As far as it concerns the marginalisation of women, philosophy has, in many respects, been criticised for its failure to recognise, on the one hand, the contribution of women in philosophy and, on the other hand, women as epistemic agents. In this article, I interrogate the marginalisation of women, specifically in African philosophy, with the aim of cautioning and inspiring a reconfiguration of African philosophy that takes, very seriously, the discourse of gender as it does the discourse of race. I present this against the background of the ongoing debates, discussions and efforts of decolonisation by illustrating how the marginalisation of women in African philosophy places the discipline at odds with decolonisation and its objective of emancipating the victims of colonialism. I argue that African philosophy, in the process of legitimising its existence, has adopted a male-centred framework, a framework which has undermined both the existence and contribution of women in philosophy. This marginalisation, I will demonstrate, is partly due to African philosophy's mimicry of Western philosophy in its attempt to present itself as a ‘philosophy of resistance’1. This has not only influenced how philosophy is practised but has also shaped the discourse of African philosophy, resulting in the underrepresentation of women therein. While there may be varied ways to understand the marginalisation of women in African philosophy, my exploration relies on Charles Taylor's notion of recognition to understand better some of the effects of this marginalisation, which I argue engenders a lack of recognition of women.
The article unfolds in the following way: in the first section, I engage with the marginalisation of women in philosophy more broadly to highlight the gendered framework and male bias in philosophy. In the second section, I illustrate the influence of Western philosophy in the establishment of an African philosophy that is male-centred and argue that the insistence on combatting the ideas that Western philosophy had formulated about African people has limited African philosophy to the project of resistance. This has not only hampered the development of African philosophy but has also limited it to what Western philosophy has set it up for – technically playing by its rules. In the third section, I draw the connection between recognition and decolonisation. I situate the marginalisation of women in African philosophy within the discourse of recognition and, furthermore, illustrate that this marginalisation is incompatible with the broader objective of decolonisation, which is to eradicate colonialism and to recentre the knowledge of African people. I also unpack the effects of this lack of recognition for women, broadly speaking. In the fourth and final section, I consider the challenge that arises with conceiving of the project of advancing the recognition of women as a task and burden for women. I caution against this and encourage a joint effort by all in an attempt to create a common world for common humanity.
The Marginalisation of Women in Philosophy
There is a deep well of rage inside of me; rage about how I as an individual have been treated in philosophy; rage about how others I know have been treated; and rage about the conditions that I'm sure affect many women and minorities in philosophy, and have caused many others to leave. (Haslanger 2008: 210)
In view of the long history of the discipline [philosophy], it is indeed only very recently that women have appeared as would-be equals in a field that has in the past actively and systematically disparaged women's very capacity for its key qualifying attribute – the possession of reason itself. (Hutchison and Jenkins 2013: 2)
They maintain, though, that this appearance does not necessarily mean inclusion or equality in the truest sense. Rather, academic philosophy as it is practised today still ‘excludes, marginalises and trivialises women and the contributions they make to the discipline’ (Hutchison and Jenkins 2013 cited in Uduma 2018: 220). This marginalisation is also often traced back to key thinkers in the history of philosophy – thinkers such as Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The justification for this marginalisation was formulated in ways that assume women's lack of rationality and inability to philosophise. Nicholas Smith's (1983) article titled ‘Plato and Aristotle on the Nature of Women’ concludes that Aristotle conceived women as lesser beings than men. A similar conception exists in Kant, which suggests that women have less intellectual strength compared to men. This is ultimately what encourages Katrina Hutchinson and Fiona Jenkins’ (2013) search for Sofia in twenty-first-century philosophy.2 Although this marginalisation was not only limited to women but also extended to other races, there is a sense in which the ideas of these thinkers are taken to be foundational to the exclusion of women in philosophy.
With regards to philosophical conceptions and representations of the feminine, it seems indisputable that we received from Greece a foundational anthropological discrimination, a kind of archetypal stereotype, which caused the feminine to be perceived as derivative, and women to be considered the second sex throughout the Western tradition. (Henriques 2011)
I am inclined to distinguish between two things with regard to the representation of women in philosophy. The first is marginalisation, and the second is discrimination. This is following Uduma Oji Uduma's (2018) claim that instances of marginalisation do not necessarily warrant discrimination. I agree with this view (although below, I will argue that this marginalisation engenders some sort of denial of recognition, which, resultantly, constitutes a form of injustice). However, note that this view still does not address the fact that women are underrepresented in philosophy and that African philosophy is party to this marginalisation.
