man control through modern contraceptives (so-called family planning). The as­sumption regarding people in Africa (or in the Third World in general) being more ‘primitive’ than the West, would be that they are also more ‘natural’, with sex as a matter of course being linked to procreation. This however is not the case. There are many […]

which parts Christian, which parts not? The major reason for such endeavour in the context of this volume, is to broaden the vision, to keep alert a notion of pos­sible alternatives, and to maintain a perpetual awareness regarding what otherwise might very easily pass as implicit assumptions. The fact that virtually all African ‘traditions’ and […]

Obviously the Christian influence on the ways in which sexuality in Africa has been/is seen is decisive. Furthermore, as has been the case for something like a century now, in many parts of Africa, Christianity is no longer just determining the ways in which gender relations are perceived from the outside; Christianity is also influencing […]

egy for women’s empowerment! Previously, before the Jola adopted Islam and fe­male circumcision from their Mandinka neighbours, it was only through mar — riage/motherhood that women could achieve ritual status. But now, with a new form of female secret society connected to Islam and to female circumcision, women are no longer dependent on their relations […]

rican women should use their existing, often uncharted power base and build on that instead of following the Western lead of ‘trying to be like men’. In GAD lines of thinking, ‘tradition’ and ‘African culture’ are detrimental to women, being posed in opposition to gender equity and modernity. Even if this construction of tradition/modernity as […]

idence, in feminist theory and elsewhere, regarding ‘patriarchy’ itself being many different things,[10] and in spite of the work of prominent African feminists like Ifi Amadiume and Oyeronke Oyewumi, who—based on their own empirical work in Nigeria—show that talking of ‘female subordination’ is far too simple and off the mark. Amadiume and Oyewumi explicitly critizise […]

One of the areas where, surprisingly, colonial continuities are still alive and kicking is in gender-and-development discourse. In gender-and-development (GAD) dis­course ‘world wide patriarchy’ and ‘universal female subordination’ look like pri­mordial facts of nature (cf. Becker, this volume). This in spite of thinking and ev- Arnfred Page 12 Wednesday, March 3, 2004 2:38 PM

ginity testing. Virginity testing is said to be an ancient Zulu custom,[8] applied by older women to their junior female kin as a pre-marriage control. To be sure, the impetus for a revitalization has apparently come from below, from older Zulu women themselves, and also seems to be supported by the young women who (presumably […]

to the most criminal element in the country; medical schools where they are likewise convinced of their inferiority by being reminded of their role as germ carriers; schools where they learn a history that pictures black people as human beings of the lower order, unable to subject passion to reason (Mbeki 2001b). But then, in […]

South African president Thabo Mbeki.[5] Negatively, because Mbeki only exposes dichotomies, proceeding to turn them upside down, but he does not dissolve them. By failing to dissolve the dichotomies, Mbeki inadvertently supports and main­tains these lines of thinking. In the speeches in question, Thabo Mbeki goes out against the ‘dark continent discourse’: “It used to […]