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African Feminism: How Should We Change?

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African Feminism: How Should We Change? Development, 2006, 49(1), (38–41) r 2006 Society for International Development 1011-6370/06 www.sidint.org/development Thematic Section African Feminism: How should we change? 1 SYLVIA TAMALE ABSTRACT Sylvia Tamale gives a critical, self-reflexive analysis of the African women’s movement, with her proposals for the changes she would like to see. She asks that African feminists transform themselves and societies into a more equitable, democratic and tolerant one. KEYWORDS Africa; professionalizing; fundamentalism; activism; transformation One should always be drunk. That’s all there is to it; it’s the only way. Not to feel the horrible burden of Time That breaks your back and bends you to the earth, You should be continually drunk. Drunk with what? With passion, with anger, with outrage or with justice, as you please. But get drunk. And if sometimes you should happen to awake, On the stairs of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the dreary solitude of your own room, and find that your drunkenness is ebbingor has vanished, Ask the wind and the wave, ask star, bird, or clock, ask everythingthat flies, everythingthat moans, everythingthat flows, everythingthat sings, everythingthat speaks, Ask them the time; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird and the clock will all reply: ‘It is Time to get drunk! If you are not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be perpetually drunk! With passion, with anger, with outrage or with justice, as you please.’ Speaking the F word This is a slightly modified version of the poem entitled,‘Be Drunk’ by the 19th century French Poet, Charles Baudelaire. I believe that feminists and women’s rights activists around the world need to be poetically drunk! The problem with the women’s move- ments today, particularly those in Africa, is that most of its activists are either teetotal and thus totally sober or only slightly tipsy.We need to be absolutely giddy, elated, exhi- larated and drunk on our cause, our objectives, our mission and our obligations. We need to fanthe flames of feminism. We need to change the way we‘do’ feminism. Development (2006) 49(1), 38–41. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100205 Tamale: African Feminism In the part of the world I come from, that is, Afri- Identifying the challenges and weaknesses ca, most women’s rights practitioners prefer to call The challenges are many,but I focus here on three themselves ‘gender activists’. For various reasons, main ones. we avoid the F-word: Feminism. However, I per- sonally steer clear of the term, ‘gender activist’. This is because it lacks the ‘political punch’that is Careerism central to feminism. In the African context, Generally speaking, when the struggle for wo- the term ‘gender activist’ has had the regrettable men’s rights in Africa was spearheaded through tendency to lead to apathetic reluctance, comfor- community-based organizations and prior to the table complacency, dangerous diplomacy and boom of non-governmental organizations, there even impotence. Somehow, society has managed was a genuine commitment to the cause.Women to remove the element of ‘activism’ from the (and a few men) volunteered and sacrificed their so-called ‘gender activists’on the continent. More time and resources with the fervor of a guerilla and more, we see gravitation towards ‘inactive freedom fighter. However, because of the sheer activists’. size of the work that has to be done by feminists, This article is a critical, self-reflexive analysis of the fact that most of us work double- or even tri- the African women’s movement, bringing it to ple-shifts (inside and outside the home), the fact bear with the changes I would like to see in its ac- that our work is under-resourced, we were forced tors. The introspective analysis is meant to fan to turn to the development industry. Today, the the fire under the belly of African women’s move- culture of donor-driven non-governmental orga- ments. Hopefully, it will provide the much-needed nizations has overtaken the struggle and this, zeal that will spark manyof us into actionto initi- coupled with government’s tight control of non- ate the process of transformingourselves and our governmental organizations’ work, has depoliti- societies into a more equitable, democratic and cized the women’s movement. Presently, many of tolerant one. I genuinely believe that feminists us are in‘the business of women’s rights’not as po- can turn things around for the continent and the litical activists but mainly to advance our perso- world at large. nal interests. We sit and strategize not on how to genuinely transform society but on how our posi- tions will benefit us financially. ‘Careerism’ has eaten so deeply into the African women’s move- Why the urgency at this time? ment that many of us do not even practice what We are all aware of the widespread and multi- we preach as feminist principles. faceted backlash