Oyèrónké Oyewùmí: “I use gender to illustrate the impact of colonisation”

Summary

Oyèrónké Oyewùmí explains that gender is not the sole subject of her work. Rather, she uses it to show how colonisation introduced new ways of thinking and how deeply those ideas reshaped societies.

• Gender is not a universal framework. Oyewùmí challenges the assumption that societies necessarily divide people into opposite, separate categories of men and women. She points to Yoruba language and family relationships as a counterexample: the same terms can refer to siblings regardless of gender, and words such as “child” or “offspring” do not specify whether someone is a son or daughter. She presents language as evidence that gender categories do not operate identically everywhere.
• Knowledge should be produced from African perspectives. She stresses that Africans have valuable knowledge to contribute, but many have been taught to view knowledge through the coloniser’s perspective. She argues that people should “think and theorize from where we are standing,” rather than treating colonial viewpoints as the default.
• African experiences are diverse. Oyewùmí cautions against treating African women as a single group or assuming that experiences on the continent and in the diaspora are interchangeable. She contrasts West Africa, where she says there was no settler colonialism, with her experiences in Zimbabwe and South Africa, where colonial histories and the presence of whiteness shape social and political life differently.
• Racism is global, but its effects vary by context. She says racism affects access to resources and economic life across the world, while emphasizing that local histories and social structures influence how it is experienced and how people organize.
• Global hierarchies determine whose lives are valued. Referring to conflicts including Gaza and Ukraine, she argues that unequal responses to deaths reveal a hierarchy of whose humanity and life are recognized. She connects this to colonial ideas that cast conquered peoples as less than fully human.
• Self-representation and resistance are essential. Oyewùmí says stereotypes can precede and constrain people before they have a chance to speak for themselves. A central struggle, in her view, is to create space for African people—especially African women—to speak, act on their own behalf, and resist.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Oyèrónké Oyewùmí — The interview speaker and source of the arguments summarized above.
• Archie Mafeje — Quoted by Oyewùmí on what knowledge Africans have and how it can be accessed.
• Frantz Fanon — Referenced by Oyewùmí in relation to colonial power and the distinction between those treated as human and those treated as non-human.