African Philosophy in Pursuit of an African Renaissance for the True Liberation of African Women

Background and Introduction

In October 2015, one of the top South African universities, Wits University, announced a 10% fee hike to be effected in 2016 (Zwane, 2015, pp. 6-7). This provoked protests by Wits students giving birth to the #WitsFeesMustFall movement. Soon, this movement went beyond Wits as students throughout South Africa clashed with the police, demanding a 0% fee increase. Thus, a nationwide #FeesMustFall movement was born. After a shutdown of virtually all South African universities, the government and universities’ leaders scrapped the fee increase for 2016 (Cele, Masondo, & Nhlabathi, 2015, p. 1). While students were waging struggles against universities’ powers, internal power struggles manifested as “patriarchy swayed in black consciousness” (Pilane, 2015, p. 12) emerged among students. Some male students shouted down the then incoming Wits University’s female president, Nompendulo Mkhatshwa, who, upon asking them to sit down, said they “won’t be told by a woman”:

They refused to sit down, even though most people were pleading with them. I then asked two of them why they refused to sit and whether this had to do with the gender of the person instructing them. They said it didn’t, but they continued to say that “feminism must voetsek.” (Pilane, 2015, p. 12)

While the students snubbed and defied Mkhatshwa, the female leader, they listened to male leaders, with one student arguing that the stance did not have anything to do with gender but that he found the male leaders “more inspiring” and “strong,” leading to Pilane (2015, p. 12) to point out that the male leaders were “considered ‘strong’ because they fit into the existing narrative of political jargon, tone and linguistics, which on its own is hypermasculine.” The act of undermining women’s contribution was not confined to Wits University. A Stellenbosch University student, Ijeoma Opara, told Destiny magazine that “misogyny within the student movement is a very real threat” (Adams, 2015, p. 22):

Women in leadership positions in our movement, as well as at Wits and other universities, are under more scrutiny and their every move is examined. The roles of certain women are definitely questioned. An example would be Jodi Williams . . . However, because she identifies herself as black and gay, she’s often challenged. We try to make decisions as a collective, but if an idea comes from her, it’s often rejected, whereas if a man [suggested] the same thing, it would likely be well received.

While these debates and struggles were taking place, it emerged that a female student belonging to the #RhodesMustFall movement was “raped by a ‘fellow comrade’ at Azania House” (K. Mugo, 2015, p. 35). The #RhodesMustFall is a student movement that emerged early in 2015, fighting for the removal of colonial symbols in higher institutions of learning, appointment of more Black professors, and an Afrocentric curriculum. Noting that this was not the “first time that women find themselves on the receiving end of violence in spaces that are meant to be safe, empowering and liberating,” Kagure Mugo (2015) further observes that when women “have tried to raise these issues in the movements they belong to, they have faced resistance” (p. 35). While acknowledging that movements such as the #RhodesMustFall are doing “amazing work,” Kagure Mugo further wonders “what is the point of building a lovely new house if it is filthy inside?” She further questions what this says about those members in the movement if they can turn a blind eye to injustice so close at home.

What is the good of making sure that fees have fallen if women are scared to walk to the library at night in case they are assaulted and, worse, have no support from the very movements they endorse? . . . Social movements, especially student-based ones, that seek to uphold and ensure the rights they fight for must first make sure that they, too, adhere to justice. (K. Mugo, 2015, p. 35)

On the eve of the African Native National Congress (ANC) Women’s League elective conference in August 2015, the then League president, Angie Motshekga, criticized “patriarchy” in the ANC and “power hungry men” who “manipulate” women in order to serve men’s interests (Nhlabathi & Cele, 2015, p. 6). Motshekga declared her intention to remove the “dominant ‘politics of egos’ from within the party which is threatening the chances of a woman being elected to lead the party [ANC] in 2017" (Nhlabathi & Cele, 2015, p. 6). Outlining patriarchal tendencies in the ANC, which undermine women’s advancement, Motshekga (Nhlabathi & Cele, 2015) argued that

even some men in the ANC, you expect them to be a bit progressive, but not so when it comes to their interests. They want to influence anything that has a voice for their own personal power. So, it is not about a female president; it is about them . . . . You may find that the men will champion women if they are going to get the candidate that will give them the things that they want. So it is not about gender when it comes to manipulation; it is about power. If they can use you, they will champion you. (p. 6)

