ENGAGING WITH AFRICAN FEMINIST INTERPRETATIONS OF MATERNAL

There is increased advocacy for reclaiming subjugated knowledge that has been pushed to the margins of modern society, and highlighting knowledge predicated on the diversity of humanity. WHO Africa highlights the importance of pushing forward with a gender agenda towards the improvement of maternal health and women’s health more broadly.  I argue that a gender agenda provides the stimulus for engaging with knowledge from the margins or what feminist author Patricia Hill Collins refers to as subjugated knowledge. Subjugated knowledge in this case refers to African women’s lived experiences that have been routinely distorted or discounted. Feminist interpretations of African women’s experiences serve as lenses to understand social structures and mechanisms impacting maternal health and well-being.

One of the most intense debates among African feminists occurs around interpretations of motherhood and its relationship with patriarchal culture. Some feminists argue that the valorisation of motherhood serves as an essentialist marker for female authenticity within patriarchal cultures. Others deconstruct motherhood beyond the act of childbirth and childcare stating that motherhood is not an institution constructed by patriarchy, but an experience created by women as an act of freedom and self-determination.

Invite

Admittedly, to engage with marginal discourse or acknowledge subjugated knowledge is to wrestle with such contradictions. Nonetheless, African feminist writers invite us to rethink the legitimacy of representations of motherhood foregrounded in mainstream culture and centre the experiences of African women. The mother figure is revered and idealised throughout African societies and cultures reflecting strong pro-natalist values. African feminist scholar Ifi Amadiume explains that motherhood is viewed as sacred in African traditions and societies. Nkolika Aniekwu concurs and emphasises the agency of African women as defenders of their rights to motherhood. In African feminist literary works, ‘the mother’ as a metaphor has been used to elevate and celebrate women’s roles in society while deconstructing symbolisms that debase women in masculine-ordered discourses. Similarly, Nortje-Meyer describes mothering as an inherently African way of care that also includes non-maternal care provided to a group or community.

African feminists are troubled by the theorised association between motherhood and victimhood, theories that  African feminist scholar Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí argues find their origins in Western epistemes that are based on rigid dichotomies such as the mind/body. The mind (often regarded as male) is exalted as a site of reason and restraint and the body (often regarded as female) is demeaned as a site of irrationality and moral corruption. These dichotomies define the structuring principle of Western societies along gender binaries – man or woman.

Guide

In Indigenous African societies, rigid gender ideology do not necessarily guide social organising and women have been shown to take on roles of authority and power. Oyěwùmí highlights chronological age and position within the family as organising principles in some African societies. Seniority, she explains, is the dominant language of power in Nigeria’s Yoruba culture, therefore elderly women, based on their chronological age and status as mothers, wield significant power in society.

Oyěwùmí’s assertions confirm earlier descriptions of women’s influence in society. Ifi Amadiume illustrated the socio-cultural significance of elderly mothers who were shown to wield considerable power in formal and informal settings to negotiate and safeguard women’s interests.

The elderly women were considered above patriarchal control and therefore had access to spaces and roles monopolised by men. It is worth noting that in African contexts, all women are considered mothers, even if they do not have their own biological children, this suggests the influence of all elderly women. Aniekwu concurs that while male dominance is assumed at many levels of society including domestic spheres, there continues to be pre and post-colonial evidence of high-level women, especially older women, in political, economic and domestic spheres that represent women’s interests.

African feminist interpretations have implications for discourses surrounding maternal health. For example, maternal health programmes predicted on a gender framework may erroneously attribute household decision-making power to only men while ignoring the influence of elderly mothers and mother figures. The evidence of older women’s influence on household maternal and child health matters remains constant. Earlier feminist writings showed older women’s role in safeguarding maternal health in informal spaces; within their families, elderly mothers in Igbo communities of Nigeria enforced traditional rules that supported child spacing.

Influential

They also enforced traditional rules that protected women from domestic violence. Similar examples show that older women are influential in changing harmful norms that negatively impact maternal health such as abandoning the practice of female genital mutilation or cutting. Furthermore, African feminist understandings of motherhood elevate the concerns of mothers in their diversity. As Bernedette Muthien explains, matricentric practices that exist across the African continent value mothers as the source of life and creation and are rooted in principles of spirituality in healing and care activities. The importance of spirituality in matricentric societies speaks to the need for spiritual support within maternal healthcare services, a necessity that African women desire but has long been ignored in maternal healthcare.

African feminists are actively resisting assumptions about the homogeneity of women’s experiences and challenging assumptions of commonality in feminist expressions. Understanding motherhood in African contexts entails unlearning oppressive dimensions of motherhood as defined by the West.

Engaging with ancient and existing knowledge on motherhood is important given the continued centrality of motherhood in African contexts. Feminist interpretations enrich this knowledge and serve as lenses to understand social structures and mechanisms impacting maternal health and well-being.

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