Kò Sóhun tí Mbe tí ò Nítàn (Nothing Is that Lacks a [Hi]story): On Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí’s

Abstract

For questioning many governing axioms of African gender studies, Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí’s The Invention of Women: Making an African sense of Western Gender Discourses often elicits strong reactions from its readers. The book asserts forcefully that scholars of gender in Africa, especially Yorùbá societies, fit their observed facts to learned western notions about women with little regard for the social history of their subjects of study. The book also argues insistently that African kinship terms constitute a significant source of knowledge yet to be uncovered and analyzed for what they can teach us about the “world-sense” of African societies. Oyěwùmí contends that scholars who are not willing to pay close attention to the African “world-sense,” particularly as it is compressed in the “word-sense” of African communities, cannot say a lot that is profound about the situation of gender in Africa. I outline in this short reflection ways in which Oyěwùmí’s analysis has enabled me to begin to “make sense” of my Yorùbá “gender” experiences. The remarks offered here are deliberately written in an autobiographical style because Oyěwùmí’s book answers many questions I have accumulated over many years.

The fundamental category “woman”—which is foundational in Western gender discourses—simply did not exist in Yorùbáland prior to its sustained contact with the West.

—Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí

Obìnrin na woman for Yorùbáland.

—Fela Anikulapo Kuti