What Africana Womanism Is About -By Rees Chikwendu

The following are a few examples why I think Africana womanism is unlike the gender separatism of Western feminism, but one that insists on advocating for the whole community, not on behalf of the women alone. These are also part of the reasons why I think that to bring about policy change in any society, women must be carried along. Women are the best gifts of God.

1. The British colonial officials imposed taxes on Igbo and Ibibio men, but when they attempted to extend the taxation to women, the women declared war on the colonialism. What was the rallying cry of the Igbo and Ibiobio women? Ohadum! Meaning the whole community. They won against British colonial oppression because the British colonial administration surrendered.
2. Similar taxation was imposed on Yoruba men, but it took women led by Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti to depose one of the autocratic chiefs in opposition to the harassment of women for taxes.

1. Kikuyu men were made to perform forced labor but when the policy was extended to Kikuyu women, the result was uprising led by women.
2. The apartheid regime in South Africa relatively succeeded in imposing the dehumanizing pass laws on African men, but when they tried to extend it to African women they were told by masses of women that when you strike women, you strike the rock.
3. Liberia fought a senseless war for years before the women organized to ‘pray the devil back to hell’ and helped end the war.
4. At the height of the power-drunk reign of terror by Shaka Zulu, it was his sister that gave the order for him to be put out of his misery and thereby save the lives of more people who were at the risk of being massacred by him.
5. Harriet Tubman was not content to escape from slavery alone the way most individual male escapees did, but she took the repeated risk to conduct thousands of enslaved Africans to freedom even with a heavy bounty placed on her head by the planto-cracy.
6. Part of the reasons Igbo survived the genocidal Biafra war was due to the ingenuity of Igbo women who risked being bombed in improvised market places to conjure up food for their families, run improvised schools for the children, control traffic in the midst of seas of refugees, hide their underage daughters from rampaging drunken enemy troops, and support resistance efforts any way they could.