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Dollars and Lipstick: The United States Through the Eyes of African Women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Yvette Djachechi Monga
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Abstract

In their quest for material well-being Cameroonian women see the United States as a country of virtually boundless opportunities. It is Eldorado, offering chances of earning money by selling cosmetics that are guaranteed not to have been tampered with. It is the new frontier, the Far West, where mothers send their children to study in the hope that a job-oriented education will make it easier for them to return home. It is the future, prefigured in the New York skyscrapers; Cameroonian mothers dream of bringing forth American children, and so giving tham a better chance of absorbing this world of the future. When the American dream is not accessible, the United States still offers an imaginary space where women reinvent the conditions of their existence by adopting some of the signs of American culture in their everyday life in the tropics. The use of lipstick thus appears as the symbol of a world-culture behind which hovers the giant image of the United States. The experiences of Cameroonian women can be extended to women in other African countries and, beyond, to the men of Africa, also suffering the precariousness of the present, faced with the same challenges of the future and engaged in the same quest for material well-being.

Résumé

Les Etats-Unis évoquent chez les femmes camerounaises l’image d’un pays aux opportunités quasi illimitées dans leur quête d’un mieux-être matériel. C’est l’Eldorado, offrant des chances de gagner de l’argent en vendant des cosmétiques garantis non trafiqués. C’est la nouvelle frontière, le Far West où les mères envoient leurs enfants étudier dans l’espoir qu’une formation adaptée à l’emploi facilitera le retour au pays. C’est l’avenir enfin, que préfigurent les gratte-ciel de New-York; alors les mères camerounaises rêvent d’accoucher des enfants américains, leur donnant ainsi de meilleures chances d’intégrer ce monde en devenir. Quand le rêve américain est inaccessible, les Etats-Unis offrent encore un espace imaginaire où les femmes réinventent les conditions de leur existence par l’intégration de certains signes de la culture populaire américaine dans leur quotidienneté tropicale. La consommation du rouge à lèvres apparaît ainsi comme le symbole d’une culture-monde derrière laquelle se profile l’image géante des Etats-Unis. Les expériences des femmes du Cameroun peuvent être étendues à des femmes d’autres pays africains et, au-delà, aux hommes de ce continent, eux aussi subissant la précarité du présent, confrontés aux mêmes défis de l’avenir, et engagés dans une même quête d’un mieux-être matériel.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , May 2000 , pp. 192 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2000

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