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

In reading and listening to Two Spirit narratives, I realized that spiritual realities of gender non-conformity bring out the idea that the gender binary is colonial.

I cannot ignore an idea this important, raised by folks directly impacted by colonialism. To find more resources and dig deeper, I googled the phrase: "the gender binary is colonial".

I found this book written by Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí. She is a feminist scholar from Nigeria affiliated with Stony Brook University.

I need to read this book. It's premise is that gender played no role in the organization of Yoruba society prior to colonization. The category of "women" was imported and imposed from Europe.

In my life, I have been deeply engaged with other West African societies. I lived in Ghana from 2012-2013, and again in the summer of 2015. I engaged in research and practice alongside Akan women. I now work on an artisan collaboration with a Ga woman. 

I wrote a study about the experiences of Akan women studying the seamstress trade near Kumasi, Ghana. I did explore cultural constructions of gender, but was never exposed to the idea that the gender binary was imported. 

(I do not want to state that the Akan, the Ga, and the Yoruba are similar societies, or that Ghana and Nigeria can be conflated. My point is they all have experiences of colonization by the British Empire, and are relatively geographically proximate.)

Lately, I have been feeling conflicted personally. How is it that I - an agender person - was so deeply engrossed in this study and praxis of gender and women? Does my current identity conflict with these past experiences? 

I don't know how to answer these question, personally. I think reading this book may give me some ideas. The title is intriguing to me, as an agender person trying my best at solidarity with Ghanaian women.

I must also reflect on the fact that I - ZJ, a white American - am complicit in the very systems that imposes the gender binary on others. This is a lot, and not something I can finish on this blog.

It is, however, something I am starting...