The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses

by Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí

The “woman question,” this book asserts, is a Western one, and not a proper lens for viewing African society. A work that rethinks gender as a Western construction, The Invention of Women offers a new way of understanding both Yoruban and Western cultures.

Author Oyeronke Oyewumi reveals an ideology of biological determinism at the heart of Western social categories-the idea that biology provides the rationale for organizing the social world. And yet, she writes, the concept of “woman,” central to this ideology and to Western gender discourses, simply did not exist in Yorubaland, where the body was not the basis of social roles.

Oyewumi traces the misapplication of Western, body-oriented concepts of gender through the history of gender discourses in Yoruba studies. Her analysis shows the paradoxical nature of two fundamental assumptions of feminist theory: that gender is socially constructed and that the subordination of women is universal. The Invention of Women demonstrates, to the contrary, that gender was not constructed in old Yoruba society, and that social organization was determined by relative age.

A meticulous historical and epistemological account of an African culture on its own terms, this book makes a persuasive argument for a cultural, context-dependent interpretation of social reality. It calls for a reconception of gender discourse and the categories on which such study relies. More than that, the book lays bare the hidden assumptions in the ways these different cultures think. A truly comparative sociology of an African culture and the Western tradition, it will change the way African studies and gender studies proceed.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, History, Gender, Africa, Race, Queer

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí is a Nigerian gender scholar and full professor of sociology at Stony Brook University. She acquired her bachelor's degree at the University of Ibadan in Ibadan, Nigeria and went on to pursue her graduate degree in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley Her 1997 monograph, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, offers a postcolonial feminist critique of Western dominance in African studies.

Reviews

[Alok Vaid-Menon · Rating 5 out of 5]

People who challenge gender norms are often dismissed as prioritizing “theory” over “reality.” This is historically incorrect. The reality is that Indigenous peoples across the world have long lived outside of the Western gender binary system. They were (and continue to be) forcibly assimilated into Western gender as a tactic of colonization.

In her work, Nigerian scholar Oyeronke Oyěwùmí draws from the history of her Yoruba culture to show how the category “woman” did not exist in Yorubaland prior to European colonization. She critiques how the West maintains the fictions that 1) gender categories are universal 2) gender is a fundamental organizing principle in all societies 3) there is a universal category of woman 4) the category of “woman” exists preculture, fixed in time and place in opposition to the category “man.” This was not the case in Yoruba society where the primary feature of social hierarchy was age, not gender. Yoruba peoples acknowledged distinct reproductive roles (obìnrin and ọkunrin) without using them to establish social hierarchy and distribute power.

The category of “woman” only emerged from the policies and practices of the newly imposed European state. It wasn’t just that women were disenfranchised by the law, it’s that the very categories of “women” and “men” – defined by anatomy and hierarchy – were instituted by the colonial authority. As Oyěwùmí argues, the “creation of women as a category was one of the very first accomplishments of the colonial state” (124).

Historically gender-neutral gods were replaced with male ones. Despite the fact that non-men had long participated in political and public life, the new colonial authority only recognized “male” leaders and refused to acknowledge the existence of “female” chiefs, effectively excluding “women” from all colonial state structures. Yoruba people were forcibly assimilated into Western patriarchy which regulated marriage, divorce, and pregnancy, legally defining women as second-class to their husbands. “Women” were denied access to education and therefore the ability to negotiate the “modern world,” leading to “men” gaining more wealth, status, and leadership roles over them and worsening gender inequality. Because the colonial state defined “men” as breadwinners, “women” were discriminated against in the taxation system, leading to even more economic dependence and instability. A completely new public sphere was created exclusively for men, a feature that became “the hallmark and symbol of colonial progress” (154).

The British later used this newly established gender inequality to justify their presence, using the imperialist narrative that they were protecting and empowering native women from native men. Oyěwùmí argues that African women were thrown into “the very bottom of a history that was not theirs…the unenviable position of European women became theirs by imposition, even as European women were lifted over Africans because their race was privileged” (33). The invention of womanhood in Yoruba society was instrumental in establishing the subordination of people who had previously exercised more freedom, autonomy, and influence.

So often when people say “man or woman” what they actually mean is “white man or white woman.” Gender and sex cannot be discussed as universal concepts, they must be located within specific cultural systems, histories, and societies.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Invention of Women, author Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí examines how the process of Western colonization has imposed the gender binary on one of Africa's largest ethnic groups, the Yoruba.

In pre-colonial Yorubaland, there was no language to distinguish male from female, except in the context of parenthood and marriage. A "female trader" was simply a trader, a "female leader" was simply a leader, and so on. Social hierarchies and roles were primarily determined by age and how recently one had joined a lineage by either birth or marriage. In other words, biology wasn't a justification for excluding any person from a particular role.

While the Yoruba have shaped their society in terms of what can be sensed—passing culture and history down through oral tradition, speaking a language in which different meanings can be derived based on the tone of one's voice, and making no distinction between physical and the spiritual realms in storytelling—Western culture has mainly privileged what can be seen, allowing for the creation of social roles based on skin color, genitalia, cranium size, weight, ability, and so on in a process Oyěwùmí calls "body reasoning". This visual logic has led to a hierarchy that privileges bodies which can be read by the Western gaze as inherently superior.