In the following section, I turn my attention to the marginalisation of women in African philosophy. I maintain that, in the process of resisting the exclusion and injustice instigated by Western philosophy and its pioneers, African philosophy found itself espousing the very exclusionary framework it sought to combat.
African Philosophy and the Marginalisation of Women
African philosophy has not been spared from the criticism of the marginalisation of women. Jonathan Chimakonam and Louise du Toit (2018) recently edited a collection of essays entitled African Philosophy and the Epistemic Marginalisation of Women wherein scholars engage with the exclusionary nature of philosophy more generally and of African philosophy in particular. The contributions in this edited collection range from discussions about the marginalisation of women in African philosophy to the exploration of some philosophical themes such as ubuntu, human rights, environmentalism, death and decolonisation in relation to women. According to Matolino: ‘In the traditional articulation of African philosophy and in the modernised, professionalised practice of this art in universities, women have been kept at the margins’ (2018: 126). He claims that this is primarily because philosophy, as illustrated above, has been ‘a preserve of males that has been handed down to male heirs’ (2018: 126). When it comes to African philosophy, he maintains that ‘it was African males who stood up to register the existence of African philosophy and counter their white counterparts’ racist attitudes’ (2018: 126). This resistance is essentially what informs the trajectory of African philosophy and continues to lay the foundation for the marginalisation of women in African philosophy.
Matolino points to Henry Odera Oruka's classification of, especially, nationalist and professional philosophy to highlight the elevation of men in African philosophy (2018: 134). He acknowledges that while it is not clear whether this elevation is due to historical coincidence or design, there is an ignorance by Oruka in the nationalist category of the contribution of African women in the struggle for independence. While the category of professional philosophy seems to be composed solely of men (2018: 134), it has also become very common to refer to the founders and lead thinkers in African philosophy in a similar fashion to the ways in which we refer to them in Western philosophy – as ‘fathers of philosophy’. In this way, African philosophy has become a caricature of Western philosophy.
Efforts have been made to justify the existence and legitimacy of African philosophy. In an attempt to justify this legitimacy, African philosophy has been presented in comparison and often in contrast to Western philosophy.3 The central objective for this way of doing African philosophy has often been to prove that similar philosophical themes, debates and discussions exist in African philosophy as they do in Western philosophy. This is essentially what Tsenay Serequeberhan (2009) points to in his reference to African philosophy as the practice of resistance.
Serequeberhan (2009) describes African philosophy as having a double task – a deconstructive and a reconstructive task. The deconstructive task, he argues, concerns engaging ‘in combat on the level of reflection and ideas, aimed at dismantling the symmetry of concepts and theoretic constructs that have sustained Euro-American global dominance’ (2009: 46). The constructive task involves engaging ‘in the systematic and critical study of Indigenous forms of knowledge and “know-how,” while the deconstructive is involved and focused on a critical “return to the source”’ (2009: 47). Although the constructive task does not necessarily follow from the deconstructive, there is a sense in which the latter necessitates the former. This way of characterising African philosophy is similar to some of the claims that have been put forward in support of epistemic decolonisation (see Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018; Ngugi wa Thiong'o 1986; Tamale 2020; Wiredu 2002).
For scholars of decolonisation, African philosophy has to function as a tool to eradicate colonial thinking (Ngugi wa Thiong'o 1986; Tamale 2020) as well as to reconstruct and recentre the knowledge of African people (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018; Wiredu 2002). Le Grange (2016: 3) explores the deconstructive project and the reconstructive project (by appealing to Chilisa 2012). He maintains that, on the one hand, the former concerns ‘discarding what has been wrongly written, and interrogating distortions of people's life experiences, negative labelling, deficit theorising, genetically deficient or culturally deficient models that pathologised the colonised’. The constructive project, on the other hand, concerns ‘retelling the stories of the past and envisioning the future’ (Le Grange 2016: 3). While I do not seek to suggest that this way of doing philosophy is erroneous, I wish to submit that African philosophy has, for the most part, been limited to the margin of deconstruction, resulting in what Achille Mbembe calls philosophical poverty – the paucity of new questions in postcolonial theory (Hofmeyr and Mbembe 2009: 181). One of the ways in which we see this unfolding is through the non-recognition of women. This occurs through the underrepresentation of women's voices and experiences in mainstream philosophy and, until recently, the underemployment of women as professional philosophers. This way of doing philosophy not only reinforces Matolino's idea, presented above, that philosophy is exclusivist and has functioned as a gentleman's club, but it also perpetuates a repressive notion that women are only capable of occupying certain roles, and that they do not have the capacity to be rational and, as a result, to be philosophers: ideas which are regretfully rooted in colonial thinking.
