Introduction: Decolonizing African Women’s Studies

Yacob-Haliso, Olajumoke; Falọla, Toyin

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-77030-7_120-1

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Evidence from the analysis shows that capacity building is key to improving women’s participation, competence, confidence and effectiveness in local governance processes. Studies have shown that women are hindered from participating in politics by a lack of confidence and competence (Chambers, 2016; Ncube, 2019; Ndlovu and Mutale, 2013). Study findings show that WILD implemented various capacity-building such as citizen training workshops focusing on advocacy and lobbying, leadership, public service monitoring, budget monitoring, and tax justice.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In traditional patriarchal societies, women are presumed to belong to the private sphere. Patriarchal power relations constitute women as the subordinate ‘other’ whose relevance is limited to the domestic space of the home (Ncube, 2019). On the other hand, the public space is a preserve for men because this is where power, politics and decision-making are practised.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multiplying Faces and Amplifying Voices: Do Women’s Lives Matter in Local Governance Politics in Gwanda, Zimbabwe?

Phiri¹,

Ndlovu

Khumalo

et al. 2022

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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Women’s invisibility in political spaces is a glaring reality, particularly in patriarchal polities characterized by misogynistic attitudes towards feminine leadership. This article unpacks the socio-cultural variables that hinder women’s participation in politics and other masculinized spheres of influence. The article focuses on the advocacy efforts of Women’s Institute for Leadership Development in Gwanda, Zimbabwe. The article also details the successes and challenges scored by the lobbying effort. The article uses a qualitative research approach. It discusses the extent and effectiveness of women’s involvement in local governance and how their participation relates to Sustainable Development Goal 5. It was established that the project has greatly improved ordinary women’s participation in local governance in Gwanda Central. Capacity-building strategies implemented improved participation, competence, confidence, and effectiveness of women’s local governance processes. Women are increasingly participating in leadership at various levels. The training and mentorship programmes inspired some women to contest in the 2018 elections. We recommend the government of Zimbabwe and civil society organizations facilitate the implementation of structural reforms that address systemic and institutionalized gender-based discrimination.00263

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiplying Faces and Amplifying Voices: Do Women’s Lives Matter in Local Governance Politics in Gwanda, Zimbabwe?

Phiri¹,

Ndlovu

Khumalo

et al. 2022

Journal of Asian and African Studies

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“…For both groups, indigenous alterity, or what Mbembe (2001: 247) calls ‘non-similarity’, amounted to barbarism. Bawa (2020) contends that this ‘ perpetual difference of distance ’ continues to be used to render women the ‘prime subjects for rescue by European intervention’. This view of radical African difference was rooted in an evolutionary conceptualization of culture.…”

Section: Administration and Spiritan Imperial Debrismentioning

confidence: 99%

Imperial debris, intimate partnerships and family law reform in Cameroon

Kombo

2024

Africa

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This article explores the enduring impact of efforts by the French mandate administration and Spiritan missionaries to regulate intimate partnerships in French Cameroon between 1916 and 1956. Drawing primarily on French archival material, I show how administrators and missionaries sought to domesticate ‘modernity’ through activities targeting women’s status and roles within intimate partnerships. Spiritans promoted monogamous Christian marriage by advocating for Christian legal status and through ‘schools for fiancées’ called sixas, which often provoked violent confrontations. Despite decrying these activities as culturally disruptive, the administration passed significant marriage legislation. While these efforts are characterized as exercises of epistemic violence because of their attempted erasure of women’s and broader local perspectives, I nevertheless highlight their ambiguity. Moreover, garnering insights from history, anthropology, critical legal studies, postcolonial and feminist theory, I argue that remnants of these attempts to reshape intimacy endure as ‘imperial debris’, contributing to the impasse in reforming the Cameroonian Family Code. Further research unearthing local historical perspectives and experiences of intimate partnerships can facilitate more egalitarian family law in Cameroon.

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“…It has also been proposed that political engagement benefited most the urban elite women, and that there remained a large disparity between the real economic and political rights of poorer and elite women, in both urban and rural areas (Burnet, 2012). Despite the fact that some researchers have taken a different attitude toward the state-driven increase in women's political participation, arguing that the increase in numbers cannot be equated with an actually increased role of women in political decision making (Bauer, 2019), their participation did increase significantly after the genocide, as a banner and symbol of national reconstruction and political peace in Rwanda.…”

Section: The State and Females Under Modernizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heroines who are rebuilding their country: State–society circumstances and coping strategies of female leaders in post-genocide Rwanda

Batamuliza

Karangwa

2022

Chinese Journal of Sociology

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The labor arrangement of industrial society makes “production and reproduction” a contradiction that is both separate and interdependent. One of the significant consequences is the re-establishment of the responsibilities and boundaries of production and reproduction between the modern state, market, family, and gender. After the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, Rwanda has made world-renowned achievements in advancing gender equality, especially women's participation in politics. It is the “twofold full-time producers” model that continuously sustains this huge achievement, which means that female leaders not only bear a highly demanding responsibility for production, comparable to men, but also undertake significant labor in social reproduction. The public policy of Rwanda has assumed a dual role in this process: on the one hand, the state has promulgated a series of gender equality bills, policies, and measures from top to bottom that actively promote women's equal rights in various fields, especially their political participation. On the other hand, against the background of a severe labor shortage and insufficient public welfare facilities, the responsibility of private families for social reproduction has been maintained and strengthened, while the traditional family structure and community culture's share of responsibility for reproduction has been irreversibly weakened during the conflict and modernization process. While these female leaders rely on their individual strategies and informal social support systems to cope with the dual burden, they still face scrutiny and doubt from the community culture. The consensus on the destiny of the country's development and the sharing of historical responsibilities demonstrated by Rwanda's female leaders shares many similarities with the Chinese women's liberation movement, which also provides an important inspiration and reference point for rethinking the path of women's liberation characterized by economic independence and “the supremacy of production”.

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Introduction: Decolonizing African Women’s Studies

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

Multiplying Faces and Amplifying Voices: Do Women’s Lives Matter in Local Governance Politics in Gwanda, Zimbabwe?

Multiplying Faces and Amplifying Voices: Do Women’s Lives Matter in Local Governance Politics in Gwanda, Zimbabwe?

Imperial debris, intimate partnerships and family law reform in Cameroon

Heroines who are rebuilding their country: State–society circumstances and coping strategies of female leaders in post-genocide Rwanda

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