When British colonization of Yorubaland began, those with bodies read as female were stripped of power and relegated to the status of housewives, while those with bodies read as male and lifted to high status positions were made omnipotent, given more power than had ever been granted to an individual in precolonial times. The written word took precedence over oral tradition, and genderless gods and rulers were assumed male and written into history accordingly.

This should be interesting food for thought for anyone wondering why feminists have had so much to say about the term "history" (despite its innocent etymological origins). But while academic feminism has been indispensable for elucidating the notion of gender as a social construct, it hasn't fared so well in applying a critical lens in African studies, often imposing gender and patriarchy where it didn't exist in the first place. Feminism's potential as a global and cross-culture revolutionary movement is thus recuperated by the same colonizing forces that perpetuate and uphold the patriarchy it seeks to defeat.

Oyěwùmí has written an excellent and provocative book that details the importance of the gender binary in the project of colonization. Applying her work more broadly, it's easy to see how Western thought has failed to produce alternatives to capitalism for the future, as we're still failing to challenge the baseline assumptions that limit our construction of humanity's past and present. Highly recommended for anyone looking to decolonize their thinking on gender and biology-driven reasoning.

[bou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imma drop some bangers because all the homies have to read this....

Oyěwùmí critiquing western feminism and, essentially, feminism as a western idea:

"The biologization inherent in the Western articulation of social difference is, however, by no means universal. The debate in feminism about what roles and which identities are natural and what aspects are constructed only has meaning in a culture where social categories are conceived as having no independent logic of their own... But then, due to imperialism, this debate has been universalized to other cultures, and its immediate effect is to inject Western problems where such issues originally did not exist. Even then, this debate does not take us very far in societies where social roles and identities are not conceived to be rooted in biology."

"Beyond the question of asymmetry, however, a preconceived notion of gender as a universal social category is equally problematic. If the investigator assumes gender, then gender categories will be found whether they exist or not. Feminism is one of the latest Western theoretical fashions to be applied to African societies"

"If Western conservative discourses collapse the social world into biology by seeing all observed differences between men and women as natural, feminism maintains this lack of a boundary between the social and the biological by homogenizing men and women and insisting that all observed differences are social fabrications. This is the problem"

I could keep quoting on and on. I highlighted this whole damn book which was truly a life-changing changing read for me. To summarize, and to hopefully get y'all to read this too, Oyěwùmí's issue with (western) feminism, or possible even feminism as a concept, is that it assumes the existence of gender as a universal category. When the western feminist looks outward, or metaphorically downward, to the "women" of the global south, they, as Oyěwùmí insists, look for a supposed gendered division of labor and assume the presence of "women" in roles which are "traditional", only in the western sense, indicates a subordination of gender. If a western feminist were to view a Yoruba market and see a "woman" working, Oyěwùmí points out, they'd assume first that such a person is a "woman" and secondly, that they're engaging in a gendered activity of market trade. In reality, one's specialized task in pre-colonial Yoruba was determined by lineage and not gender. If an anatomical female, a word frequently used by Oyěwùmí that she shortens to "anafemales", was working at the market it is because they were from a lineage of traders not because they were anafemale. Projecting these western feminist discourses, as Oyěwùmí spends the entire book arguing, cannot be done in pre-colonial Yoruba as difference is made solely through age and lineage, not through gender. In fact gender did not exist as a linguistic or cultural phenomenon. Children were genderless (as there were no words for brother/sister, son/daughter). Siblings called each other Egbon and aburo which referred to younger and older sibling respectively - again difference is determined through age. There were distinct differences, between birthing people, anatomical female elders, brides, wives, husbands, grooms, and anatomical male elders (anamales). Each category had a specified name and could not be condensed to general categories of male and female.

I think Oyěwùmí's most sound criticism is how she notes western feminism has identified sex as biological and gender as socially constructed, and has been keen on universalizing a struggle to 1) differentiate the two and 2) insisting freeing ourselves from biological distinctions is liberating. I, for a long time, believed in such a feminist tradition. The issue, as she stresses, is that some indigenous and pre-colonial cultures were organized around biological distinctions of sex. Others weren't. Gender was fluid in some. In others, like Yoruba, gender and sex weren't really categories. In other words, there was a pluralism to our difference in precolonial societies that, ironically, western feminism tries to compress by believing any mode of social organization that defines biological difference is problematic. Cultures which may understand sex and gender as the same thing aren't problematic. What is problematic is if power (patriarchy and imperialism/colonialism) emerges from these differences and Oyěwùmí writes, "Questions such as, Why are women victimized or subordinated? and, What is the gender division of labor? are not first-order questions in regard to Yorubaland because both of these questions assume gender. Foundational questions for one interested in social organization might be, What is the Yoruba conception of difference? Is the human body used as evidence in this conceptualization?"

This idea of the "conception of difference" is key. It's instrumental in order to properly analyze relationships in different cultures as opposed to unconsciously projecting your worldview onto the societies in question. Oyěwùmí beautifully coins the term "worldsense" as old Yoruba culture, unlike western culture which is forefronts the visual as a sense, doesn't view difference through what can be seen, biologically for example, but culturally. Simply, this idea of "conception of difference" is rooted in how we refrain from projecting male/female onto other cultures and first investigating how the cultures in questions differentiate their people.