During the League’s conference, it was reported that one delegate was sent home and faced disciplinary action after she was found with a bag containing money meant to bribe certain delegates in a presidential contest between Motshekga and Bathabile Dlamini, which was won by the latter (Magome, 2015, p. 1). Upon Dlamini’s election as the League’s president, she declared that “the league would campaign for a woman to succeed President Jacob Zuma” (Shoba, 2015, p. 4). Dlamini “ran on a campaign ticket that a female candidate, preferably African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma or ANC chairperson Baleka Mbete, should succeed Zuma” (Stone & Nhlabathi, 2015, p. 6). Two factors strengthened Motshekga’s claims that women pushed to leadership by men would serve men’s selfish interests. First, it was reported that the election of Dlamini was engineered by some powerful ANC male members who supported Dlamini because Zuma “preferred” her (Stone & Nhlabathi, 2015, p. 6). Specifically, the three males behind Dlamini, known as the “Premier League,” so called because they are provincial premiers, were cited: Free State Premier Ace Magashule, Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza, and North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo. Second, among other reasons for supporting Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is that as the ex-wife of Jacob Zuma, their children would not allow her “to pursue Zuma legally [for allegations of corruption that were abandoned on the eve of the 2009 general elections]” (Mataboge & Letsoalo, 2015, p. 3). This is informed by the view that “[w]hatever happens the ANC must never hear you say you want to charge Zuma. All these considerations make Nkosazana an ideal candidate” (Mataboge & Letsoalo, 2015, p. 3). These remarks do not take away the acknowledgment that Dlamini-Zuma is a leader in her own right.

An examination of the history of the liberation movement reveals that some men have consistently resisted the notion of women’s liberation. This resistance, which seems to manifest itself in the ANC, the #RhodesMustFall, and #FeesMustFall movements, entrenches the prejudiced misrepresentations of Africans by European philosophers who falsely claimed that African culture promotes women’s oppression, thus undermining the quest and endeavor in the continent toward an African renaissance. It should be recalled that Kant (2003) had written that “[i]n the lands of the blacks, what better can one expect than what is found prevailing, namely the feminine sex in the deepest slavery” (p. 113). To entrench his claim, Kant (2003) cited a report from a Father Labat, to the effect that when the priest reproached a Negro for the latter’s haughty treatment toward his wives, the Negro replied that “whites are indeed fools” because, first, they “make great concessions” to their wives, and afterward “complain when they drive [them] mad” (p. 113). Even if there might have been some sense in what the African said, “which perhaps deserved to be considered . . . in short, this fellow was quite black from head to foot, a clear proof that what he said was stupid” (Kant, 2003, p. 113). Not to be left out, Hegel (1956, p. 96) pointed out that through polygamy, Africans procreated and sold their children into slavery. Noting that the “peculiar African character is difficult to comprehend,” Hegel (1956) concluded that “it is manifest that want of self-control distinguishes the character of the Negroes. This condition is capable of no development or culture, and as we see them at this day, such have they always been” (p. 98). Confronted with this representation that denigrated the African image, in their quest to free themselves from physical and mental chains, Africans saw a need to reclaim their voice and represent themselves through a project that later came to be known as the “African renaissance.” I am arguing below that while the African renaissance project was meant to liberate both African men and women, some African men ignored the aspect of the African renaissance that championed the notion of women’s liberation. Through the examination of traditional African philosophy, I will argue that ancient Africans have historically placed a great value on women, and that for the African renaissance to be true, African women’s high status in society should be reclaimed. I will then examine, to a limited extent due to space constraints, how the African liberation movement has sought and encountered resistance in the struggle to advance women’s rights. I begin with the genesis and trajectory of the African renaissance.

