Women's Liberation: Has the African Woman settled for tokens?

Extract

The Rights of Women throughout most of Africa are guaranteed, legally. Yet the full participation of women in the life of many African countries is still more a matter of policy than practice. Very few women share in the actual power of state. Former traditional securities are today less assured. Rather than more high-level appointments, the masses of women need more to be awakened to their potential as the changers of women’s position. For this, ‘Women’s Lib’ may have something to offer.

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‘Women’s Liberation’ is the current development in the United States, although the movement has since spread to Europe. However, a militant reformist movement of African women predates this upsurge of feminist rebellion by nearly two decades. It was born out of national struggles for independence. The women of Algeria fought and worked for their nation’s independence and after the struggle a dynamic women’s organization was founded. Sékou Touré described as ‘decisive’ the contribution of Guinea’s women to the liberation of the country and the growth of the Democratic Party of Guinea. The Mau Mau of Kenya’s forests learned that their women had equally understood the high stakes at risk in the war against European settlers.

These activist roles in bringing about independence in many countries facilitated the development of an undoubtedly latent ‘freedom consciousness’. However, this stirring was only for a duration centred on the struggle against the colonial authorities. In some instances, women’s national movements were given impetus because of the gap between what women expected and had been promised, and what they actually received.