that in the context of civil war and violence, many African women’s movements have pursued a
politics of unity and “have consciously adopted unifying strategies” in an attempt to minimize
As my research on women in Mozambique and Nicaragua also confirms, Tripp
asserts that it is because of the proliferation of autonomous women’s organizations in civil
society independent from the mass organizations of a ruling-state-party that women have been
able to make as many gains as they have.
In one of the few other studies comparing
Mozambique and Nicaragua, Cochran and Scott have come to the same conclusions regarding
the importance of autonomy: “Relations with party and state constitute other dimensions critical
to the proper political functioning of mass organizations. Without some independence of
function, personnel, and budgets, popular organizations will be ineffective in serving as
watchdogs of party and state agencies and as lobbies for mass interests.”
plays a prominent role in my analysis of women’s activism and feminist agency in Mozambique
and Nicaragua.
African Feminisms
An extensive literature has emerged in the field of African Feminisms. This literature can
best be divided into three main categories: (1) a critique of Western feminist theories and the
applicability of Western feminisms into African contexts;
(2) an argument that African
feminisms are newly emerging, are uniquely African, and are radically different from Western
and (3) an assertion that “the African woman was the first feminist,” defining
African feminisms as inherently intersectional and therefore, the most inclusive of feminisms
Oyeronke Oyewumi offers a criticism of the Western feminist imposition of gender
categories into African contexts in which she argues they did not pre-exist Western
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