The African Renaissance: Genesis and Trajectory

Refuting Western philosophy’s baseless claims about Africans’ lack of inventions in natural and social sciences, Diop (1996) observes that the “African is unaware that his ancestors . . . are humanity’s most ancient guides on the path of civilization,” (p. 50) that the Africans are the first in the creation of philosophy, writing, the exact sciences, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and so on. While Diop’s call for an African renaissance was acclaimed in the African world, Amadiume (1989) protests that

African men . . . feel contented to cite only those aspects of the work of the great thinker which serve their purpose, especially the reclaiming of the ancient civilization. The fundamental thesis of his work, which rests on African matriarchy, is the least given importance and applied. (p. xviii)

Indeed, Diop (1989) emphasizes that part of ancient Egypt’s great civilization is that “[t]his is one of the African countries where matriarchy was more manifest and most lasting” (p. 50). But Diop (1989) does not limit matriarchy to Egypt but advances the argument that “African matriarchy existed on a continent-wide scale,” clarifying that the “matriarchal regime existed generally in Africa, in ancient times as well as at the present day, and that this cultural feature does not result from an ignorance of the role of the father in the conception of the child” (pp. 62-63). Matriarchy in Africa, Diop (1989) further tells us,

is not an absolute and cynical triumph of woman over man; it is a harmonious dualism, an association accepted by both sexes, the better to build a sedentary society where each and everyone could fully develop by following the activity best suited to his physiological nature. A matriarchal regime, far from being imposed on man by circumstances independent of his will is accepted and defended by him. (p. 108)

By extending matriarchy beyond Egypt to the rest of the continent, Diop first enables Africans to demonstrate that Africanness is more than a geographical fact but a notion of cultural identity. Second, by demonstrating the same cultural pattern (matriarchy in this case) throughout the African continent, Diop (1989) succeeds in his project to “bring out the profound cultural unity still alive beneath the deceptive appearance of cultural heterogeneity” (p. 1). Remarking on the prevailing patriarchy in Africa, Diop (1989) notes that the transformation from matriarchy to patriarchy is a result of “outside factors, such as the religions of Islam and Christianity and the secular presence of Europe in Africa” (p. 113).

The African who has been converted to Islam is automatically ruled, at least as far as his inheritance is concerned, by the patriarchal regime. It is the same with the Christian, whether Protestant or Catholic. But in addition, colonial legislation tends everywhere to give an official status to these private choices . . . . (Diop, 1989, p. 113)

Diop’s observation above, once and for all, demolishes Kant’s generalizations about the treatment of women in Africa. Unequivocally, Diop (1989) points out that “[n]o evidence can be found either in literature or historical records—Egyptian or otherwise—relating to the systematic ill-treatment of Egyptian women by their men” (p. 54). As Rukuni (2007) points out, “abuse of women is diametrically opposed to the traditional values of Afrikans” (p. 33). The observations by both Diop and Rukuni serve as a caution against concluding, on the basis of a single “Negro” act that in African culture women are subjected to slavery. What individuals do or do not do is not necessarily a cultural reflection of a society, and therefore, individual acts should not be generalized as societal values as Kant does. African culture is here defined as the “sum total of African philosophy, ideas, and artifacts” (Asante, 1990, p. 4). This definition enables us to demonstrate that culture is understood as acts informed by consciousness and logic, a philosophical exercise. The interrogation of African culture is a necessary philosophical exercise because it enables us not only to examine what Africans traditionally did and currently do, but also the thought processes, the logic, or rationale that informed and informs their acts. As Serequeberhan (1991) points out,

