ABSTRACT

This book examines the underexplored notion of epistemic marginalization of women in the African intellectual place. Women's issues are still very much neglected by governments, corporate bodies and academics in sub-Saharan Africa. The entrenched traditional world-views which privilege men over women make it difficult for the modern day challenges posed by the neglect of the feminine epistemic perspective, to become obvious.

 Contributors address these issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives, demonstrating what philosophy could do to ameliorate the epistemic marginalization of women, as well as ways in which African philosphy exacerbates this marginalization. Philosophy is supposed to teach us how to lead the good life in all its ramifications; why is it failing in this duty in Africa where the issue of women’s epistemic vision is concerned? The chapters raise feminist agitations to a new level; beginning from the regular campaigns for various women’s rights and reaching a climax in an epistemic struggle in which the knowledge-controlling power to create, acquire, evaluate, regulate and disseminate is proposed as the last frontier of feminism.

chapter |7 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|20 pages

Henry Odera Oruka and the female sage

Re-evaluating the nature of sagacity

chapter 3|15 pages

Women and ubuntu

Does ubuntu condone the subordination of women?

chapter 5|15 pages

Dialogues and alliances

Positions of women in African philosophy

chapter 6|18 pages

Dealing with the trauma of a loss

Interrogating the feminine experience of coping with a spouse’s death in African traditions

chapter 7|19 pages

Human rights discourse

Friend or foe of African women’s sexual freedoms? 1

chapter 11|22 pages

Buffeted

Developing an afro feminist response to environmental questions

chapter 12|18 pages

Ecofeminism in Africa

The contribution of Wangari Maathai

chapter 13|12 pages

Women in the kitchen of philosophy

Re-asking the questions of African philosophy