(West) African Feminisms and Their Challenges

Abstract

SummaryThis article highlights some challenges facing a set of African feminisms built on indigenous models. These feminisms are: Motherism – Catherine Acholonu; Womanism/Woman palavering – Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi; Nego-feminism – Obioma Nnaemeka; Snail-sense feminism – Akachi Ezeigbo; Stiwanism – Molara Ogundipe-Leslie; African womanism – Mary Modupe Kolawole; and Femalism – Chioma Opara. The challenges under discussion have been grouped into two categories: (1) inclusion vs exclusion; and (2) conceptualisation and target. This article discusses these challenges by posing a series of questions intended to provoke a critical re-assessment of African feminist theorisation. The article then proceeds to analyse a selection of work from Women Writing Africa: West Africa and the Sahel (2005) to see what the creative imagination offers as possible resolutions to these challenges. Two songs in the volume are analysed as part of the endeavour to redefine and prune (West) African feminisms.