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Cover of The invention of women

The invention of women

making an African sense of Western gender discourses

By Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí,Oyeronke Oyewumi

4.50 (4 Ratings)
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Publish Date

1997

Publisher

University of Minnesota Press

Language

eng

Pages

229

Description:

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 contruction, The Invention of Women offers a new way of understanding both Yoruban and Western cultures. 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 in old Yoruba society, and that social organization was determined by relative age.