African Philosophy and the Epistemic Marginalization of Women

Jonathan Chimakonam, Louise du Toit

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351120081
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This book examines the underexplored notion of epistemic marginalization of women in the African intellectual place. Women's issues are still very much neglected by governments, corporate bodies and academics in sub-Saharan Africa. The entrenched traditional world-views which privilege men over women make it difficult for the modern day challenges posed by the neglect of the feminine epistemic perspective, to become obvious.

Contributors address these issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives, demonstrating what philosophy could do to ameliorate the epistemic marginalization of women, as well as ways in which African philosphy exacerbates this marginalization. Philosophy is supposed to teach us how to lead the good life in all its ramifications; why is it failing in this duty in Africa where the issue of women's epistemic vision is concerned? The chapters raise feminist agitations to a new level; beginning from the regular campaigns for various women's rights and reaching a climax in an epistemic struggle in which the knowledge-controlling power to create, acquire, evaluate, regulate and disseminate is proposed as the last frontier of feminism.

1 Addressing the epistemic marginalization of women in African philosophy and building a culture of conversations

Jonathan O. Chimakonam

Introduction

My understanding is that one is a philosopher if one has learned to employ the tool of reason to engage rigorously with questions of life. One is an African philosopher if one can manage to do this not only at the individual level but in engaging those problems facing the African peoples. In Africa, we have many problems that trouble people daily. Some of these problems are social and political; others are economic and psychological. In this work, I want to focus on one quite different problem that is most times less honed in academia, namely the epistemic marginalization of women in the African place. In a world where the epistemic perspective of the opposite sex is trivialized, epistemic lop-sidedness is inevitable.

The concerns of women generally are still very much neglected by governments, corporate bodies, academics and philosophers in sub-Saharan Africa. The entrenched, traditional world-views which privilege men over women make it difficult for the modern day challenges posed by the neglect of women’s epistemic perspective to become obvious. Although some efforts are now being made at the global level to address this and all forms of marginalization against women, the impact is yet to be felt at local levels. For example, the United Nations General Assembly in 1996 adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) articulated in 1995 as a program of action against gender inequality (United Nations, 1995). The 20-year assessment of the BPfA implementation does not show much progress, especially in places like sub-Saharan Africa (UN Women, 2015).

Though it is no longer in doubt how women’s subordination affects the economic and socio-political development of a society; and it has also been echoed that women can play pivotal economic, social, political, educational and technological roles for the growth of a state, most societies, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to marginalize women. This line of argument has been made in the literature by Lydia Makhubu (1993), Idah Sithole (1993) and Rose Eholie (1993). But my inquiry here will be focused on the epistemic marginalization of women as opposed to other forms of marginalization. I will attempt to trace all the subjugations which women suffer to one source, namely epistemic marginalization. I will then reach out to examine the extent to which African philosophy has become complicit or otherwise in this marginalization. My investigations will, therefore, be guided by the following questions: How has African philosophy marginalized women in its questions? What roles has philosophical education played to ameliorate or exacerbate this epistemic marginalization? Before I wade into these fundamental questions, let me briefly explain what African philosophy is, as well as what it is not.

African philosophy in brief: what it is, what it is not

Let me begin with what African philosophy is not. African philosophy is not the description of an African world-view or an account of African cultures or histories. These come short of fulfilling the basic properties of philosophical language, namely: rigor, criticism, creativity and systematicity. Against this backdrop, let me turn to what African philosophy is.

African philosophy is the location of wonder in the African place; it is the rigorous and critical application of the tool of reason such that a culturally-inspired methodic ambience accounts for the systematicity of its discourses. Needless to point out that this is my own conviction and may not represent the views of some other actors who are bent on conceiving African philosophy as a reactionary or as a retrospective project of cultural excavations. Granted the foregoing, I will sketch a brief history of African philosophy that aligns with my understanding of the discipline.

