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A review by bahareads
The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses by Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Oyeronke Oyewumi’s The Invention of Women is a highly theoretical book. Oyewumi engages with many theorists and scholars from different aspects of academia. She challenges the conclusions many of these scholars have reached in their own studies. Throughout the work, she names over twenty scholars with whom she is conversing in the historiography, especially when it comes to ‘Africa’ and Nigeria at large and then the Yoruba region in a more contained manner. She uses their own words to break down their conclusions, seeing in what ways a Western viewpoint created assumptions that caused the conclusions the scholars have come to. Oyewumi continually hammers her arguments into the text, and while her writing might be considered dogmatic by some it is refreshing to see such conviction on the page.
The Invention of Women raises the question of whether it is possible to do “independent research questions and interests given the western origins of most disciplines and the continued Western dominance of the world” (179). Oyewumi investigates the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of how gender came to be constructed in the south-western Yoruba society and how gender is constituted as a fundamental category in academic scholarship on the Yoruba (xi). While The Invention of Women could be considered a ‘study of gender’ (or lack thereof), it is also a study of the sociology of knowledge. Oyewumi does not shy away from clearly stating her biases in her work, she lays out clearly that she believes social identity, personal experiences and the nature of one’s research impacts the work that one does. She names her social identity, major personal experiences, and how it affects the nature of her own work. She clearly states that events and processes of her life were significant in shaping the questions for this book (xvi). By doing so she allows readers to see clearly the idea of scholarly ‘unbiases’ that many claim to hold is unattainable by academics. Oyewumi limits herself to Oyo-Yoruba culture in the process of this (xii).
Oyewumi recognizes that she is fighting a vast scholarship to show that gender was not an organizing principle in Yoruba society. The focus on patrilineage by anthropologists are significant in deconstructing gender in Yoruba society as the idea to impose gender vision on labour and motherhood is based on assumptions that scholars make (73-74). There are distinctions about history as a lived experience, a record of lived experience in oral tradition and written history that Oyewumi makes (80)
The focus of colonization and how the colonial state pushes the creation of woman as a category contributes to the histography. Oyewumi builds upon people like Frantz Fanon and Albert Memmi. Within the final chapter, Oyewumi looks at how gender was added to the Yoruba language and how Yoruba was and is changing as a result of contact with English and new structures of thought. The Invention of Women is deeply compelling, and a thought-provoking read
The Invention of Women raises the question of whether it is possible to do “independent research questions and interests given the western origins of most disciplines and the continued Western dominance of the world” (179). Oyewumi investigates the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of how gender came to be constructed in the south-western Yoruba society and how gender is constituted as a fundamental category in academic scholarship on the Yoruba (xi). While The Invention of Women could be considered a ‘study of gender’ (or lack thereof), it is also a study of the sociology of knowledge. Oyewumi does not shy away from clearly stating her biases in her work, she lays out clearly that she believes social identity, personal experiences and the nature of one’s research impacts the work that one does. She names her social identity, major personal experiences, and how it affects the nature of her own work. She clearly states that events and processes of her life were significant in shaping the questions for this book (xvi). By doing so she allows readers to see clearly the idea of scholarly ‘unbiases’ that many claim to hold is unattainable by academics. Oyewumi limits herself to Oyo-Yoruba culture in the process of this (xii).
Oyewumi recognizes that she is fighting a vast scholarship to show that gender was not an organizing principle in Yoruba society. The focus on patrilineage by anthropologists are significant in deconstructing gender in Yoruba society as the idea to impose gender vision on labour and motherhood is based on assumptions that scholars make (73-74). There are distinctions about history as a lived experience, a record of lived experience in oral tradition and written history that Oyewumi makes (80)
The focus of colonization and how the colonial state pushes the creation of woman as a category contributes to the histography. Oyewumi builds upon people like Frantz Fanon and Albert Memmi. Within the final chapter, Oyewumi looks at how gender was added to the Yoruba language and how Yoruba was and is changing as a result of contact with English and new structures of thought. The Invention of Women is deeply compelling, and a thought-provoking read