Sept. 18th Discussion

Oyeronke Oyewumi’s article, Family Bonds/Conceptual Binds: African Notes on Feminist Epistemologies, criticizes white feminist discourse for being rooted solely in the “nuclear family.” While I believe that her argument successfully shows that African family arrangements do not fit into this mold, I feel that the family discourse that she introduces still portrays African women (in her essay) as the “Other.” She merely replaces the man or husband with children/kinship as the “Subject,” which determines the “woman’s role.” Since family discourse dominates all feminist discourse, is there a way to change it so that the family becomes the “Object” to the autonomous woman?