''Value'' of an African woman

Written by Maleke Montshiwagae

as a first charge, one would say that if the African narrative was an unedited motion picture, then the organic role of an African woman would play itself out before our eyes right from the African creation myth allegories to date, but by now there has been many editors to the ''movie'' of an African woman, it is this edition that I attempt to deconstruct and reconstruct in order to reflect the original script of the African woman!

there is a concept referred to as the ''concept of progress'' which is mainly used in the racist scientific propaganda aimed at belittling the African efforts upon the human civilization story, for example, the concept of a calculator, one hardly ever hears that the first calculator was the bone calculator that was found in the border cave between South Africa and Zwaziland in the Lobombo mountains and is measured to be 35 000 years old! It is said that the Lobombo bone calculator had a series of 29 notches and is believed to indicate that our grandmother ancestors used it to monitor their menstrual cycle, which could also mean that they were the first mathematicians as reported. So, in the concept of progress, only the modern electronic calculator is recognized without realizing [and this is done deliberately] that the initial antique concept by our grandmother ancestors matters the most and therefore the electronic version represents a stage in development not necessarily the genesis! .... these are the sort of things and distortions that happens when the African narrative is related in the absence of Africans.

Now, the value, character and role of African women has been distorted and compromised under these sort of concepts, the significant one being the neo-universalist concept of Karl Marx in feminism. Molefi Kete Asante assists us at this point when he mentions that: ''Marx's contribution to the discourse on culture was the debunking of culture, in particular the destruction of African cultural values by asserting that they really masked the reality of power that was based on the structure of society. This new approach became the European culture and spawned many liberation theories that had the effect of masking the new domination of Europe''. From Molefi's take, there are two crucial points I want to use as ''stepping stones'' and that is, society and liberation theories. One of Karl Marx's liberation theories, Marxist-Feminism aimed at liberating women is therefore based on the characteristics of a European society and is dumped at us under the guise of universalism that makes an assumption that even Africans understood culture in the same way as Marx and actually neglects the characteristics of African society!

Karl Marx's view derives from the European enlightenment which values reason over superstition as they [Europeans] saw Africa. In their reason, they saw gender in their society as a sexual differential with white men dominating; this was a patriarchal white man supremacy structure of society which also dominated in the bourgeoisie economy! It is out of this understanding of gender that Marx's liberation theory of Marxist-feminism cannot be relevant to the African women. The African gender understanding in our classical society was never based and sensitive to sexuality, gender was rather understood as a function of historical moment and time. In other words, at one particular time you could see certain elements in a woman which you might not see in the next moment!... so depending on the circumstances, certain characteristics of a black woman might show up. Good examples are the uprising of black woman in South Africa in opposing the impositions from the apartheid regime and how our grandmother ancestors collectively went through the hardships of slavery. These are examples of emergence of particular characteristics of a woman at a particular time as required by circumstances.

Building upon this and to bring the historical perspective of the character of black women in classical African society, one taps into the allegorical creation myth of Egypto-Nubian. The Nubians had in mind the concept of the ''divine feminine'' from which the Egyptians developed their creation myth, without too much detail, there are two important characters in the allegorical myth and that is Osiris and Isis [goddess] who are husband and wife respectively. Osiris was cut into pieces during a fight and Isis together with her sister Nephasis, collected and put together Osiris's pieces in order to bring him back to life''.. from this, we can see that in the first instance, two sisters come together in sisterhood and in the second instance the wife supports her defeated man in order to bring him back to life again! .. so it is clear that in the mind of an African, the complementary role of a woman arises right from creation and plays itself into the resultant nature of the African society in which gender is not pathological. The implications and significance of the bringing together of the pieces of Osiris by the goddess Isis is that it extended into the uprising of mummification in the black Kemet [Egypt] society, which represented the physical expression of the belief in the afterlife.

So next you go to the grave to burry a loved one, you must remember that even though not mummified, you are expressing the act of the Goddess Isis and you are recognising the critical contributions of a woman!

So in light of the current dynamics regarding empowering women, empowerment must not be understood by our black women as overcoming gender differentials particular in our African communities because it leads to frictions between black men and women. The empowerment should rather be understood as overcoming the oppressive gender notions of patriarchal white supremacy society; the reflections on what African society was like would be a step towards restoration of what has already been there, that is, strong and intelligent black woman.


Hotep!!!!!