Lumumba on Women: From Domesticity to Political Mobilization

Abstract

This declaration from Lumumba’s Le Congo, terre d’avenir, est-il menacé? is frequently quoted to epitomize Lumumba’s position on women. It does contain elements central to his thinking, but its meaning and import are not as self-evident as they are assumed to be. Those reproducing the passage generally do not question the term “civilize” or interrogate the way Lumumba locates women within the family and the nation. Examining Lumumba’s writings and speeches on issues of women and gender reveals how the complexities of his position as a new member of the emerging évolué class passionately committed to decolonizing the Congo as well as the minds of his fellow citizens, women and men alike, influenced his thinking about gender relations. The first two chapters ask a set of interrelated questions: What were the most difficult conundrums that Lumumba and the women in his life and in the movement against colonial power faced? How were those structured by the dynamics of this intense and transformative process of struggle, whose end was always uncertain? What gender-related issues could be addressed and at least in part resolved by the political and discursive strategies Lumumba and other male leaders of the movement employed, and what remained intractable and irrepressible, leading to conflicts that he and others—including women—found distressing? The first chapter follows Lumumba’s lead in focusing more narrowly on the évolué class, while the second chapter considers broader transformations in women’s lives in the Belgian Congo, as well as discusses the women in Lumumba’s personal life.

When you civilize a man, you only civilize an individual; but when you civilize a woman, you civilize an entire nation. (130)