African philosophy as a systematic study dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century (Chimakonam, 2014). Some of the factors that stimulated it, according to Ruch and Anyanwu (1981) include racialism, history of slavery and colonialism. During colonial times, the identity of the African was European, so also was their thought system and even their perception of reality structured by the colonial shadow which stood towering behind them. So, to discover or rediscover the lost African identity in order to initiate a non-colonial or original history for Africa in the global matrix, and thereby begin a course of viable economic, political and social progress that is entirely African, became the focal point of African philosophy. Frustrated with the colonial system, the newly trained Africans returning from European and American universities stimulated the journey of philosophical reason in the African place by creating nationalist and ideological discourses later to be elevated into a school of thought in African philosophy. By the time philosophy moved into the universities, a curious brand of theoretical philosophy, later to be christened ethnophilosophy, emerged from the African place. Leading the advocates of this new school was the Belgian priest, Placid Tempels (1959).

Tempels, the European missionary, in his controversial book Bantu Philosophy, constructed African philosophy and sought to create Africa’s own philosophy as proof that Africa has its own peculiar identity and thought system. Tempels argues that the African is not a nobody but somebody, that s/he is not unintelligent or even less than human (Chimakonam, 2014). Unfortunately, Tempels’ efforts were later rejected and criticized by the mainstream African intelligentsia for promoting the Eurocentric vision and for making inaccurate claims about African ontology and thought systems (Hountondji, 1996; Asouzu, 2007). However, it was George James (1954), another concerned European, who attempted a much more ambitious project in his work, Stolen Legacy. In this work, there were strong suggestions not only that Africa has philosophy but that so-called Western philosophy, the very bastion of European identity, was stolen from Africa. This claim was intended to make the proud European colonialists feel indebted to the humiliated Africans, but it was unsuccessful (Chimakonam, 2014). That Greek philosophy had roots in Egypt does not imply, as some claim, that Egyptians were dark skinned people, nor that dark skinned Africans authored that philosophy. The use of the term ‘Africans’ in this present work is in keeping with George James’ demarcation, which precludes the light-skinned people of North Africa and refers to what is generally known as sub-Saharan Africa.

Following the efforts of those two Europeans, Africans began to attain maturation. John Mbiti, Odera Oruka, Julius Nyerere, Leopold Senghor, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, Obafemi Awolowo, Alexis Kegame, Uzodinma Nwala, Emmanuel Edeh, Innocent Onyewuenyi and Henry Olela, to name just a few, opened the doors of ideas. A few of their works sought to prove and establish the philosophical basis of a unique African identity in the history of humankind, while others sought to chart a course of Africa’s true identity through unique political and economic ideologies. Elsewhere, I have demarcated the history of African philosophy into two broad epochs, namely pre-systematic and systematic. While the pre-systematic epoch refers to the period from 1900 back to the beginning of time, the systematic epoch begins in the 1900s and runs to date (Chimakonam, 2015a). The systematic epoch is further divided into four periods, namely:

1 Early period: 1920s–1960s

2 Middle period: 1960s–1980s

3 Later period: 1980s–1990s

4 New (contemporary) era: post-1990s.

I will not discuss these periods here as they lie outside the scope of the present research. I must, however, clarify that to state that African philosophy can only be dated back to the twentieth century does not commit us to saying that, in the pre-systematic epoch, people in Africa never philosophized – they did. But one fact that must not be denied is that they did not document their thoughts and, as such, scholars cannot attest to their systematicity or sources. In other words, what this periodization shows is that African philosophy as an academic system first began in the late 1920s; the first period being the early period.

The early period was an era of nationalisms and struggles for political independence. It also witnessed the development of ethnophilosophy by the academic African philosophers as a theoretical response to the Eurocentric attack on the African identity and intellectual standing. The middle period of African philosophy is characterized by the great debate between those who sought to clarify and justify the position held in the early period (traditionalists or particularists) and those who sought to criticize and deny the viability of such position (modernists or professional/universalists).

