The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender DiscoursesU of Minnesota Press, 1997 - 229 pages 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, where the body was not the basis of social roles. Oyewumi traces the misapplication of Western, body-oriented concepts of gender through the history of gender discourses in Yoruba studies. Her analysis shows the paradoxical nature of two fundamental assumptions of feminist theory: that gender is socially constructed and that the subordination of women is universal. The Invention of Women demonstrates, to the contrary, that gender was not constructed in old Yoruba society, and that social organization was determined by relative age. A meticulous historical and epistemological account of an African culture on its own terms, this book makes a persuasive argument for a cultural, context-dependent interpretation of social reality. It calls for a reconception of gender discourse and the categories on which such study relies. More than that, the book lays bare the hidden assumptions in the ways these different cultures think. A truly comparative sociology of an African culture and the Western tradition, it will change the way African studies and gender studies proceed. " |
Contents
Visualizing the Body Western Theories and African Subjects | 5 |
Reconstituting the Cosmology and Sociocultural Institutions of OyoYoruba | 35 |
Making History Creating Gender The Invention of Men and Kings in the Writing of Oyo Oral Traditions | 84 |
Colonizing Bodies and Minds Gender and Colonialism | 125 |
The Translation of Cultures Endangering Yoruba Language Orature and WorldSense | 161 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
African societies African Studies African women aláàfin anafemale anamale anasex anatomic Anthropology arókin assumption ayaba bàbá biological body Christian colonial conception conjugal partner devotees discourse distinction division of labor dominance Egúngún English Èṣù European example fact Fadipe Fagunwa father Feminism feminist gender categories hierarchy historians Ìbàdàn Ibid idea identity important indigenous institutions interest interpretation ìyá ìyálóde Johnson Lagos lineage literature London male and female marriage missionaries mother Nigeria notion oba ruler obìnrin offspring Ògbómosó Ogundipe ọkùnrin Old Oyo ọmọ oral traditions Orature oríkì Òyó Oyo Empire person political polygamy position precolonial privilege question religion Robin Law role Routledge ruler Samuel Johnson Sàngó scholars seniority sexual social categories socially constructed Sudarkasa tion trade translation Ulli Beier V. Y. Mudimbe West Western wives woman world-sense writes York Yoruba Yorùbá culture Yorùbá history Yorùbá language Yorùbá society Yorùbáland
Popular passages
Page x - A man's body gives credibility to his utterance whereas a woman's body takes it away from hers (Ellman, 1968). A study done by Philip Goldberg which was concerned with finding out whether women were prejudiced against women demonstrates this effect very clearly (Goldberg, 1969). Here is Jo Freeman's description: 'He gave college girls sets of booklets containing six identical professional articles...
References to this book
Feminist Futures: Re-imagining Women, Culture and Development Kum-Kum Bhavnani No preview available - 2005 |
Sex and the Empire That Is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in ... J. Lorand Matory No preview available - 2005 |