The OC woman question, OCO this book asserts, is a Western one, and not a proper lens for viewing African society. A work that rethinks gender as a Western construction, The Invention of Women offers a new way of understanding both Yoruban and Western cultures. Author Oyeronke Oyewumi reveals an ideology of biological determinism at the heart of Western social categories-the idea that biology provides the rationale for organizing the social world. And yet, she writes, the concept of OC woman, OCO central to this ideology and to Western gender discourses, simply did not exist in Yorubaland,...

This is the first comprehensive reader that brings African experiences to bear on the ongoing global discussions of women, gender, and society. Bringing together the essential writing on this topic from the last 25 years, these essays discuss gender in Africa from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

This is the first comprehensive reader that brings African experiences to bear on the ongoing global discussions of women, gender, and society. Bringing together the essential writing on this topic from the last 25 years, these essays discuss gender in Africa from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

This volume brings together a variety of studies that are engaged with notions of gender in different African localities, institutions and historical time periods. The objective is to expand empirical and theoretical studies that take seriously the idea that in order to understand gender and gender relations in Africa, we must start with Africa.

In this book, Oyewumi extends her path-breaking thesis that in Yoruba society, construction of gender is a colonial development since the culture exhibited no gender divisions in its original form. Taking seriously indigenous modes and categories of knowledge, she applies her finding of a non-gendered ontology to the social institutions of Ifa, motherhood, marriage, family and naming practices. Oyewumi insists that contemporary assertions of male dominance must be understood, in part, as the work of local intellectuals who took marching orders from Euro/American mentors and colleagues. In...

There is significant religious and linguistic evidence that Yoruba society was not gendered in its original form. In this follow-up to The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, Oy?wumi explores the intersections of gender, history, knowledge-making, and the role of intellectuals in the process.

This volume brings together a variety of studies that are engaged with notions of gender in different African localities, institutions and historical time periods. The objective is to expand empirical and theoretical studies that take seriously the idea that in order to understand gender and gender relations in Africa, we must start with Africa.