It is the lived concerns of a culture and of a tradition, as they are disclosed by questions posed from within a concrete situation, that serve as the bedrock on which and out of which philosophical tradition is established. (p. 3)

In 1998, 4 years after the first democratic elections in South, and after more than 300 years of colonialism, South Africa hosted an African renaissance conference. Recognizing that centuries of colonialism had damaged Africans’ self-esteem, Mbeki (1999) observed that an “enormous challenge faces all of us to do everything we can to contribute to the recovery of African pride” (p. xx). To that effect, Mbeki (1999) continued, “what this means is that we must recall everything that is good and inspiring in our past” (p. xxi). In making this call, Mbeki was following in the footsteps of Diop. As if haunted by Amadiume’s protest against women’s marginalisation in the African renaissance project, assessing the achievements and the limitations of the 1998 African renaissance conference, Makgoba, Shope, and Mazwai (1999, p. vii) noted that the conference “did not cover the role of women . . . of Africa in the renaissance.” Makgoba et al. could not have observed otherwise because Mbeki (1999) ensured that the African renaissance conference heard that

the engagement of women in these processes by which the people determine their destiny must be central in our determination as to whether we are succeeding or otherwise in the struggle to make the masses of the people their own liberators. (p. xv)

In unequivocal terms, M. C. Mugo (1999) made it explicit that “no meaningful cultural renaissance can take place while certain sectors of the population under transformation are victims of silencing” (p. 217). Explicitly, M. C. Mugo (1999) pointed out that the “silencing of women becomes massive in that they constitute a clear numerical majority on the African continent” (p. 217). For that reason, M. C. Mugo (1999) further argued, “token or politically correct recognition has to cave in, creating room for the kind of participation that places women at the centre of transforming action and discourse” (p. 217). While Mbeki encouraged the move to recall “everything good and inspiring in our past,” Teffo (1999) cautioned that to “succeed with the African renaissance this time, we will have to keep the failures of yesteryear alive in our hearts and minds” (p. 168). Teffo’s warning is most appropriate considering Amadiume’s observation above that the African elite was selfishly selective in embracing Diop’s earlier call for the African renaissance. His caution was timely considering Mugo’s warning, cited above, that African women must be spared from “token or politically correct recognition”. While Amadiume (1997) celebrates Diop “the best [African scholar] of them all,” (p. 65) Amadiume (1997) also criticizes his macro history that “ignored the base, that is, the very foundations of the socio-political systems which he described” (p. 15). Amadiume’s (1997) critique is that Diop

placed emphasis on the kings and queens and not the people; he looked at cities and not the villages; he focused more on centralized systems and not what he called the clan systems, that is, the decentralized systems — in short, African communities.

Cognizant of Amadiume’s caution, my point of departure will not deal with powerful African women who have exercised authority in African societies, although this would have been ideal to dispel Kant’s false claims. I begin with the status of African women in the liberation struggle.

African Women’s “Place” in the Liberation Struggle

In South Africa, it took the ANC 31 years since its formation in 1912, before it granted full membership to women (Gasa, 2007, p. 145). Prior to that, the South African Native National Congress (later ANC) “did not permit direct female membership” (Limb, 2010, p. 119). While Charlotte Maxeke, the first president of the Bantu Women’s League (formed in 1918) was regarded as “the most prominent African female activist of the day . . . attended the founding conference of the SANNC,” and continued to do so later, it has been observed that some “Congressmen may have tended to regard women as ‘tea and cake ladies’ when it came to the formal political sphere” (Limb, 2010, pp. 120-121, 242). This relationship with the ANC, however, did not marginalize women “in wider political discourse” (Limb, 2010). In 1913, for instance, South African women, independently, marched in Bloemfontein, challenging pass laws (Gasa, 2007, p. 137). In 1917, Charlotte Maxeke “proposed independent action by women” (Limb, 2010, p. 160):

How can men liberate women from the Pass laws when they themselves are subjected to them? . . . Let men and women cooperate against these pernicious Laws and then we shall be free (cheers) . . . In this building up of the nation, women must lead.