insofar as postcolonial theory has considered the struggle between Father and Son – that is to say, the relationship between coloniser and colonised or native and settler – to be the most significant political and cultural paradigm in formerly colonised societies, it has tended to overshadow the intensity of the violence of ‘brother’ towards ‘brother’ and the status of the ‘sister’ and the ‘mother’ in the midst of fratricide.(Hofmeyr and Mbembe 2009: 181)
From this, it becomes clear that African philosophy ought to do more than deconstruct. Its decolonial task extends to the critical engagement and (re)construction of the Indigenous forms of knowledge with the purpose of creating a world of common humanity. On this point, Egbai Ojah (2018) calls for a re-asking of the questions that drive inquiries in African philosophy in a way that includes other relevant perspectives, such as that of women. Similarly, Mbembe encourages the social sciences to begin formulating new problems and inventing new concepts with cultural, political and aesthetic implications (2009: 179). This is one way in which to expand the decolonisation mandate and its reach.
In the following section, I analyse the relationship between recognition and decolonisation in so far as African philosophy is considered a decolonisation tool. I show that the marginalisation of women in African philosophy stands in contrast to the decolonial objective at least at two levels – first at the epistemic level of deconstructing colonial structures and second at the individual level, whereby this marginalisation denies women the opportunity to reconstruct their own identities.
Recognition and the Decolonial Objective
From the foregoing characterisations of African philosophy, we can see that its tasks of deconstructing and reconstructing align squarely with the objective of decolonisation – hence my submission of African philosophy as a decolonisation tool. Following the long history of colonialism and the denial of the humanity of African people, the primary task of any project of decolonisation is thus to confront and deconstruct the very systems which kept colonialism alive. One of those systems is patriarchy – a system of male authority which legitimises the oppression of women through various structures of society (AWDF 2007: 4). Part of the colonial patriarchal operations, as far as curriculum design and knowledge production are concerned, has been maintained through the direct and indirect exclusion of women in philosophy. And this, as mentioned above, has also influenced how African philosophy has been carried out.
At the centre of colonialism was the non-recognition of the other – a denial of their humanity, cultures, knowledge and history. In response, decolonisation then functions to restore what has been denied and destroyed by colonialism. Part of this can be carried out by way of recognising those who were either not recognised or misrecognised. Important in this regard is Sylvia Tamale's notion of epistemic decolonisation, which she defines as ‘a process of removing structures of colonialism from mental processes of a nation and its people’ (2020: xiv). It is these colonial structures that constructed and sustained the idea that the coloniser is superior and the colonised inferior and, similarly, the idea of the man as superior and the woman as inferior. Thus, in essence, to eradicate the colonial structural legacy is to deconstruct colonial constructs, including constructs of race and gender.
I should note that while the end goal of decolonisation is to acknowledge and address these colonial constructs, at any given point, the acknowledgement of only one construct over the other is and would be an insufficient attempt at decolonisation. Louise du Toit and Azille Coetzee warn that ‘a decolonization project that ignores sex and gender and the sexual trauma of colonization will necessarily be unsuccessful in that it will repeat and reinforce the colonial logic of sexual wounding’ (2017: 335). To recognise only one colonial construct would constitute, in some sense, a lack of recognition of the other by virtue of their identity – in this case, their gender. To some extent, this can be referred to as partial recognition, given that only one aspect of one's identity is recognised. However, I am hesitant to accept partial recognition as illustrative of recognising only some aspects of one's identity, particularly if we consider, and I will make this clear below, the connections between recognition, identity and human dignity (see Allsobrook 2023; Taylor 2004). To put it simply, in the same way we do not conceive of dignity as partial, I believe it would be erroneous to conceive of recognition as partial. I submit that the marginalisation of women in African philosophy is illustrative of this lack of recognition, wherein the same discipline that has resisted colonial ideas on the basis of race is party to marginalisation and a lack of recognition on the basis of gender.