Lastly, as someone who is doubly displaced, 1) from W. Africa, 2)and two from Haiti, I feel deep spiritual pain due to my severance from African cultures, whichever that specific African culture could've been. Reading this book kind of reformulated my understanding of being non-binary. In the west, it still feels to form, inconspicuously, as a third and essentialist gender category, at least in my personal experiences. I feel as though now I understand non-binary as meaning not simply being male/female, but non-binary as in something is missing. As in I'm possibly severed from a culture where such opposition between gender didn't exist. Or perhaps that gender didn't exist. Or that the only difference that would ever matter is my cultural position in a family commune. A culture where I was not racialized or even gendered. A culture where I could've just been me...

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

If feminism at large has taught us anything, it has taught us to look for the woman: the woman in history, the woman in art, the woman in society. In each case where women have been erased, the work of feminism has laboured to put her back into the picture, picking her out from the depths of patriarchal overwriting, and returning her to the light where she belongs. But what if, in our zeal, we've begun to look for woman where she never existed? What if the woman - as we know her - has been an invention all along, an imposition even, not only from the West (onto the Rest), but on the West itself, and anything but a naturally given category from which analysis and action would flow? 

That, at least, is the argument given here in this tremendous work of sociology, which, by running 'Western gender discourse' through the annulus of Yorùbá (or Oyo) ways of living, challenges what we can take for granted of all 'we' know of gender. To be clear, at stake here is less woman as a biological category than as a sociological one: woman as a role, or as a principle for organizing social relations. Less 'what is a woman?' than 'who counts as a woman, for what purposes, in what situations?'. On this, Oyěwùmí is unequivocal: the category of woman "simply did not exist in Yorùbáland prior to its sustained contact with the West". While admitting anatomical distinctions, the point is that such distinctions were without sociological difference, never rising to the level of organizing life.

Giving this work its power is not only its 'negative' project - of busting the myth of the Yorùbáland woman - but also and equally, its 'positive' one: of showing, in place of gender, how the Oyo did in fact organize themselves. Where sociologists and anthropologists saw gender, what they should have sensed, rather, was lineage and rank (as an aside, the difference between sight and sense is one heavily insisted upon by Oyěwùmí, for whom the privilege of 'seeing' in the West must be contrasted to the Oyo appreciation of the senses more broadly; in fact it's sight that largely pegs gender to the (visible) body in the West in a way it doesn't among the Yorùbá). For it was by means of seniority that the Oyo largely understood themselves and each other, explaining, by means of it, who got to trade, to hunt, to cook, to rule and to do, well, most anything. 

But if this was the self-understanding of the Oyo from the 'inside', from the 'outside', scholars of the Yorùbá have tended instead to approach with a gender-shaped hammer just in order to find gender-shaped nails in every village. The framework of gender, carried in from without, not only distorted scholarship about the Oyo (distortions picked apart flesh from bone in Oyěwùmí's book), but more importantly, changed how the Oyo understood themselves too. This is the story of the 'invention of woman': of how Yorùbá society, 'woman free' to begin with, gradually internalized, though schooling, policy, religion, and commodification - the work of colonialism - the very categories that were read into them where they never existed.

While acerbic and cutting about much of the scholarship it examines (of Kwame Anthony Appiah: "Appiah's own unabashed and uncritical acceptance of the West and his dismissal of Africa are understandable given his matrilineal descent lines...") The Invention of Women is also largely nostalgia free, it should be said. That gender was an imposition never implies a kind of prelapsarian state of social 'equality', and indeed, it was precisely on account of various other social hierarchies (i.e. lineage) that gender failed to take root. Nevertheless, by dislocating the 'naturalness' of gender which remains stubbornly prevalent today, The Invention of Woman stands as a preeminent document in the dossier for the reinvention of gender in our time.

[Riccardo Mazzocchio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Molte civiltà africane precoloniali erano organizzate in base al ruolo e alla posizione sociale (raggiunta per capacità relazionale o ereditata per consanguineità) in uno scambio di rapporti regolato dall’anzianità di grado, indipendentemente da differenze bioanatomiche, cioè ignorando attributi e compiti previsti/attesi dalla categorizzazione secondo il sesso di appartenenza. Un rapporto quindi fluido, dinamico nel senso che l’anziano/a diventa giovane e viceversa, a seconda del contesto. Comunque, mai monolitico e rigido come quello impostosi con il colonialismo, espressione del patriarcato, cioè degli interessi del genere maschile a tutti i livelli. Analizzare queste civiltà secondo il punto di vista occidentale non solo è un errore ma è anche un ostacolo alla ricerca della conoscenza. Nello specifico, l'autrice è critica verso programmi e prese di posizioni internazionali che assumono che la condizione della donna sia la stessa ovunque nel mondo. "Colonization, besides being a racist process, instituted and legitimized male hegemony in African societies throwing African women to the very bottom of a history that was not theirs. Thus, the unenviable position of European women became theirs by imposition."