Among revolutionary leaders deserving “special mention” are Amilcar Cabral and Samora Machel (M. C. Mugo, 1999, p. 217). That is because these freedom fighters “made an effort to break cultural and political silences around African women” (M .C. Mugo, 1999). Singling out Machel, Mugo further notes that “one of Machel’s repeated themes was that the progress of any nation is to be judged by the level of its women’s emancipation” (p. 217). Machel (1973) championed the notion of women’s emancipation at a time when some of his own comrades within Frelimo, then a liberation movement, and later Mozambique’s ruling party, believed that “the task for women’s liberation . . . is purely secondary since it is a useless and strength-consuming task.” Some Frelimo comrades argued that championing women’s liberation was against Mozambicans’ traditions, and, therefore, it was “necessary to respect certain traditional local particularisms, since attacking them at this stage makes us risk loss of support by the masses” (Machel, 1973). But Machel (1973) insisted that the “liberation of men is not an act of charity. It is not the result of a humanitarian or compassionate position. It is a fundamental necessity for the Revolution, a guarantee of its continuity, and a condition for its success.” Reacting to Machel’s insistence, some comrades within Frelimo argued that women’s liberation was an “artificial liberation imposed on the women by Frelimo” (Machel, 1973). Unfazed, Machel (1973) wondered aloud:

Considering that the fundamental necessity of Revolution is its continuance by future generations, how may we assure their revolutionary training if the mother, as the first educator, is marginal in the revolutionary process?

If, as Machel (1973) argued, the revolution were to triumph,

It must liquidate the totality of the exploitative and oppressive system, it must liberate all the exploited and oppressed people, and thus it must liquidate women’s exploitation and oppression. It is obliged to liberate women.

This conviction articulated by Machel was echoed by Cabral in the Partido Africano da Independệncia da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC), a liberation movement against Portuguese colonialism in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. Cabral (1979) notes that some male comrades in the PAIGC

do not want to understand that liberty for our people means women’s liberation as well, sovereignty for our people means that women as well must play a part, and that the strength of our Party is worth more if women join in as well to lead with the men. (p. 71)

In anticipation of a victorious revolution, Cabral (1979) points outs that

when we have gained our independence, anyone who then wants our land to be independent, for example, but does not want women to be liberated, but wants to go on exploiting women in our land, though is one of the people today, he will not be so tomorrow. (p. 90)

Just as the comrades in Machel’s Frelimo resisted their leader’s convictions, comrades in Cabral’s PAIGC resisted Cabral’s endeavors, moving Cabral (1979) to note that some “comrades do their utmost best to prevent women taking charge, even when there are women who have more ability to lead than they do” (p. 71). Just as comrades in Frelimo accused the party of imposing women’s liberation on the cadres of the movement, cadres in the PAIGC singled out Cabral as imposing his notions of women’s liberation on the membership:

Many folk say that Cabral has an obsession about giving women leadership positions as well. They say: “Let him do it, but we shall sabotage it afterwards.” That comes from folk who have not yet understood anything. They can sabotage today, sabotage tomorrow, but one day it will catch up with them. (Cabral, 1979, p. 71)

And sabotage, they tried to do:

A political commissar, for example, spots . . . a bright and fairly attractive girl. Instead of helping her, giving her a hand to make progress in becoming a nurse or a teacher, in going to study, or become a good militia fighter or something of the sort, no, he makes her a mistress. For the latter is very beautiful and he has the right to take charge of her. We must put an end to this. (Cabral, 1979, p. 72)

The above demonstrates that the tendency to undermine women’s liberation while claiming to be revolutionary and hiding behind African culture is a perennial problem. An examination below of the “woman’s place” in African culture will demonstrate that such men have no place to hide.

