African Women: A Modern History

by Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Beth Raps

Over the last century, the social and economic roles played by African women have evolved dramatically. Long confined to home and field, overlooked by their menfolk and missionaries alike, African women worked, thought, dreamed, and struggled. They migrated to the cities, invented new jobs, and activated the so-called informal economy to become Afr

340 pages, Hardcover

First published January 30, 1996

Reviews

[A YOGAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

African Women: A Modern History (Social Change in Global Perspective) ist ein Überblick über die Geschichte afrikanischer Frauen von der vorkolonialen Zeit bis zur Moderne. Sie untersucht verschiedene Aspekte ihres Lebens, darunter Arbeit, Bildung, Ehe, Sexualität und politisches Engagement. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt auf den Auswirkungen von Kolonialismus und Urbanisierung auf die Rolle und den Status der Frauen. Das Buch beleuchtet auch die Vielfalt der Erfahrungen von Frauen in verschiedenen Regionen und sozialen Schichten Afrikas, und betont die Komplexität von Geschlechterdynamiken. Zudem wird die Bedeutung mündlicher Überlieferungen und die Rolle von Frauen in Kunst und Kultur untersucht. Es zielt darauf ab, traditionelle Stereotypen zu dekonstruieren und ein nuanciertes Verständnis der afrikanischen Frauengeschichte zu fördern.

[Matthew Quest · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding textbook and introduction to African Women's History. The title suggests the puzzle it unravels. African Women are often presented as being at the center of problems of underdevelopment in contrast to the rights and dignities associated with modern industrial nations -- of course this comparison is an imperial falsity. Nevertheless, one must grapple with women as peasant farmers, their theologies and ethnicities, struggles with health and wisdom for healing, their relationship to tribal warfare and national liberation movements. The cover photo, with these women adorned with colorful African clothe, baby wrapped in tow, and vessels on their head to gather water or carrying wares to sell, in the midst of unpaved brush, may suggest an odd image to some to discuss African women and modernity. Are these women pre-modern or backward from another time in place? Such an assumption shows it is the intellectual who has failed. This book when accompanied with a proper discussion reveals that African women should not be the subject of developmental aid but have something to teach those who hail from imperial nations about the pathways for their own self-government. The author, a Francophone scholar, surveys concisely many regions of Africa. But the English reader of African Studies will find they get access to case studies in Francophone Africa that often are minimized by Anglophone speaking scholars.