[Serene]

DNF @ 33%

I was recommended this book by my professor so I was really excited to read it, but honestly, I was really disappointed. Now listen, on the face of it, there is a lot of really good content here. They're right that western ideas of the gender binary are wrongfully shaping gender studies of cultures that exist apart from it. But in its attempt to stand up to the Western colonial imperialists, it completely neglects that said imperialists did not have a monopoly on this model of gender, and aren't even inherently the originator of them. I think there are fundamental flaws in the framing of this work which, admittedly, might have been addressed in the rest of it, but are so glaring to me 80 pages in that I have no real interest in continuing. There is a preoccupation here with proving that Actually Yoruba Culture Didn't Have Gender when what they Mean is that the gender structure of Yoruba culture was simply Different from Western convention. I feel like it would have been a better book if framed as an Alternative structure rather than something seemingly in opposition. Like yes, there is less of a focus on bioessentialism, but also, that's kinda hard to really jive with when you spend so much of a chapter talking about how the focus of a family unit is on procreation and raising children. I'm sure many of the issues come from this being written some 26 years ago, and our dialectics have changed, but it makes for a very distracting experience that has me feeling more frustrated than anything else. An important exploration, yes, but one I don't want to read at this point in time.

[Babasa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very very interesting book. I think it slowed down a bit after the first few chapters but it was good all the way through. The broadest point in the book - that gender is taken to be both socially constructed but also trans-cultural and trans-historical, and that doesn't make sense - is very well made. She breaks down the fact that Yoruba as a language is basically genderless - there's no word for 'brother' or 'sister', 'he' or 'she', 'boy' or 'girl', 'masculinity' or 'femininity', and even words that are translated to mean 'husband' or 'wife' could historically apply to both men or women - and that social roles were most based on seniority and familial lineage, rather than anatomical sex.

You also get a lot about the biocentricity of Western cultures, and the very real tendency to justify social differences in biological differences between races, sexes, social classes, etc. For me especially the breakdown of how Yoruba family structure worked - roles were based on seniority and lineage as opposed to gender, and land was held within the family rather than privately, to the extent that even in the 19th century Yoruba people did not understand what Europeans who wanted to buy land were talking about - was really striking. I think as a whole the book is a good reminder that many of the underlying assumptions of western epistemology are not universal across cultures, especially the most fundamental ones.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

The central thesis of the book concerning gender (or lack thereof) in Yoruba society is well-argued but its post-structuralist trappings (especially in the first chapter) are iffy

[Akemichan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro davvero interessante da leggere. La parte migliore secondo me è quella verso la fine dove si raccontano bene le ingerenze di una cultura esterna sugli Yuruba e anche il risultato sulle stesse popolazioni. La prima parte, invece... E' interessante a modo suo, nel senso che mentre leggevo provavo una sensazione di fastidio e le sue tesi non non stavano convincendo, poi mi sono resa conto che in realtà è che volevo sapere molto di più di quello che lei diceva. Infatti lei parla di tesi abbastanza universali ma parlando del particolare (il rapporto tra gli Yoruba/l'occidente coloniale) e a me non basta. Per esempio, lei fa riferimento al fatto che la parola "woman" abbia in sé la connotazione negativa di dipendere da "man" e io sono andata a cercarlo e ho scoperto che sì, è vero, ma prima c'era una parola molto più neutra per indicare la donna (quella da cui poi è emersa la parola "wife") quindi com'è? C'è stato un momento nei sassoni in cui il linguaggio era meno relativo al genere? Quando e come è cambiato? Perché gli Yoruba sono così e non altri popoli anche non colonizzati, dove invece il genere è sempre stato comunque un modo di distinguere?
Insomma, mi ha lasciato più voglia di indagare che risposte, e credo che questo sia una cosa positiva, in un saggio.

[nadia]

Pretty good critique of western universalist thinking but i'm unconvinced by her main argument that gender didnt structure any part of yoruba social life when she literally shows within the second chapter that that cant be true (for example only women are brides and marry into other lineages). Still good discussions of pre-colonial social organization, the impact of colonialism on those structures & the changes introduced through language

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un essai qui pousse la réflexion sur l'abus de grilles d'analyse occidentales sur des populations et périodes qui ne se portent pas à de telles analyses. À l'aide de textes, pratiques, une analyse des structures en place, une brève histoires des traductions du Yoruba à l'anglais, des analyses de mythes, mais surtout une longue analyse de la langue et de l'importance de la contextualisation, Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí démontre comment le féminisme applique faussement une lecture de la société yoruba pré-coloniale et néglige d'autres pistes de lectures (historiques, d'héritage, etc. ) pour mieux comprendre les inégalités et structures de pouvoir.

L'analyse porte aussi sur les changements à la société apportée par la colonisation, comment le langage s'est transformé et comment le rapport des hommes envers les femmes a changé, dans les structures de pouvoir comme dans les mythes et la manière de parler des femmes.

D'une grande érudition linguistique, historique, littéraire et des théories féministes et du genre, l'essai demande quand même beaucoup d'attention, de prendre des notes et de se souvenir des propositions qui sont avancées en début d'ouvrage pour poursuivre sa lecture sans se heurter à des barrières. L'essai peut théoriquement être lu à la légère, mais je pense qu'on perd un peu la complexité des idées avancées sans vraiment décider d'y mettre un effort.

