The Invention of Women

The Invention of Women

Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses

Oyeronke Oyewumi

Table of Contents

$22.50 Paper
ISBN: 0-8166-2441-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-2441-6

Considers the meaning of gender in an African context.

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.

"Oyewùmi's book is a departure from the majority of feminist writers on Africa. She goes further to show a society almost unintelligible using the common set of presumptions in feminist literature about how society is organized. Her indignation is real and forceful and her research and lucid presentation admirable." —Modern African Studies

"Oyewumi's work is an extremely interesting study that forces readers to rethink some of the accepted notions of colonialism." —National Women's Studies Association Journal

Oyeronke Oyewumi is assistant professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara

240 pages | 5 7/8 x 9 | 1997

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
Acknowledgments
A Note on Orthography

1. Visualizing the Body: Western Theories and African Subjects
2. (Re)constituting the Cosmology and Sociocultural Institutions of Óyó-Yorúbá
3. Making History, Creating Gender: The Invention of Men and Kings in the Writing of Óyó Oral Traditions
4. Colonizing Bodies and Minds: Gender and Colonialism
5. The Translation of Cultures: Engendering Yorúbá Language, Orature, and World-Sense

Notes
Bibliography
Index



The Invention of Women Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses Oyeronke Oyewumi Table of Contents		$22.50 Paper ISBN: 0-8166-2441-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-2441-6
Considers the meaning of gender in an African context. 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. "Oyewùmi's book is a departure from the majority of feminist writers on Africa. She goes further to show a society almost unintelligible using the common set of presumptions in feminist literature about how society is organized. Her indignation is real and forceful and her research and lucid presentation admirable." —Modern African Studies "Oyewumi's work is an extremely interesting study that forces readers to rethink some of the accepted notions of colonialism." —National Women's Studies Association Journal Oyeronke Oyewumi is assistant professor in the Department of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara 240 pages \| 5 7/8 x 9 \| 1997 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments A Note on Orthography 1. Visualizing the Body: Western Theories and African Subjects 2. (Re)constituting the Cosmology and Sociocultural Institutions of Óyó-Yorúbá 3. Making History, Creating Gender: The Invention of Men and Kings in the Writing of Óyó Oral Traditions 4. Colonizing Bodies and Minds: Gender and Colonialism 5. The Translation of Cultures: Engendering Yorúbá Language, Orature, and World-Sense Notes Bibliography Index