to provide social justice, and attempts to live with dignity and hope. Statistics show that South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV/Aids in the world, with a prevalence of 18.9% of adults afflicted, and women much more vulnerable to the infection than men. Although anti-retrovirals are widely available, social injustices such as poverty and the low status of women contribute to this gendered disparity. In the novel Beauty’s Gift (2008), author Sindiwe Magona relates a narrative in which four women lose their best friend to Aids, prompting them to take decisive action as women who play a significant role within the domain of the family. The Aids activist Zackie Achmat has called this novel “one of the most important books about HIV/AIDS in our country.” This article examines the fictional representation of the plight of HIV-positive women in South Africa through an analysis of the characterisation and the author’s representations of socio-cultural injustice suffered by these women. The paper further explores the advocacy and agency of these women characters during the time of sickness. With respect to stigma and discrimination, in the context of HIV and Aids, I argue that despair and hopelessness thrive in situations where women are plagued by sickness. I further argue that shame and secrecy are social conditions that perpetuate the spread of HIV, leading to a common response of silence. Lastly, the representations of bereavement and grief are analysed in this article. My examination of the agency of women characters in the chosen novel is underpinned by the theory of African feminism, which engages with, critiques and develops Western feminism, influenced by African women’s resistance to Western hegemony and its legacy within African culture. Charged with the duties of transforming societies through both intellectual and pragmatic approaches, African feminists illuminate ways women manage and challenge multiple oppressions. Using this theoretical lens enables me to reveal ways in which Magona elicits identification and empathy on the part of readers, which can assist in stimulating positive change as depicted in Beauty’s Gift, thus re-imagining and reconfiguring the Rainbow Nation.

Rethinking Motherhood through Afrofeminism: Reading Jennifer Makumbi's The First Woman

ABSTRACT In this article, I read Jennifer Makumbi's novel The First Woman (2020), which I argue combines African feminism and indigenous knowledge to generate alternative narratives of motherhood in the absence of the main character's biological mother. I argue that Makumbi rethinks motherhood through an afrofeminist lens to complicate the idea of the ideal mother as self-sacrificing and sacred. In the novel, Makumbi intentionally re-engages the myth of origin to figure women as fluid and complex people who do not always subscribe to ideal notions of motherhood and womanhood. The novel, therefore, opens up the possibility of competing notions of motherhood that embrace indigenous conceptions and philosophies of communal care as practised in most rural economies in Africa. Such interventions allow Makumbi to interrogate and suggest possibilities for re-reading gendered roles of motherhood, as well as African womanhood, while at the same time dealing with issues of class as defined through colonial modernity.

‘Eekamba adishe nadi ufanwe, Eendingosho adishe na di ongelwe u pule kwali Nashima’: Nanghili Nashima, The performer and feminist intellectual

This article studies Nanghili Nashima’s Oudano practices and public life. We discuss how her autobiographical public performance practices during apartheid and independent Namibia constitute feminism. The study mainly focused on the sound and video recordings currently archived at the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation's Music Library and on YouTube. This work offers critical engagement on themes of migration, sexuality and labour, challenging colonial, Christian, patriarchal and heteronormative norms, and systems in Ovawambo and African societies at large. We unpack her mobile work and public life as defiant and subversive, therefore, speaking truth to multiple forms of power. By listening collectively and closely to her performance work, the study argues that Nanghili Nashima emerged as a trans-local figure who relied on transgression through her Oudano praxis to embody agency and radical imagination as practices of freedom. It is on this basis that her intellectual tradition is situated in what Pumla Gqola has theorised as African feminist imagination.

African Feminist Epistemologies: For the De-Westernization of Gender

African Feminist Epistemologies: For the De-Westernization of Gender