African Women’s Place in African Culture as Mothers

Before we deal with women’s status as mothers in Africa, let us examine mothers’ status in Europe. While Russell (1996) notes that “[w]e know more or less what an educated Greek learnt from his father,” regarding the mother, he states that “we know very little of what, in his earliest years learnt from his mother, who was, to a great extent shut out from the civilization in which the men took delight” (p. 31). Enlighteningly, Foucault (Robinow, 1991) observes that in Greek society, “women were underdogs whose pleasure had no importance, whose sexual life had to be only oriented toward, determined by their status as wives” (p. 344). Diop (1989) notes that in Egypt, “[a]ffection for one’s mother and especially the respect with which it was necessary to surround her were the most sacred of duties (italics mine)” (p. 54). The ancient Egyptians valued the fact that the mother “was the first House or Home . . . was the abode of birth, and all early forms of the abode whether living or dead were first named after her” (Massey, 2007, p. 460). This notion of the sacredness of the mother was not confined to Egypt. In “Black Africa, it is almost everywhere thought that a child owes more from a biological point of view to his mother than to the father” (Diop, 1989, p. 32). Africans’ rationale is that the “biological heredity on the mother’s is stronger than the heredity on the father’s side” (Diop, 1989, p. 32). On this basis, the Africans conclude that “a child is wholly that which its mother is and only half of what its father is” (Diop, 1989, p. 32). Boateng (1990) points out that in Akan myth, “a man is supposed to derive his blood from his mother, one soul from God, another soul or spirit from his father” (p. 114). The logic here is that

[i]f the mother gave the blood to the child, then the child is closer to her than anyone else. It is therefore reasonable that the child should belong to her clan and so practice matriliny. (Boateng, 1990, p. 114)

On the origins of matriliny among the Asante, Akyeampong and Obeng (2005) note that the logic was that “if the wives of the sons are faithless, the blood of the family is entirely lost in the offspring, but should the daughters deceive their husbands, it is preserved” (p. 28). Africans appreciated very well that paternity is a probability and maternity a certainty. Hence, in Ghana,

Customs and rules demand that the successor to the king be his sister’s son; for, they say, the sovereign can be sure that his nephew is indeed his sister’s son; but nothing can assure him that the son he considers his own in actuality is. (Diop, 1987, p. 48)

Discussing “The Laws of the Bantu” with specific reference to “The High Law of Behaviour Towards Parents,” Mutwa (1998) notes that the law taught that

Man, know that of your two parents your mother ranks higher than your father. In quarrels between your parents you must come to the aid of your mother, be she right or wrong. You may strike your father, but never draw his blood. You may never strike your mother and even if you do so accidentally you must lose your right hand. (p. 626)

The above, being one of the oldest laws in Africa, “needs careful explanation” (Mutwa, 1998, p. 626). The logic that informed this law, Mutwa (1998) further informs us, was that there was a time

early in African history when the Old Tribes worshipped women. Men worshipped their mothers like goddesses and made sacrifices to them, and the Matriarchs and Rain Queens seen today are survivals of this custom (p. 626).

This law was informed by a rationale that

a woman, be she one’s wife or one’s mother, exists in the past, present and future at the same time, and she does not belong to one’s father or oneself, but to those yet unborn, and one’s ancestors (p. 626).

For this reason, “[t]he Bantu regard the killing of one woman as so great a crime that it needs a thousand men to die in battle of vengeance”, the logic being that “the killing of a woman means not only the destruction of her life, but the lives of thousands of others who could have been her descendants.” (Mutwa, 1998, p. 626)

This logic demonstrates that Africans regarded mothers as sacred, and so sacred that “if a man cannot avenge the murder of his female parent he must deliver himself to the murderer with the request to be killed as well” (Mutwa, 1998, p. 626). This African law taught that

if you touch a man’s wife, mother, sister or daughter, call them names, or refer insultingly to their womanhood, he is bound by law to kill you. If he fails he will make his children’s children take oaths to kill your children’s children. (Mutwa, 1998, p. 627)

The sacredness of the mother in African culture is informed by the rationale that “mothers are always closer to our Creator than fathers are, because of the role mothers play in giving birth—with the Creator physically giving life” (Rukuni, 2007, p. 33). Having examined women’s status as “mothers,” we now turn to women’s status as “wives” in African culture.

