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All nationalisms are gendered, . . . they represent relations to political power . . . legitimizing, or limiting, people's access to the rights and resources of the nation state.1
Anne McClintock's comment on nationalism succinctly captures the position of women during anti-colonial nationalism on the African continent. Across the continent, especially since World War II, women played a crucial role in the ousting of colonial/apartheid minority governments. However, the top leadership of most, if not all, of the nationalist movements was exclusively male. There was, therefore, a gender bias right from the creation of nationalist movements. This scenario was to be replicated in independent Africa when most of the senior government posts were (and continue to be) held by men. Women still find themselves at the margins of political and economic decisions at party and government level.
Using examples from sub-Saharan Africa, I examine the role that African women played in the formation and building of African nationalisms and how those historical origins affected their position in the post-colonial state. I argue that African nationalism accomplished it objectives at the expense of women's subordination. African nationalists' support of women's causes was part of a tactic of social and political inclusion that was meant to yoke as many people as possible to the nationalist struggle. I further suggest that women's position in the postcolonial African state is distressed by the origins of the woman question which continue to eclipse its outlook. Almost without exception, the struggle for women's rights in Africa rose alongside nationalist movements in the form of anticolonial resistance. Hence, as many feminists argue, colonial women were fighting a two-pronged struggle. For the most part, in these struggles, nationalist interests overshadowed women's issues as women were encouraged to focus on nationalist goals first. The rest would be addressed later. Consequently, women's movements have co-existed with these nationalist movements in a love-hate relationship in which nationalists dominate.
During the liberation struggles, nationalists played upon the patriarchal ideology of women as caregivers and nurturers, upholders of traditions and customs, reservoirs of culture, and, as a result, nationalist propagators of mother politics. They talked about the "motherland" [versus the "fatherland" in the West] and mothers of the nation/revolution.2 However, when nationalists talked about fathers of the...