Jabou,

 It is quite interesting because our male counterpart in the struggle against oppression and dictatorship in the continent should be able to join us in the struggle against patriarchy.  These two cannot be separated.

  The struggle for the total liberation of women is not about hating men it is about hating the control that men are having over the lives of women, culture, tradition or religion.  It is about the fact that these institutions and systems have reduced our size of control and power over the lives, bodies and destinies of women.

So as feminist our task is to understand this system permanently and how we feature in this system.  And our political task is to end this system and we will among ourselves with our solidarity and sisterhood we also end it through the solidarity of men who we think the way we do because not all men believe in the oppression of women. Unfortunately all men benefit from the privileges of patriarchy but fortunately not all believe that patriarchy needs to continue in the form that it does.

 I always tell people that it is an insult for people to assume that African women cannot conceptualise things for themselves, cannot theories and specifically when it comes to our histories and our identities that we cannot come up with an appropriate theory of our own oppression or locate ourselves appropriately.  For me one of the crucial theory of African Feminism which as an African woman  we cannot talk about feminism in Africa without taking for instance the historical realisation of Africa as a continent and all the things we have gone through as a continent as men and women in this continent.  Our history of slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism, globalisation all these have an impact in so many different part of the continent.  As we can see the struggle against the total liberation of Gambia goes hand in hand with the struggle against patriarchy. We cannot join with our brothers in the struggle against Dictatorship without carefully looking into patriachal oppression.

 

The Struggle Continues!!!

Ndey Jobarteh