African Women’s Place in African Culture as Wives

Polygamy and lobola are two cultural practices in Africa that are cited as debasing women. It needs to be pointed out that it is often the case that while the intention of a cultural practice may be good, this does not stop a cultural communities’ members from misusing it. The philosophical question that needs to be raised is as follows: What is the rationale that informed the practices of polygamy and lobola among Africans? Before we examine the status of women as wives in Africa, let us first examine their status in Europe. With specific reference to Greek society, Foucault (1992) notes that “while the wife belonged to the husband, the husband belonged only to himself” (p. 147). In this society, being the husband “meant, above all, being the head of a family, having authority” (Foucault, 1992, pp. 150-151). Authority in this case specifically meant that it was the woman who “was under the authority of her husband” (Foucault, 1992, p. 152). In this arrangement,

No sexual relation was forbidden him as a consequence of the marriage obligation he had entered into; he could have an intimate affair, he could frequent prostitutes . . . A man’s marriage did not restrict him sexually. (Foucault, 1992, p. 147)

For a married man to have sexual relations outside marriage did not constitute in this society “adultery.” What this meant was that

adultery was not a breach of the marriage contract if it was committed by one of the two partners. It constituted an infraction only in cases where a married woman had relations with a man who was not her husband; it was the marital status of the woman, never that of the man, that made it possible to define a relation as adultery. Foucault (1992, p. 147)

While there was an expectation that every man, married or not, had to respect a married woman, what is significant in this prohibition was the reason, that being that “she was under someone else’s authority; . . . His offense was essentially against the man who held authority over the woman” (Foucault, 1992, p. 146). Now let us turn to Africa.

Rodney (2012) notes that in Africa, “women were exploited by men through polygamous arrangements designed to capture the labour of women,” significantly adding that “there is evidence to the effect that women were sometimes treated like beasts of burden, as for instance in Moslem African societies” (p. 226). Regarding polygamy, Diop (1989) points out that

monogamy was the rule at the level of the mass of the people, particularly in Africa. In so far as Africa is considered to be the land of polygamy, it is important to emphasize this fact. (p. 114)

Contrary to the view that polygamy was practiced to fulfill men’s insatiable sexual appetite, one of the purposes was to curb sexual promiscuity. Mutwa (1998, p. 633) points out that Africans believed that it was taboo for couples to engage in sex while the woman was going through her menstrual cycles. During such times, in polygamous arrangements, a man could turn to the other wife instead of seeking

solace in the arms of prostitutes and mistresses. Thus, not only is his married life and family prone to disintegration, but he plays his part in spreading all kinds of foul diseases. (Mutwa, 1998, p. 633)

Diop (1991) informs us that in

reaction to the various calamities and social upheavals (shortage of men due to wars, epidemics, genocide, etc.) the African system adapted by applying the communitarian principle to perversion with frightening logical rigor: thus, in certain cases, a son might marry a wife of his deceased father, excluding, of course, his own mother. (p. 118)

Diop goes on to point out that these are

the same communitarian principles that require polygamy, so that the individual, and every woman, may be spared social solitude: this was a deliberate choice of precolonial African society, a choice that was the opposite of the material and moral solitude necessary to individualistic Western societies.

Next is the issue of lobola. Noting that “African lobola should under no circumstances be confused with the Homeric bride-price,” Mutwa (1996) goes on to argue that lobola “does not involve buying a woman, because African religion holds that no-one has the right to buy a woman or, for that matter, any other human being” (p. 77). According to Mutwa (1996), the nine cattle given to the bride’s family each “represents a month in which the young man’s wife-to-be lay in her mother’s womb,” meaning that this “is an ancient ritual which honours women — in this case, the mother of the wife-to-be” (p. 78). Having examined African women’s “place” historically in African culture, let us now turn to their historical status within a political context.