The middle period eventually gave way to the later period, which had as its focus the construction of an African episteme. Two camps rivaled each other, namely the Critical Reconstructionists, who were the evolved Universalists, and the Eclectics, who were the evolved Traditionalists. The former sought to build an African episteme untainted by ethnophilosophy; whereas the latter sought to do the same by a delicate fusion of relevant ideas from the two camps. In the end, Critical Reconstructionism ran into a brick wall when it became clear that whatever it produced could not truly be called African philosophy if it was all Western without African marks. The mere claim that it would be African philosophy simply because it would be produced by Africans, as Hountondji (1996) and Oruka (1975) argued, would collapse under any argument. Due to this great failure, the influence of Critical Reconstructionism in the later period was whittled down and later absorbed by its rival – Eclecticism.

The works of the Eclectics heralded the emergence of the New Era in African philosophy. The focus becomes Conversational philosophizing, in which the production of philosophically rigorous and formidable African episteme, an improvement on that produced by the Eclectics, occupied center stage. It is eclectic in that the ideas in traditional and universal African philosophy are combined. But above all, it is conversational, eschewing perverse dialogues and concentrating on individual creativity, originality and system building. I will explain conversational philosophy in more detail in a later section.

With this brief on African philosophy, one can now seek to know whether or not there is a nexus between African philosophy and the epistemic marginalization of women. Does this nexus ameliorate or escalate the problem?

Coming to African philosophy’s roles in either ameliorating or escalating the epistemic marginalization of women, one can argue that where African philosophers have done nothing to stop it, they have done a lot to encourage it. Philosophers do owe some obligations to women, as Nkiru Nzegwu explains (1996). It is perhaps the philosopher who understands the enormous influence on the affairs of humans of the power to control knowledge. Epistemology and all of its social, political, economic and psychological appurtenances are well within the philosopher’s domain. Challenging this old order that has kept women down through epistemic marginalization should be his or her concern and responsibility. By epistemic marginalization I mean all measures spoken, written or gestured by men which seek to convey the impression that women are incapable of, or at least, not sufficiently capable of intellectual rigor or cognitive enterprise in general. It is the responsibility of African philosophers to overcome epistemic marginalization of women in all of its ramifications. The fact that African philosophers have continued to neglect this responsibility is one that can no longer be denied. Those who proclaim themselves feminist scholars merely indulge in campaigns for this or that women’s right, whereas the kernel of the matter, which is epistemological power, is left untouched. It is my conviction in this work that all the denials women suffer in the society have a common source, namely the power to control knowledge creation, acquisition, evaluation, regulation and dissemination in the society. It is their failure to attack and break this masculine hegemony over knowledge-controlling power that characterizes African philosophers’ complicity in the epistemic marginalization of women. Discussions surrounding this subject shall be the concern of the next section.

How African philosophy marginalizes women: epistemic necessity as the last frontier

Quite a good number of African philosophers/thinkers (Odi, 2010; Uchem, 2001; Chuku, 2013; Chimakonam and Agu, 2013) today agree that women are being short-changed in the intellectual space, but exactly how this is done has not been fully clarified. The likely views you will find out there are about men entertaining poor opinions about women’s rigor and men not encouraging women philosophers to aspire. Needless to point out that culture, in the midst of all this failures, drives in the final nails. As correct as these may be, it is hard to believe that they are the main challenges, let alone the only ones, that African philosophy should confront. What about the structure and scope of the questions of African philosophy? One way of scheming women out of the equation has been by excluding them from its questions. When wonder strikes, what follows inevitably is a question. Wonder and questioning are thus the lightning and thunder of philosophy. It is wonder that inspires the questions of philosophy. The framing of questions not only marks the beginning of philosophizing, it determines most importantly, the nature of philosophy that takes place in a given tradition. So, if the opposite sex is not accommodated in the questions of, say, African philosophy, such a philosophy becomes a ‘genderized’ philosophy. And a gendered philosophy is not only lopsided, it is deformed. Epistemology is not complete if it is built on the foundation of injustice.

