The African Woman Today

In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Band 39, S. 319-325

Abstract

The plight of the modern African women is discussed. She is the daughter of a long & hearty line of female monarchs as well as of women intimately associated with the more recent struggles for African independence. Nonetheless, she is a victim of the International Monetary Fund's "structural adjustment program" & the perpetual drought, & she is baffled by the aquired immune deficiency syndrome epidemic, which appears to her to have neither cause nor cure. Her basic problems stem from three interrelated factors: indigenous African societal patterns, the conquest of her continent by Europe, & the apparent lack of direction among political, intellectual, professional, & commercial elites in her own society. The African women's continuing struggle for independence, the effects of high-powered tokenism, & the unsettled debate over feminism are assessed. 1 Photograph. M. Maguire