Gender and Sex in an African Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Gender and Sex in an African Society - Essay Example The invention of women demonstrates, on the contrary, that gender was not constructed in the old society of Yoruba, and that organizations in the society were determined by relative age. A meticulous epistemological and historical account of an African culture embracing its own terms, this book makes an argument that is persuasive based on the culturally dependent context that interprets social reality. It calls for a gender discourse preconception and categories on which such studies can rely. Moreover, the book bares the hidden assumptions in thoughts of different cultures. It is a truly comparative sociology of the Western tradition and African culture that will change the way gender and African studies proceed.  Oyewumi's analysis advances greatly into the postcolonial mapping of the European distinction that has been developing in the recent decades. It traces how Western visual privileging insures that biological determinism and social constructivism cannot be mutually exclus ive in cultures of the West. Gender categories were one kind of new tradition that European colonialists institutionalized in many African cultures including the Yoruba culture. Contemporary Western feminism has continued to extend their empire. Oyewumi enables the reader to envision what is hard to imagine within Western feminism world after gender. The book makes a huge contribution to not only feminism and African studies but also to philosophy, social theory and sociology in general. In Male daughters and female husbands.