African Women as Heads of States Prior Colonialism

Jacq (2004) notes that

[o]ccupying a prominent role in Egyptian society, a woman could be head of state, direct an initiation community, a public body or a business, marry and divorce at will, and bequeath her goods to the person of her choice. (p. xxiv)

In 1835 among the Sala, in what was then known as Northwestern Rhodesia, a village was founded by a female chief, Namumbe, whose chieftaincy was inherited by another female, Namumbe’s sister, Maninga (Davidson, 1970, p. 19). This female succession was not unique. Among the Asante, “three such women — Ama Sewa, Afrakuma Panyin, and Ama Saponmma—ruled in succession in the nineteenth century as chiefs of Dwaben” (Akyeampong & Obeng, 2005, p. 28). Among the Asante, the queen mother “was considered a co-ruler with the king in all state affairs,” indicating that the “very existence of the queen mother at the highest level of state organization signifies the complementarity of power as both male and female” (Akyeampong & Obeng, 2005, p. 29). The queen mother’s “unique qualities” such as “moral quality of wisdom, knowledge, emotion, compassion, all that pertains to her as a woman and is not bestowed by male officials” (Akyeampong & Obeng, 2005, p. 29). If this were the case, how, then, did women slip from power? We already learnt from Diop earlier that Europe’s patriarchal culture helped to undermine women’s prominent status in African societies. Rodney (2012) significantly notes that “since men entered the money sector more easily and in greater numbers than women” in an economy run on European colonial terms, “women’s work became greatly inferior to that of men within the new value system of colonialism” (p. 227). In this new arrangement, “men’s work was ‘modern’ and women’s was ‘traditional’ and ‘backward’” (Rodney, 2012, p. 227).

Therefore, the deterioration in the status of African women was bound up with the consequent loss of the right to set indigenous standards of what work had merit and what did not. (Rodney, 2012, p. 227)

There is another factor—war. As war, “a manly occupation,” took center stage, “women gradually slipped into the background on the stage of Asante politics . . . war involved death, and women as providers of life were prevented from going to war” Akyeampong and Obeng (2005, p. 33). But even in this regard, when it became necessary, women became military leaders commanding armies. One of them was Queen Yaa Asantewaa, who led a battle named after her — the Yaa Asantewaa War — in 1900 in the face of British colonial aggression while Asante male chiefs were paralyzed by fear (Akyeampong & Obeng, 2005). Rodney (2012) notes that one of the innovations “widely commented upon . . . was Dahomey’s utilization of its female population within the army” (p. 121). In this arrangement, women “progressed to become an integral part of Dahomey’s fighting machine,” (p. 121) and, importantly, “on terms of complete hardship and reward” and “were feared for their ferocity.” This narrative is a clear indication that, as Amadiume (1997) observes, “African women, however, did not have this prominence handed over to them on a platter of gold” (p. 104). Rather, as Amadiume (1997) observes, they “fought bravely to achieve it, and to maintain their self-esteem” (p. 104).

Concluding Remarks

This article was inspired by incidents in South Africa that indicated that some reactionary African males disguised in a revolutionary cloak are undermining the advancement of women in the political sphere. I argued that this tendency has serious implications for the African renaissance project aimed at the complete liberation of African people. I pointed out that such reactionary tendencies on the part of African males entrench the false view advanced by European philosophers that African culture promotes the oppression and relegation of women. I then retraced not only historical African practices that contradict this claim but also the rationale—in other words, the African philosophy—that informed the position of the African woman in traditional African culture. The central thesis of this article is that the traditional African culture that gave African women recognition and respect is that which must constitute the core and center of the African renaissance project