The invention of women : making an African sense of Western gender discourses / Oyeronke Oyewumi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human body--Social aspects--Nigeria.

Human body.

Philosophy, Yoruba.

Sex role--Nigeria.

Sex role.

Women, Yoruba--History.

Women, Yoruba.

Women, Yoruba--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 229 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; A Note on Orthography; Chapter 1 Visualizing the Body: Western Theories and African Subjects; Chapter 2 (Re)constituting the Cosmology and Sociocultural Institutions of Oyo-Yorùbá; Chapter 3 Making History, Creating Gender: The Invention of Men and Kings in the Writing of Oyo Oral Traditions; Chapter 4 Colonizing Bodies and Minds: Gender and Colonialism; Chapter 5 The Translation of Cultures: Engendering Yorùbá Language, Orature, and World-Sense; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780816685905

0-8166-8590-8

OCLC:

290518706