Interestingly, this is the problem that Miranda Fricker (2007) attempts to tackle in her book, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Fricker sheds light on the lopsidedness of epistemology which sidelines the perspective of otherness. She argues that epistemology is undergirded by an ethical rule that necessitates the balancing of perspectives, the violation of which will amount to a form of injustice. As she puts it:

the project of this book is to home in on two forms of epistemic injustice that are distinctively epistemic in kind, theorizing them as consisting, most fundamentally, in a wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower. I call them testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice occurs when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word; hermeneutical injustice occurs at a prior stage, when a gap in collective interpretive resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences.

(2007, p. 1)

The point highlighted in the book is that it is not enough to talk about knowing, that process must, in our context, observe gender balance without which the process might be deemed unjust (Fricker, 2007). Knowing and constructing knowledge structures thus become a right, but like all rights, one’s right ends where another’s begins. When we take a handful of epistemological theories, what do we observe? We observe that they are masculine narratives representing masculine perspectives. One is bound to ask: what about the feminine perspective? We can no longer deny that despite our shared human perceptions and values, men and women have some epistemological differences. I make this claim without wishing to be sexist. But the fact is that psychologists and sociologists who study the depths of human mind, desires and social relations have established that what men basically want out of life is not completely the same as what women want. And these differences in desire and social interaction often manifest in the different shades of emotional strengths they have. While men hurry in life, women tend to be more patient with life. Also, while men manifest high level of courage with their eyes fixed on an immediate result, women tend to manifest the virtue of endurance with their eyes fixed on hope. While men are easily undone by mental stress and trauma, women have a great capacity to absorb mental stress and pressure.¹

Certainly, all these emotional dispositions count immensely in the way men and women perceive and relate to reality, and should be taken seriously. The problem I wish to highlight is that this important epistemological layer (that is, the feminine perspective) is not considered as having any worthwhile consequence in our knowledge acquisition processes and endeavors. Without serious attention to the women perspective, our knowledge acquisition process is like cutting a cake in half and selling one half as though it was a full cake. Indeed, our epistemological edifice becomes a half-cut cake. Denying or ignoring the feminine epistemological perspective thus becomes one great source of the marginalization of women in African philosophy.

Again, African philosophers have imbibed the attitude of generalizing masculine concerns and experiences. I think this is erroneous. Men and women may have shared values, needs and problems as humans but there are still some peculiar experiences. How do some masculine life experiences contrast with the feminine life experiences? We know of course, that some challenges which women face are not problems for men, for example, pregnancy and childbirth. Many of us might consider this a little trivial and of no importance for the day-to-day philosophical concern, but when we realize that procreation stands at the center of human existence, then we might be able to grasp the ontological, epistemological and ethical import of the question of pregnancy and childbirth. Nzegwu (2003) in her paper, ‘Epistemological Challenge of Motherhood to Patriliny’, hints this point; but a detailed discussion of the substance of her position is not my focus here. What is highlighted in the above is the possible epistemic cost of marginalizing the female experience of reality in African philosophy. I will make this argument more pungent later in this section.

Also, what is shown here in analyzing the value of the female perspective is that epistemology could have normative concerns. I have explained this pr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Addressing the epistemic marginalization of women in African philosophy and building a culture of conversations
• 2. Henry Odera Oruka and the female sage: Re-evaluating the nature of sagacity
• 3. Women and ubuntu: Does ubuntu condone the subordination of women?
• 4. African philosophy, its questions, the place and the role of women and its disconnect with its world
• 5. Dialogues and alliances: Positions of women in African philosophy
• 6. Dealing with the trauma of a loss: Interrogating the feminine experience of coping with a spouse’s death in African traditions
• 7. Human rights discourse: Friend or foe of African women’s sexual freedoms?
• 8. African philosophy’s injustice against women
• 9. Conceptual decolonization in African philosophy: Views on women
• 10. Women in the his-story of philosophy and the imperative for a ‘her-storical’ perspective in contemporary African philosophy
• 11. Buffeted: Developing an afro feminist response to environmental questions
• 12. Ecofeminism in Africa: The contribution of Wangari Maathai
• 13. Women in the kitchen of philosophy: Re-asking the questions of African philosophy
• 14. Are women marginalized in African philosophy?
• Index