Ma seule petite critique de l'essai est que l'autrice met trop d’œufs dans le même panier en s'intéressant presqu'exclusivement à l'étude de la langue pour prouver que les inégalités hommes-femmes n'existaient pas dans la société yoruba (et qu'il s'agissait d'une langue non-sexiste). Plusieurs éléments, soulignée par l'essayiste elle-même démontre que les femmes avaient certains rôles différents des hommes (ce qui ne permet pas de conclure toutefois que ces rôles indiquaient un rapport de pouvoir en défaveur de l'une ou de l'autre), ce qui devrait démontrer qu'il y avait distinction, au moins pour certaines tâches, dans les rôles hommes-femmes (même dans les sociétés occidentales, les femmes effectuent certaines tâches que les hommes effectuent sans que le sexe/genre y joue un rôle). Bref, en misant (presque) tout sur le langage, on assume que la société serait non-sexiste parce que le langage ne le serait pas ce qui me semble être un lien causal intéressant, mais pas suffisamment concluant pour prouver la thèse. Les quelques analyses des structures de pouvoir et l'observation des structures d'héritage et de mariage que l'essayiste effectue me semble beaucoup plus intéressante et concluante à l'effet que les femmes avaient un rapport de pouvoir similaire aux hommes puisque les questions d'inégalité et de structure de pouvoir étaient vraiment plus jouées au niveau familiale et de séniorité. J'aurais aussi aimé voir l'influence de la religion musulmane sur la société yoruba puisqu'on traite quand même beaucoup de la chrétienté et des textes, mais pas du tout d'une religion directement voisine aux Yorubas (je crois qu'il n'y a qu'une seule mention du Coran) ; je peux toutefois comprendre qu'il ne s'agit pas du rayon de recherche de l'essai ici.

Après cette lecture, je suis définitivement intéressé· à en lire davantage (j'ai déjà commandé un autre essai sur le sujet) pour explorer et approfondir un petit peu plus le tout! Ça m'a donné de quoi réfléchir beaucoup, mais je ne suis pas encore arrivé· au bout de la réflexion encore!

(la conclusion mériterait un peu d'être changée aujourd'hui avec la force des formes et pronoms neutres qui s'imposent en anglais et dont l'essayiste sous-estimait la pertinence en la reléguant dans le domaine de la science-fiction)

[Tam Sanami · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an African and a Nigerian to be specific, this book is really thought provoking in a good way. It makes every non western person to question their true cultures and traditions before the west interrupted. It is really a great book that any non western can learn one or two things from in relation to culture, social, and belief system.

[Sara Salem · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thought-provoking book about the ways in which Western gender categories have been imposed on African contexts. She shows that in Nigeria, society was not stratified along the lines of a binary understanding of gender, but more along the lines of elder/youth.

[venlandiahymni · Rating 5 out of 5]

suosittelen isosti

[wes. · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent read

[M. Ainomugisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the steadiest I’ve ready any work on gender and rightfully so.
In this text, Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí asks us to seek a de-relegation of biological determinism in our social thought which undeniably has its tentacles in Western and colonial cultural histories that don’t satisfy the larger sense of our world.

Oyèrónkẹ́ dives deeply into processes that disrobed the Yorùbá language of its genderlessness or “gender-freedom” as well as other continental African languages and dialects.

It’s a tight body of work that will leave you doing a lot of inventory regarding our society’s biologically insidious impositions of gender and the use of gender as a social organizing tool.

[Rosie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one’s a MUST read

[Dabiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

unos pocos argumentos me parecen algo flojos, pero en general es una pasada

[VoHooman · Rating 5 out of 5]

این ریویوو بر اساس نسخه انگلیسی این کتاب نوشته شده است و بنده اطلاعی از ترجمه آن به فارسی ندارم.

این کتاب پژوهشی است درباره زبان، فرهنگ و تأثیر استعمار غرب بر جوامع یوروبا در آفریقا، و همچنین دیدگاه دوگانه استعمارگران نسبت به زن و مرد.

نویسنده ابتدا به بررسی زبان و فرهنگ یوروبا می‌پردازد و نشان می‌دهد که در این فرهنگ، هیچ تفاوتی میان جنس زن و مرد و نقش‌هایی که می‌توانند ایفا کنند وجود ندارد. این برابری تا جایی است که کلماتی مانند «برادر» و «خواهر»، «شاه» و «ملکه» و واژگان مشابه در این زبان اساساً وجود ندارند.

سپس، نویسنده به تأثیرات استعمار غرب می‌پردازد و چگونگی ایجاد مفاهیمی را که در راستای اهداف سیاسی و مذهبی دوران استعمار بوده‌اند، به تصویر می‌کشد. از جمله این تغییرات می‌توان به مفاهیمی نظیر «زن به عنوان همسر» و تعریف نقش‌های متفاوت برای زنان اشاره کرد.

در مجموع، این کتاب اثری بسیار جذاب و قابل‌تأمل است و خواندن آن به همه افرادی که به این موضوعات علاقه‌مند هستند، توصیه می‌شود

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesantisima y valiosa, aunque caben matices. Que el lenguaje no tuviera una división implícita sexual no significa que no existiera en Lo Real rituales y prácticas "de género" (es lo que han señalado algunas antropologas), y tampoco cabe creer en una sociedad yoruba edénica.

Con todo, una lección de antropología para ampliar nuestras perspectivas eurocéntricas y saborear la diversidad de sexo, género y sociedad.

[clarkeackerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked most of it. Learnt a lot. Some sections were very dense and hard to go through, interesting tho, but... Would recommend it to everyone havign this in mind. I specially liked the part about senses and hot they define how we experience and conceive the world. It was eye-opening.

