Work · African & Africana Philosophy
The Invention of Women
Oyěwùmí argues that in Yoruba society seniority rather than gender organised social life, and that “woman” as a category arrived with colonialism and Western scholarship – a much-debated thesis.
Introduction
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí, a Nigerian sociologist teaching in the United States, published the book in 1997 with the University of Minnesota Press, subtitled “Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses”. She argues that Western thought rests on a “bio-logic” that reads social roles off the body, and that even the word “worldview” privileges sight; she proposes “world-sense” instead. Yoruba grammar is largely gender-free – pronouns and many kinship terms do not mark sex – and social position depended mainly on relative age. Through colonial administration, missions and anthropology, she argues, “women” were created as a subordinate category. Critics have questioned her reading of the language and the historical evidence; the book nonetheless became a reference point for African and decolonial gender studies.
Connections
Taken up in
- Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System2007 · María Lugones
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