against women’s rights world- wide. The gains that the global women’smovement Gap between theory and practice has achieved, especially in the last five decades, A closely related problem concerns the wide gap face a real danger of being lost. between feminist theory and praxis. Feminists in It must be understood that a backlash against the African academy and the activist practitioners ‘women’s issues’ is a backlash against democracy on the ground tend to operate in separate cocoons. and progressive change. The issues for women are Gender equality and women’s rights rhetoric in fact issues that concern all world citizens. They hardly spreads beyond the legal landscape.Yet the- are developmental issues. In Africa, when the ory leads to informed activism. Theory is about backlash is placed against the backdrop of politi- understandingthe ‘what?’ the ‘why?’ and the cal monopoly, economic deprivation, poverty, vio- ‘how?’questions about women’s oppression, about lence, displacement, adjustingeconomies and power. When feminist theory does not speak to globalization, the crisis multiplies tenfold. It will gender activism and when the latter does not in- take a new revamped kind of feminism to resist form the former, the unfortunate result is a half- and defeat this kind of backlash. A feminism with baked and truncated feminism. Under-theorized a capital ‘F’. praxis is comparable to groping in the dark in 39 Development 49(1): Thematic Section search of a coffee bean. It leads to ‘obscurantism’, reconceptualize the important linkages between hinderingclear vision, knowledge, progress and theory and practice in the women’s movement. enlightenment. Social transformation can hardly This is the only way of pursuingour goals with be achieved under such conditions. clarity and inspired action. For instance, today many of us have a clouded understandingof the Extremism and fundamentalisms significant linkages between sexuality and Afri- All forms of fundamentalisms ^ whether it is cul- can women’s oppression. We do not recognize the tural fundamentalism (such as, the revival of vir- link between ‘pleasure’, ‘choice’, ‘power’ and wo- ginity tests), or religious fundamentalism (such men’s oppression. Take the patriarchal discourses as, the cripplingof women’s sexual and reproduc- on HIV/AIDS spearheaded by the male-dominated tive rights), or economic fundamentalism (such AIDSCommissions inourcountries. All their pro- as, the neo-liberal structural adjustment policies) grammes singularly proclaim HIV as a disease, ^ all pose a serious threat to the feminist agenda. completely disregarding societal dis-ease with We need to carefully analyze and understand the women’s sexual freedom. If these commissions capitalist social structures that go hand in hand adopted a gender approach to AIDS, the pandemic with the resurgence of all types of fundamental- would be almost wiped out by now. It is important isms and their totalizingdiscourses. They threa- for us to understand that our sexuality has a ten to roll back our achievements and to silence whole lot to do with women’s oppression. We can us into total patriarchal submission. see it in ideologies such as ‘heteronormativity’, ‘marriagenormativity’ and ‘mothernormativity’. This means that attempts to liberate women must How should we change? address the crucial issue of sexuality. Political engagement Radicalism The first thingwe must do is set aside our reluc- We should embrace radical strategies in our strug- tance to engage with political structures, systems gles. We must reject the arguments that Africa is and institutions. Often, we openly declare our or- not ready for radical feminism. What such argu- ganizations to be ‘non-political’.We do not want to ments are sayingin essence is that we are not be tarred with the brush of politics and we dis- ready for transformation. In fact, the majority of tance ourselves from formal politics as much as people who espouse the ‘women-should-take- possible. However, how can we avoid politics when it-nice-and-slow’ line are those that have never women’s subordination and oppression is a politi- directly experienced gender discrimination. We cal issue? How can we engage the powerful patri- heard similar arguments in the 19th century, archs in our countries without confronting made by slave owners who argued that slavery politics? Obviously, women stand to lose a great was a normal condition to everyday living.We also deal from the entrenchment of any form of dicta- heard it from colonialists in the middle of the torship.We must perceive gender equity as one of 20th century. And most recently, in the language the major pillars of our democracy today. Gender of pro-apartheid defenders in South Africa. I want equity would ripen global democracy to its truest us to remember the numerous legendry figures sense. All women’s organizations involved in the such as abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Mahatma struggle for women’s rights should, therefore, Gandhi who opposed British colonialism, and Nel- declare their political agenda.
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