Lesley Agams 21 August 2013
I’ve been pondering notions of feminism and exclusion lately. Even before the hash tag #solidarityisforwhitewomen started to trend last week. It all started for me when middle class white feminists made out the right to be stay at home moms a feminist issue. That was one reason why I paid close attention; I followed the debate obsessively even though I knew that the issue that started it all had little if anything to do with African women. I had never heard of Hugo Schwyzer before his meltdown triggered a conversation about men in feminism.
As if to underscore the issues of men in feminism, a self-proclaimed male feminist from Nigeria decided to opportunistically jump in and hold forth on the needs of African feminism and the feelings of white feminists rather than honouring the anger of WOC and maybe asking why African and Nigerian women were not joining the debate. He made himself an umpire insisting we conduct a ‘clean conversation’ that does not alienate white feminists. But this is a matter for another post.
My contribution to the larger debate was minimal. While I empathized with my sisters of colour, my personal experience with white feminists is limited and remote. However, I did try to point out that voices of African and Third World women are frequently excluded by women of colour in the west. An Afro-Caribbean woman who claimed western women of colour had no power to exclude anybody asked me for specific examples and I felt I should save it for a blog post.
What are some of the issues important to African that are excluded or ignored by mainstream feminism and frequently by feminist women of colour in the west, the African Diaspora and even certain African feminists? Some of them were raised in the debate, like how white feminists refuse to accept their sisters’ choice to wear the hijab. However, some issues did not come up, like female circumcision, polygamy, infertility, adoption, entrepreneurship, trading.
Black and white feminists in the west and many African feminists have targeted female circumcision (and I use the word circumcision deliberately) for complete eradication. It is a crude practice in its present form, but many African women have said they support it; can we help them make it a safe option instead of telling them they are wrong? Young boys are dying in South Africa during circumcision rites; the on-going conversation is about ensuring safety not ending the practice.
Western women practice cosmetic surgery of all sorts including genital piercing and vaginoplasty, and call it ‘bodily enhancement’ or ‘body art’, in ‘primitive’ Africa its mutilation. I do not support this practice on children that cannot exercise informed choice but shouldn’t we listen and respect adults who make that very personal choice? Having a clitoris shouldn’t be a badge of honour. Kola Boof is not my favourite person but she has shown that even infibulation can be erotic and powerful.
I am confronted daily by sisters who are desperate to find a husband or to conceive and who are risking their mental and physical health in the process. While I believe that a woman’s worth and self-identity are not and should not be dependent on either, how can I ignore her suffering? Why should I tell her she should get a career or that marriage or having children isn’t really important? It’s important to her.
Marriage is an important rite of passage in many African cultures; it’s a sign of maturity and responsibility and in a lot of Nigerian communities a single person, male or female, is not allowed to exercise leadership unless they are married. Marriage and procreation are not just individual choices; they are an obligation of community citizenship. Discrimination against women in marriage is patriarchal oppression, not marriage itself.
The discrimination a Nigerian woman faces if she is married and can’t conceive is very, very real. The ability to overcome infertility is determined by economic class. Middle class women have the option of expensive fertility treatments or they adopt another expensive option. Reducing the cost and ease of adoption and fertility treatments would seem as important for Nigerian women as the right to abortion or contraception. But are these particular issues on the feminist agenda?
Motherhood provides protection for women. My ancient aunts in the village would ask ‘who will visit you and ask after your welfare when you are old if you don’t have children?’. Stories of old (and young) people dying alone in the west baffle us. In Nigeria middle and upper class women can afford geriatric care and will have people concerned for their welfare so long as their money lasts even if they don’t have children. But for the working class and poor, rural woman not having children could have harsh consequences in her old age.
African feminists like Rose Acholonu, Catherine Acholonu , Helen Chukwuma and Molara Ogundipe-Leslie have written extensively on the importance of marriage, family and motherhood in African. They tried to define an African feminism that recognizes and celebrates these communal values in opposition to western feminism that promoted individualism and saw marriage and motherhood only as oppressive patriarchal burdens or personal pleasure. They also argue persuasively that the Africa worldview is not primarily patriarchal but based on equal male-female complementarity. Are we throwing out the baby with the bath water? Yet again?
African women have told us polygamy gives them more options and freedom, do we respect that? In the late 80s Women in Nigeria (you might want to explain what this organisation is) held its first conference with market women and they failed to reach a compromise on polygamy in their final communique on the issue. The matter remains one of contestation and has been largely ignored by feminists as a matter of individual choice rather than a part of the feminist agenda. Polygamy is still demonized but apparently it does work for some women.
The reaction of human rights and women’s rights groups to increasing homophobia on the continent has become as predictable as a knee jerk. Feminists in the Diaspora have been especially vocal on insisting that homophobic legislation and discrimination is resisted. Let me state that I am a liberal and that I believe sexuality is a choice and a right but for every LGBT person killed there are hundreds of women killed at the hands of male sexual partners that go largely unremarked. Legislation on VAW could use the same fervour and support rallied against homophobic legislation.
I have no sympathy for homophobia but how do we address the underlying fears that breed the prejudice? It is popular to say that homophobia is driven by the patriarchy’s need to keep women in their place but are their alternative narratives? Could it be that homophobia is at least partially driven by a fear of its impact on family structures and family values that we have already identified as being central to Africa’s ideology?
MzAgams 