Chapter 13: Reflections on Women’s Resistance and Social Change in Africa

Women have been at the vanguard of transhistorical resistance against oppressive structures on the African continent. Targets of women’s struggles for social justice include colonial governments, neo-colonial states, transnational corporations and entrenched traditional institutions. These struggles have had a catalytic effect on dynamics of social change in multifarious contexts in Africa. This chapter deploys a select number of case studies to argue that the challenges posed to entrenched structures of oppression have historically put women in the crosshairs of power. Women have also sometimes pursued feminist goals using state machinery. ‘State feminism’, which is widespread on the continent, the chapter argues, enables and disenables women’s emancipation. The chapter reflects on women’s resistance movements in Africa and analyses seven major themes. These are obduracy of patriarchy, social divisions, prevalence of maternalist framing, elite women’s engagement, deferment of women’s issues and tactical divide. The contradictions immanent in women’s social positionality and challenges are explored.