The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking argument, backed by dubious method
Review: Oyewumi is right to reexamine not only the Western binary gender categories that many scholars tend to impose indiscrimately on all societies but also to question the whole concept of sex as a universal determinant of social status or role. These categories must be questioned, not because they are necessarily false, but because every assumption must be questioned and replaced with more rigorously examined theory. Thus Oyewumi's discussion of how Western gender categories were applied to Yoruba women and have since been largely adopted as given is convincing and worth reading.

Yet Oyewumi's own "invention" of Yoruba gender identity is even less convincing than the uncritical one she has deconstructed. She relied largely on her own intuition and not on concrete and verifiable facts to show that male/female distinctions were not socially salient in "traditional" Yoruba society ("tradition" itself proving a problematic concept--even if her arguments are accurate, could there have been any time at which what she says was not true? Even though she attempts to escape this trap, pre-colonial "Yoruba society" ends up being a monolithic and timeless society).

A large part of her evidence comes from the Yoruba language, which is not "gendered" like Western languages. For example, pronouns, adjectives, and many terms for social relations, are non-gender specific. This is true of dozens of West African languages (the Atlantic Niger-Congo and Mande languages, for example), even in societies in which serious gender disparities have been visible for hundreds of years. Oyewumi dangerously assumes that language simply mirrors social realities--that language is incapable of concealing oppression, inequalities, or stereotypes. Oyewumi paints a fascinating picture of "traditional" Yoruba society largely from images pulled out of her hat and held up by her authority as an insider ethnographer. For a more credible account of gender ambiguity in Yoruba society, read Lorand Matory's "Sex and the Empire that Is no More."

Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read in years.
Review: Oyewunmi goes into an area previously thought to be fully explored, and shatters all the presumptions in an indisputable fashion. The Yoruba 'woman' has been steeped in the image of her Western counterpart by people who never tried hard enough to find out her true roles and social functions in pre-colonial times. This book is written with a great deal of intuitiveness, depth and logic. It is painstakinly researched and thorough, yet imminently readable. It's the best book I've read in years.

Rating:
Summary: The invention of women
Review: THis is an excellent book for anyone who wants to understand the importance and the view of yoruba women. This book is an eye opener for me. It allows me to be able to understand the truth about Yoruba view of arabinrin the anafemale.The book makes me proud of my origin as a omo Yoruda(a yoruba Child).