Recognition and the Struggle for Identity
In what follows, I employ Charles Taylor's (2004) notion of recognition to interrogate and analyse some of the effects of the lack of recognition. Taylor's account of recognition is tied primarily to identity – a person's understanding of who they are – where one's identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence thereof. Although related, Taylor (2004) identifies two levels in which the discourse of recognition lies: the intimate level and the public level. The intimate level involves understandings and formations of identity and the self which rely on the continuing dialogue and struggle with others (2004: 37), while the public level has to do with the extension of the dialogue and struggle with others as a duty one has to others. According to Taylor, one's ‘own identity crucially depends on [their] dialogical relations with others’ (2004: 34). And by extension, other people's identities, crucially, depend on their dialogical relations with oneself. He maintains that at the public level, or what he sometimes refers to as the social sphere, ‘identities are formed in open dialogue, unshaped by a predefined social script’ (2004: 36). For Taylor, there is a close connection between recognition, identity and authenticity, where recognising one's identity can be simply understood as acknowledging one's presence, which is fundamental to forming one's identity and, ultimately, one's authentic self. I use presence here, as I think it closely captures Taylor's idea of authenticity as connected to self-realisation, self-determination, and dignity (2004: 31). For the purposes of this discussion, I will not engage with the politics of recognition, which Taylor locates at the public level. However, it is important to note that recognition at the public level encompasses two things. First, everyone deserves equal treatment, which derives from their inherent dignity (2004: 37). And second, ‘everyone should be recognised for his or her unique identity’ (2004: 38).
In what follows, I expand on Taylor's notion of recognition by drawing from Heikki Ikäheimo and colleagues’ (2021) conception of recognition and the African philosophical literature on personhood as these notions highlight, among other things, the role that others play when it comes to effecting recognition. According to Ikäheimo and colleagues, recognition is ‘taken to refer to the beliefs, attitudes, and actions of others that affirm an individual in an aspect of her self-conception’ (2021: 2). It assumes an inextricable connection between the self and others, where recognition primarily depends on affirmation by others. They argue that affirmation allows one to realise oneself and to live a fulfilling life (2021: 2). This is a result of oneself being in harmony with the other, which enables one to see and experience the world as encouraging them to be the person they are or want to be.
This way of conceptualising recognition is similar to some conceptions of personhood rooted in the African philosophical tradition (see Gyekye 2002; Menkiti 1984). Based on this view, the community constitutes ‘the context, the social or cultural space, in which the actualization of the possibilities of the individual person can take place, providing the individual person the opportunity to express his/her individuality, to acquire and develop his/her personality and to fully become the kind of person he/she wants to be’ (Gyekye 2002: 301). Similar to the dichotomy of the self and others in the literature on recognition, African conceptions of personhood also assume a very close relationship between a person and the community, wherein one's personhood relies on recognition and affirmation by one's community. Chris Allsobrook extends this person–community relationship to human dignity and maintains that in typically African communities dignity is defined by the community and earned in the honouring of moral obligations which serve the community's common interests (2023: 28). Setting aside the point that dignity is earned, Allsobrook's extension of the person–community relationship to human dignity discourse assumes that dignity, too, essentially relies on recognition, where a lack of recognition not only presumes a lack of personhood but also a lack or denial of human dignity. In summary, recognition is significant for reasons tied to the functioning and flourishing of human beings; it is important for constructing one's identity and validating one's personhood and dignity. Thus, a lack of recognition implies, amongst other things, a lack of personhood and dignity, as well as the negation of one's identity.
According to Taylor, ‘nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being’ (2004: 269). He goes on to say that ‘withholding recognition can be a form of oppression’ (2004: 275). Furthermore, he argues that misrecognition and non-recognition are merely a lack of due respect (2004: 270), in essence, a lack of affirmation. Ikäheimo and colleagues maintain that ‘in experiencing this kind of disrespect, the individual finds herself bound to others, often inescapably and to her detriment’ (2021: 2). The disrespect makes it difficult for the individual to relate positively with themselves, affecting their social world negatively while also disrupting their relationship with the other.
Although I am reluctant to label the marginalisation of women in African philosophy as either non-recognition, misrecognition or withheld recognition, I wish to highlight that the recognition of women in African philosophy is lacking, nonetheless. My reluctance is partly because, often, how this marginalisation plays out cannot only be depicted through either one of these categories of lack of recognition and because, in other instances, it is not always clear which category is at play. I also note that while the lack of recognition of women in African philosophy might not be as extreme as the one depicted by colonialists and, perhaps in some instances, not deliberate, this does not take away the potential harm that this marginalisation might have on African women in particular.
Taylor, through his association of recognition with identity, claims that non-recognition or misrecognition can induce, amongst other things, crippling self-hatred (2004: 270). This is essentially because of the close connection between recognition and identity, where identity is constructed through social relations with others. Lack of recognition and/or misrecognition assume some notion of inferiority, resulting in an unhealthy dependence on the other for recognition and validation. To project an inferior image of an individual (in the same way that philosophy has projected images of women) can, according to Taylor (2004: 275), distort and oppress to the extent that the image is internalised by the victim.
