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African Feminisms: Cartographies for the Twenty-First Century

In 1981 Filomina Chioma Steady boldly proclaimed that black women, particularly those from the African continent, were the original feminists. In her now classic anthology, The Black Woman Cross-Culturally, Steady argued that “true feminism” stemmed from “an actual experience of oppression, a lack of the socially prescribed means of ensuring one’s wellbeing, and a true lack of access to resources for survival” (36). In her mind, feminism was simply a reaction to oppression, one that resulted in “the development of greater resourcefulness for survival and greater self-reliance.” Two years later the budding Sierra Leonean anthropologist delivered a powerful keynote address on African feminism at a research conference at Howard University organized by the Association of Black Women Historians (Terborg-Penn 1996, xix). This lecture provided the analytical scaffolding that would frame intellectual discussions about feminism in Africa for years to come. In the essay that grew out of this address, Steady (1996, 4) noted: