"The Personal is Political," or Why Women's Rights are Indeed Human Rights: An African Perspective on International Feminism

Oloka-Onyango, J.; Tamale, Sylvia

doi:10.1353/hrq.1995.0037

Cited by 93 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…All the above risks the continued production of feminist agendas that do not speak to African women but are nonetheless applied to them. Joe Oloka-Onyango and Sylvia Tamale (1995) provide a concrete illustration of this last point in their discussion of the urgent need for African feminists to participate in international legal feminist efforts to theorize and codify women's rights as human rights, or else see laws and principles drafted on their behalf.…”

Section: The Politics Of Self-namingmentioning

confidence: 99%

African Feminisms

Dosekun

2019

The Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies

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What does feminism mean and comprise in Africa? Is there a distinctly African variant, and if yes, what makes it so? These questions have been debated vigorously in the last 40 years by African women scholars who variously seek to defend and advance the broad project of feminism in Africa, if not always by this name. The chapter offers a critical review of the different theories and models of 'African feminisms' that have been put forward. While there is a consensus that African feminisms must be attuned and responsive to the conditions of African women's lives, a central point of contention concerns the nature and status therein of 'culture' and 'tradition,' and what some deem essential and irreducible African difference. The chapter argues against even weakly essentialist theoretical accounts of African feminisms, above all because these presume an authentic African female subject of concern, and thus exclude others who do not fit the mould. A view of Africa as the contextual rather than essential ground of African feminisms allows instead for the emergence of a feminist politics for all African women in their immense diversity.

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Section: The Politics Of Self-namingmentioning

confidence: 99%

African Feminisms

Dosekun

2019

The Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies

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“…Over the ensuing decades, this movement gained momentum, driven by profit-oriented technological advancements and consequential environmental degradation on a global scale. The women activists embarked on the exploration of technological developments as they frequently encountered and got connected with these advances and the entrenched forces in favour of patriarchy (Oloka-Onyango et al, 1995). This early cohort of eco-feminists has recognised a fundamental truth of how the oppression of women and the exploitation of nature are intertwined and often unfold.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human/Nature Dualism in Khan’s The Geometry of God: An Eco-feminist Study

Khalid,

Mukhtar,

Shafiq

2024

GJSSH

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This research proposes a comparative eco-feminist approach to challenge corporate narratives regarding women's associations with nature. The analysis is centred on Uzma Aslam Khan's (2008) novel, The Geometry of God, aiming to gain insights into Val Plumwood's (2002) contemporary critique of the ‘human/ nature dualism’. This research argues social constructivism and socialist eco-feminism to explore the differences in how language is employed to understand the eco-feminist assumptions concerning women and their relationship with nature. Eco-feminism, a movement that emerged in the 1990s, posits that the domination and degradation of women and the environment are the results of patriarchal and capitalist systems (Molyneux et al., 1995). This research argues the compelling issues concerning corporate representations and misrepresentations of women and their connections to their surrounding environment. The portrayals of the relationship between brown women and nature highlight the discursive reconfiguration of brown women's identity, examining how female novelists in Pakistani patriarchal societies redefine the narratives that deconstruct the eternal images of women imposed by the patriarchal academia (Mehmood, 2019).

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“…The point has since been made that women's lives in postcolonial contexts are governed by a myriad of relationships in the personal sphere, to which the state does not always reach. 22 These personal relationships are not devoid of normative content that runs alongside state law, a phenomenon that has generally come to be known as legal pluralism. 23 These personal laws have also been identified as sites of women's oppression in postcolonial contexts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Constitutionalism in Postcolonial Africa: Towards a Decolonial Gendered Citizenship

Gayoye¹

2023

VRÜ

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This paper makes the case for a theorising of gendered constitutionalism in postcolonial Africa on its own terms, rather than as an appendage or often afterthought to hegemonic and universalising impulses of Western liberal thought. More specifically, the first task is to interrogate the existing body of literature of feminist constitutionalism to examine the extent to which it speaks for the pursuit of gender equality through constitutions in Africa that produces an awkward incongruence with that of Western feminist liberal thought. The second task is to explore an alternative framework within feminist constitutionalism that speaks more closely to ordinary women’s experiences to the pursuit of rights and justice through constitutions in Africa. I find great persuasion in Annette Joseph-Gabriel’s concept of decolonial citizenship as a promising avenue towards a decolonial gendered citizenship within gendered constitutionalism in Africa. I do this through three lines of enquiry: the concept of gender in Africa, the postcolonial, and decolonial. The choice of the term ‘gendered’ as opposed to ‘feminist’ constitutionalism is deliberate, and both ontological and epistemic to demonstrate the colonial imposition of gendered binaries. I set out the postcolonial context, so often associated or even conflated with the Third World or Global South although the terms are not mutually exclusive in terms of neat definitions, neither do they necessarily mean the same thing. The postcolonial sets the stage for a discussion on the coloniality of constitutionalism in Africa. Coloniality is distinct from colonialism in and of itself and is concerned with the colonial and continuing imposition of Western liberal constitutional thought on Africa, including through the global governance feminist movement. Liberal rights constitutional frameworks sit awkwardly with African societies with plural normative orders in a way that means ordinary African womenfolk may not access constitutional rights. Constitutional agency is key.

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"The Personal is Political," or Why Women's Rights are Indeed Human Rights: An African Perspective on International Feminism

Cited by 93 publications

References 61 publications

African Feminisms

African Feminisms

Human/Nature Dualism in Khan’s The Geometry of God: An Eco-feminist Study

Gendered Constitutionalism in Postcolonial Africa: Towards a Decolonial Gendered Citizenship

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