[Jorge Schumacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma obra que explica como a ocidentalização da cultura acaba influenciando no sexismo e machismo da sociedade Yorubá. Muito bem escrita.

[6655321 · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this is more a 3.5 star book because a lot of it is critiques that you can find in a lot of publications at this point (although this is a very early articulation of them), i.e. "woman" as constructed in western discourse and "sex" as a corollary are socially defined terms that contain inherent metaphysical properties. However, this is also a really awesome book on investigating that claim by comparing how male/female were imposed colonially in and how pre-contact systems of sociability and economics and politics were mediated by skills rather than by gender/sex. For Oyewumi the importance of genital sex was simply a question of who could marry whom and how children are made and there are no other social questions related to that. Which, tbh is really interesting although the term anamale and anafemale (to refer explicitly to how people are discussed in this context) sounds really TERF-y without this context. Anyway, this is a really good critique with some really interesting anthropology.

[Regina Gómez · Rating 5 out of 5]

La verdad es que este texto me parece impresionante, no es un libro fácil de leer y tiene una carga teórica fuerte. Pero aún así me parece buenísimo la forma en que sustenta que el patriarcado no es universal y que no todas las civilizaciones existieron a partir de relaciones binarias y jerárquicas del género -cómo sustentan los feminismos europeos-. Me parece un texto necesario e importante, no sólo porque es una africana hablando desde su localidad, si no porque representa un recorrido teórico y epistemológico a otros saberes más allá de los occidentales.

[Carla Parreira]

O livro busca construir uma compreensão africana sobre os discursos ocidentais de gênero. A autora, uma socióloga nigeriana, propõe uma nova maneira de entender as relações entre homens e mulheres, especialmente na sociedade urubá, onde a hierarquia social é baseada na idade, e não no gênero. Essa perspectiva desafia as problemáticas que normalmente surgem nas relações ocidentais, nas quais o conceito de gênero é central. Muitos estudos sobre as sociedades urubáas, realizados tanto por pesquisadores africanos quanto ocidentais, muitas vezes não oferecem um entendimento legítimo, pois são influenciados por referências ocidentais. Destaca também que a história dessas sociedades e a forma de contá-la foram frequentemente apagadas na África, especialmente com a introdução da escrita, que modificou a oralidade e a maneira como as histórias eram compartilhadas. Essa mudança na forma de contar histórias resultou na transformação da representação de mulheres e divindades na história, refletindo, muitas vezes, uma predominância de figuras masculinas nas narrativas históricas. Essa análise crítica aponta para a construção do conhecimento e das representações das mulheres na história africana, o que é fundamental para entender as dinâmicas de gênero e poder, levando a uma reflexão mais profunda sobre identidade e cultura africanas. O livro também aborda a mudança de percepção dos homens, especialmente aqueles que se tornam líderes religiosos e políticos, ao perceberem a desvantagem educacional de suas esposas em relação a eles. Essa percepção impulsionou uma mudança gradual, na qual alguns homens passaram a apoiar a educação das mulheres, reconhecendo que a falta de instrução feminina era um entrave ao progresso das famílias e comunidades. Ainda assim, essa mudança não é uniforme e ocorre dentro de um contexto marcado por desigualdades de gênero, em que a educação das mulheres ainda é vista como um complemento à masculina, não um direito igualitário. Outro ponto importante que a autora discute é como a colonização impactou as estruturas sociais e familiares. Antes, as mulheres tinham um papel ativo e reconhecido nas suas comunidades, mas, com a chegada das normas coloniais, passaram a ser vistas como dependentes dos homens. A introdução de conceitos ocidentais de propriedade e individualismo transformou a posse de terras, deslocando o foco da coletividade para a propriedade privada, predominantemente controlada pelos homens. Essa reestruturação não afetou apenas a educação e a propriedade, mas também as relações interpessoais e as percepções de valor dentro da sociedade. As mulheres passaram a internalizar a ideia de que suas contribuições eram menos valiosas, o que diminuiu sua autoestima e seu papel ativo na sociedade. Essa internalização de valores coloniais e patriarcais teve efeitos duradouros, que ainda influenciam as relações de gênero contemporâneas. Para entender a história e a posição das mulheres na sociedade africana, é necessário desconstruir as narrativas coloniais e ocidentais que distorcem essa realidade. É fundamental reconhecer a diversidade das experiências femininas e as contribuições delas ao longo do tempo, desafiando as visões limitadas muitas vezes presentes nas análises de gênero. Essa reavaliação é essencial para construirmos um futuro mais justo e inclusivo, onde as vozes das mulheres sejam verdadeiramente ouvidas e valorizadas. Ela também relata uma situação em que um homem, ao se casar, percebe que sua esposa não consegue acompanhar seu nível de formação, o que a impede de participar de reuniões e eventos importantes. Enquanto ele se ocidentaliza e se torna um homem de negócios, ela permanece presa às tradições culturais, refletindo uma disparidade que também se manifesta nos salários, com os homens recebendo remunerações mais altas à medida que a Nigéria se torna mais capitalista. Mesmo quando as mulheres começam a se educar e a ocupar espaços no mercado de trabalho, enfrentam barreiras que limitam seu acesso ao poder, pois a sociedade ainda privilegia a liderança masculina, independentemente das qualificações. A autora destaca que, mesmo que uma mulher tenha uma formação superior, ela frequentemente não é vista como capaz de liderar homens e mulheres, sendo necessário que um homem, mesmo com menos capacidade, ocupe a posição de liderança. Essa dinâmica reforça a ideia de que a obediência é mais facilmente direcionada aos homens, perpetuando a desigualdade de gênero. Por fim, ela enfatiza que seu objetivo não é que as sociedades ocidentais reestruturem suas relações de gênero, mas que reconheçam a existência de outras formas de vivenciar essas relações. A linguagem, segundo ela, desempenha um papel importante nessa construção, pois a priorização do masculino na linguagem reflete uma visão de mundo que marginaliza o feminino. Por exemplo, usar "homem" para se referir à humanidade reforça a ideia de que o masculino é o padrão, enquanto o feminino é secundário. Ela salienta que essa constru��ão não é universal; diferentes culturas possuem suas próprias maneiras de entender e expressar as relações de gênero. Assim, refletir sobre a linguagem e suas implicações é fundamental para desmontar as normas que sustentam a desigualdade. A discussão sobre a invenção das mulheres, portanto, não se limita a uma crítica ao ocidente, mas busca abrir espaço para valorizar diversas experiências e formas de relação que existem ao redor do mundo.

