Att begreppsliggöra genus: de feministiska begreppens eurocentriska grundvalar och utmaningen från afrikansk kunskapsteori

Abstract

Conceptualizing gender: The Eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challange of African epistemologies, by Oyeronke Oyewumi, PhD, Associate professor in sociology at Stony Brook University, USA. In her artide Oyewumi argues that the universal use of feminist concepts, developed primarily in North America and Europé, limits our understanding of the gender relations in non-western cultures. Western feminism has its foundations in the idea of a nuclear heterosexual family, which is limiting because of its understanding of gender and feminist sisterhood. In the nuclear family, consisting of a male breadwinner, a female housewife and their children, there is no space for thinking relationshipsoutsidethe male/female dichotomy. This founding idea in Western feminism is insufficient in describing and analysing African constructions of family where blood-relations and seniority determine ones position, rather than gender.