Feminism a Western Ideology: Women have made significant gains all around Africa: indeed, particularly in policy and legislation. Malawi and Liberia have female heads of state, Senegal elected it`s first woman Prime Minister, the African Union Committee chair is female. Africas strong legacy of female leaders is a hugely positive statement about the continents direction. Surprisingly western feminist movement hardly looks at African feminism for clues? No attention is ever paid to the Utopian fantasy of female majority leadership in Rwanda – where women have over half the parliamentary seats? Feminists everywhere have spent decades campaigning for equality in political leadership, yet its achievement in Rwanda has been met with a loud silence. Unfortunately Countries like Rwanda are always discussed in view of 1994 Genocide which killed supposedly 800,000 people, most of them men anyway. Rwandan women MPs find themselves in the majority not because they subjugated men and Painted the picture of men as Evil Doers (rapists, thugs and killers) synonymous to the Western Feministic view of Men, but because of organized womens movement active mobilization that made equality became a top priority in the post-conflict constitution. Female activists made a conscious effort to include women in the rebuilding of the country after the genocide. In other words, what we see is not simply a consequence of the conflict or big-hearted male leaders handing out seats to women. It is a conscious and coordinated effort, by women for women. These are stories that have lessons for women the world over. Yet the western feminist movement has barely understood the Significance of Feminine African achievement, and instead what they always choose to see in African Women is women who are forcefully handed over in marriages, women heavily burdened by caring for large families which Men left, and women whose genitalia is mutilated, Women in Polygamous relationships – In the West petty triumphs of the womens movement are frequent topics of discussion. Not many feminists can readily name an African, let alone a Rwandan counterpart (You think am lying, Ask any feminist who Wangari Maathai is - Be Prepared for a Rude Shock ?). Where is the strength of the sisterhood, I wonder? Western, as well as African, feminism is diverse, naturally. But the western feminist movement is still mostly disengaged from the struggles being fought – and won – by women in other parts of the world which do not necessarily subjugate or relegate the Masculine figures, in order to propel the Feministic agenda.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 01:46:32 +0000
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