[Jay Ramzy II · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite nf book of all time. I recommend this to anyone interested in Africana/Yoruba culture and non-western views on gender. I love how this book less than implicitly tells us about the damage western anthropologists have done to African studies and our conception of African societies as a whole. Mandatory reading for anyone part of the diaspora

[Starry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book last year. I never got around to writing up my full thoughts on the work, so what follows in this “review” are the last two paragraphs from an essay I wrote after reading it for school. Don't take it as overly critical: this book was very noteworthy for its time, and is still a valuable read today—though less so if you're not interested in the specifics of old Yorùbá society, given the number of newer works that treat gender in similar fashion or go beyond it (like those of NZ Suékama, whose stuff I love).

The greatest criticism that can be made of The Invention of Women is its neglect for a rigorous anthropological analysis. To be certain, this is not the focus of the work, as it is a decidedly epistemological study. Still, Oyěwùmí’s infrequent use of scholarship to support her historical claims makes some accounts hard to swallow, particularly when the presence of just a few anafemales in an area of Yorùbá society is enough to prove the absence of gendered divisions. For instance, though she references how the Aláàfin Ọ̀rọ̀mpọ̀tọ̀ being rediscovered as female exposes the biases of early androcentric historians, it still seems like most other Aláàfins were probably male. (Yorùbá public discourse, to this day, celebrates Ọ̀rọ̀mpọ̀tọ̀ as “the woman king”—marking her rule as an exception.) Does Ọ̀rọ̀mpọ̀tọ̀’s rule indicate that both males and females were considered equally fit to rule (an epistemological claim), or is it just another counterexample—Bourdieu’s “miraculous exceptions?” Admittedly, much of this can be understood as the difficulty and ambiguity in interpreting in the already gendered retellings of history, but some critics remain unconvinced. One well-known critique of Oyěwùmí’s methods was written by the Nigerian writer Bibi Bakare-Yusuf. Her criticism centers on what she sees as “the importance [Oyěwùmí] ascribes to language as revealing a cultural essence [and] her assumptions about the relation between language and social reality” (Bakare-Yusuf, 2004, p. 66). In other words, even if the language lacks common gendered terms, this does not mean there could have been no de facto differences inscribed through social reality, nor does it mean that people in Yorùbá society had no conception of gender via the cultural transmission from other (even non-European) societies. Where is the account of counterpower?
Agnes Atia Apusigah has similar critiques, and she also goes further in questioning some of Oyěwùmí’s characterizations of feminism and their implications for action. Oyěwùmí, for one, mentions that “feminism in origin, by definition, and by practice is a universalizing discourse” (Oyěwùmí, 1997, p. 13). Apusigah states plainly that this is not necessarily the case: “critical feminists challenge the very basis of women’s oppression. For instance, some feminists express ambivalence over the use of the concept due to its patriarchal history while others, especially Third World feminists, . . . argue that even in those sites reside elements of empowerment” (Apusigah, 2008, p. 38). It’s with such an understanding that Apusigah notes how Oyěwùmí flattens difference to another hegemonic-subaltern binary. Having read the book now, I can attest to most of these critiques. But I do not think they detract from the book’s useful explorations of how patriarchy, as a major organizing principle, came to be in a given society. The analysis in the book puts to rest theories of extreme sexual dimorphism and reminds us that we are more alike than different—but we still have need, as Oyěwùmí says, for theories of difference. Accordingly, her novel framework of body-reasoning and its opposition to world-sense are good tools for understanding the complexities of gender relations, and through the synthesis of contemporary theories, they have also helped to inform the world-sense of BAR feminists and their analyses that have fueled the explosion of short-form theory. Oyěwùmí’s analysis remains as relevant as ever.

Apusigah, A. A. (2008). Is gender yet another colonial project? Quest: An African Journal of Philosophy, 23–44.
Bakare-Yusuf, B. (2004). 'Yorubas Don't Do Gender': A Critical Review of Oyeronke Oyewumi's The Invention of Women: Making An African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. In S. Arnfred (Ed.), African Gender Scholarship: Concepts, Methodologies and Paradigms (pp. 61–81). essay, African Books Collective.
Oyěwùmí Oyèrónkẹ́. (1997). The Invention of Women. University of Minnesota Press.

