BLACK FEMINISM; WHY THE MISCONCEPTIONS?

     
HABIBU GENTE
DATE:  Saturday,  18 February,  2017
                 
Those who read my September 24,2016 article will be amazed as to why I'm writing to defend 'Feminism' after I had debunked its movement in Africa, to them  I may appeared as inconsistent critic. But isn't so, this is what characterized me as a liberal-egalitarian writer.
      Feminism is a theoretical movement that generate much debates and attracted intellectual discussions for many decades And as soon as its advent, many literary theories and theorists frown at its ideas and objectives. Consequently media begun publication of hate articles against them, thus general public were fed with distorted views of Feminism. Individuals who are less-educated or too lazy to search for the truth, were left to drowned in the sea of misconceptions. As for those academics and scholars not that they don't have the truth. They do, only that they allowed religion-sentimental beliefs to cloud their judgements and the analysis they make in media and articles. The former is the target of this article,  to clear the misconceptions that was ingrained in them for so long. Let begin the mental journey.
Its pertinent in order for this journey to be carried out  smoothly that, African American feminist and intellectual ( Gloria Jean Watkin) known  with her pseudonym Bell Hook's  comment to serve as the fuel for our mental car.
''Together to fight for women's right because we did not see 'womanhood' as an important
aspect of our identity. Racist, sexist socialization had conditioned us to devalue our
femaleness and regard race as the only relevant label of identification''.
I will take you to the origin of the movement and the root of the word 'Feminism'  and 'Feminist'. It is dawned  on me that without the knowledge of these,the work of clearing the misconceptions will not be done. The word Feminism was coined by a French Utopian socialist and philosopher in 1837. The word first appear in France and Netherlands in 1870s. Great  Britain  1890s. And United States in 1910 and Oxford dictionary list 1852 as the year of the first appearance of Feminist  and 1895 for Feminism.  This is just the brief origin of the word 'Feminism'.  Now the let delve into the movement  itself.  The term feminism can be used to describe a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women. Feminism involves political and sociological theories and philosophies concerned with issues of gender difference, as well as a movement that advocates gender equality for women and campaigns for women's rights and interests.
According to Maggie Humm and Rebecca Walker, the history of feminism can be divided into three waves. The first feminist wave was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the second was in the 1960s and 1970s, and the third extends from the 1990s to the present. Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements. It is manifest in a variety of disciplines such as feminist geography, feminist history and feminist literary criticism.
Now let take through  the waves  briefly;
» The first wave refers mainly to women's suffrage movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (mainly concerned with women's right to vote).
» The second wave refers to the ideas and actions associated with the women's liberation movement beginning in the 1960s (which campaigned for legal and social rights for women).
» The third wave refers to a continuation of, and a reaction to the perceived failures of, second-wave feminism, beginning in the 1990s.
"the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defense of her sex" was Christine de Pizan who wrote Epitre au Dieu d'Amour (Epistle to the God of Love) in the 15th century.
Next week we will  see the numerous theories of feminism and which of them is suitable for Africans.  And those ones that are being used to describe the movement,  and why people who are intellectually distance  with it tend to misconstrued the movement.
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK.

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