[unlibrodecadalugar · Rating 5 out of 5]

“La invención de las mujeres. Una perspectiva africana sobre los discursos occidentales del género”, de Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí, es un ensayo que postula, principalmente, que la categoría de “mujer” y las distinciones de género tal como las conocemos en Occidente NO existían en la cultura Yorùbá antes de la conquista y colonización británica.
En el marco de esta gran premisa, la autora presenta otras ideas que la fortalecen, como que la bio-lógica occidental que asume la importancia de un cuerpo visible y generizado no es universal ni ahistórica, ya que, por ejemplo, en la cultura Yorùbá el rango de las personas dependía primera y principalmente de la senioridad, definida esta por la edad relativa.
Uno de los objetos de estudio que toma en todo su análisis es la lengua Yorùbá, que según explica no tiene distinciones de género, y que entonces esta generización de la lengua fue luego impuesta con las traducciones al inglés de los roles sociales (en la familia, en la política, en la religión, etc.). Esto genera una “lectura” de las pautas culturales Yorùbá desde unos lentes occidentales que imprimen sentidos sobre la realidad abordada.
En relación con esto, lo que me resultó más interesante de este ensayo es el planteo sobre las tareas en la investigación, y cómo lxs investigadorxs de la Historia, Antropología, Historia, Lingüística, etc. estudiaron la cultura Yorùbá a partir de preguntas que de antemano planteaban distinciones de género y la existencia de la categoría “mujer”, tales como “¿Qué rol cumplen las mujeres en X institución de la comunidad?”. Esto sucedió incluso al analizar esculturas que no presentaban distinciones de género pero fueron leídas como “masculinas” y “femeninas” respectivamente. Una bomba.
Me encantó este libro y me desafió un montón porque hace tiempo no leía algo tan profundo a nivel teórico. Igualmente tiene tantos ejemplos y tan diversos que no resulta para nada pesado.
Me quedo pensando en la posibilidad real de que no existan distinciones de género en la crianza a partir de la reproducción, cosa que dudo, pero es buenísimo que un ensayo nos dé respuestas pero sobre todo nos plantee preguntas.
¡Tremendo libro!

[Carlos Alberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10

Sabe quando você aceita um desafio muito grande? Seja na academia, pegando um peso pesado demais ou correndo em uma quilometragem mais longa que o comum, aquilo se torna inalcançável e muito difícil de se chegar perto? Foi com esse espírito ‘’tranquilo e sereno’’ que terminei a obra ‘’A invenção das mulheres: Construindo um sentido africano para os discursos ocidentais de gênero’’
A fantasia durante a leitura me colocava em um ringue de boxe contra a autora. O pressuposto seria que eu já conhecesse as ideias, filosofias e conhecimentos e que seria somente uma leitura acadêmica comum, mas Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí é um pilar acadêmico africano e ioruba aterrorizante. A cada frase, parágrafo ou resolução (Muitas das quais diretas e sem pudor nenhum) me sentia levando um soco no estomago ao perceber a falta de conhecimento analítico sobre outras esferas e outros contextos internacionais.
O livro só possui 5 capítulos que esmagam a percepção ocidental do corpo feminino, da ideia de um feminismo ocidental ‘’mundial’’ e das questões de institucionais políticas para com um grupo colonizado. Se torna, não só o resultado de sua tese de doutorado, mas uma crítica séria e conteudista do feminismo atual, demarcando que nem todas as mulheres são iguais, ou até que nem todas as mulheres SÃO mulheres. perante o sistema eurocêntrico.
Vale a pena a ler, mas é OBRIGATÓRIO possuir uma bagagem de conteúdo ABSURDA para conseguir realizar uma correlação de informações e dados apresentados pela autora. Ela faz mais 547 REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS ao todo na construção de sua narrativa. Eu mesmo já admiti para meu ego que duvido muito que tenha entendido um capítulo inteiro sequer ou até absorvido as ideias centrais passadas de maneira certa mesmo. Espero rele-lo no futuro, daqui a 2 ou 3 anos.

[Amma · Rating 5 out of 5]

What would a world without limiting gender constructs look like? What if this world is not a fantasy but was the reality of many African countries pre-colonisation? Western dominant culture has us all believing that this world is impossible to reach because it is limited by gendered discourses and essentially gendered languages. As an African, reading this book was compelling, enlightening and saddening at times to realise the freedom European colonisation robbed Africans from. Funny how now the West is scrambling to get to the very world they dismantled within African societies, not realising that the solution lies in the past and not in the West but in Africans (and other colonised cultures) reclaiming their past. Reclaiming that past could be transformative for the entire world and breakdown so many barriers, especially the barriers of gender in this example.
Oyeronke Oyewumi (Nigerian scholar and researcher) demonstrates the above through rigorous research centred on Yorubaland (Nigeria) pre/during/post colonisation and shows how the imposition of gender structures through the invention of the category of women in Yorubaland via colonisation impacted and still impacts Nigerian/Western Africa culture. Still she serves glimpses of redemptive hope, for example the survival of Yoruba as a genderless dialect…
Anyone who considers themselves a feminist, especially in the Western sense should read this book.