This is a particularly worrying outcome for African philosophy, considering its primary objective of decolonisation. The marginalisation of women in question, which I conceptualise within the framework of lack of recognition, goes against the fundamental goal of African philosophy, which is to eradicate colonial thinking and to recentre the knowledge of African people. First, the lack of recognition of women in African philosophy is resulting in an incomplete attempt at decolonisation because, on the one hand, the recentring seems distorted due to its not having advanced the knowledge of the collective and, on the other hand, it appears to be operating within the same framework it seeks to confront. Second, the lack of recognition of women in African philosophy is also detrimental to the personhood of women, as it may be read as, in extreme cases, the denial of personhood for African women. Based on the links between recognition and identity, it seems reasonable to deduce that this lack of recognition denies women the opportunity to reconstruct their identities in a world that has persistently denied their existence. This, as suggested by Ikäheimo and colleagues, supposes a negative relationship between African women and the social world, one of constant frustration and suffering and not of personal expansion (2021: 2).
The Burden of Challenging African Philosophy on the Marginalisation of Women
It is one thing to call attention to the marginalisation of women in African philosophy and another to confront and address this issue. As illustrated above, some work has been done as far as it concerns the former (see Chimakonam and Du Toit 2018; Edet 2018; Haslanger 2008; Hutchinson and Jenkins 2013; Matolino 2018), but more still has to be done about the latter. While it is common to relegate any issues concerning gender and gender inequality to women, my aim in this section is to highlight one of the challenges that African women face when it comes to what can be colloquially referred to as ‘calling out one of their own’ – in this case, African philosophy and its proponents. I am reminded here of bell hooks’ (2000) book Feminism Is for Everybody. In the book, hooks challenges the idea that feminism or the struggle for gender equality is about women who want to be men or that feminism is divisive in the sense that it is about women's interests and politics. This fight, hooks’ view, is for everyone who shares in the aspiration of living in an equal society.
To talk of White racist constructions of Black women's sexuality is acceptable. But developing analyses of sexuality that implicate Black men is not – it violates norms of racial solidarity that counsel Black women always to put our own needs second. Even within these racial boundaries, some topics are more acceptable than others – White men's rape of Black women during slavery can be discussed whereas Black men's rape of Black women today cannot. Rape, incest, misogyny in Black cultural practices, and other painful topics that might implicate Black men remain taboo. (Collins 2000: 124)
By extension, this burden of silence is one way that can help us understand, on the one hand, the reluctance, especially by African women, to criticise African philosophy on the very point of marginalisation and, on the other hand, why it may have taken this long for this criticism to get off the ground. Undertaking this task, I can imagine, sometimes feels like choosing between the loyalties that bind one to race and those that bind one to sex (McKay 1992: 277). This is particularly relevant if we consider the strides that African philosophy has made when it comes to resisting the racist perceptions of the African continent, its people and their histories, especially by Western philosophy. Therefore, for African women to turn around and condemn African philosophy or proponents of African philosophy for their marginalisation might be conceived as, among other things, utterly ungrateful.
For the sake of clarity, I should note that I am not suggesting that African women should not be part of the reconstruction of African philosophy, nor am I suggesting that we give up the struggle of advancing the recognition of women altogether. However, I am cautioning against conceiving of the struggle against marginalisation in African philosophy and the project of advancing the recognition of women as projects for and of women. In essence, I am encouraging a joint effort by all those who are concerned, affected and engaged in the construction of African philosophy to be conscious of and, where possible, confront and address this injustice in an attempt to create a common world for all of humanity.
Conclusion
The marginalisation of women in philosophy is an issue of concern, especially in African philosophy, given its characterisation as a tool for decolonisation. What is required of African philosophy at this point is to take up the constructive task both intentionally and deliberately. As suggested by Mbembe (2006) and Ojah (2018), African philosophy has to engage in re-asking old questions while simultaneously formulating new ones. It has to occupy itself with the disruption of Eurocentric knowledge production methods while at the same time reconstructing new and alternative knowledge. And until African philosophy realises and breaks free from this inherited framework which was initially set up to exclude the very same men who are now its pioneers, its capacity to decolonise will always be limited. Recognition, as alluded to by Taylor, is a human need, a need which colonialists denied the rest of humanity based on their race and gender differences. Denying or withholding recognition is a form of oppression, while non-recognition and misrecognition are considered fundamentally disrespectful. To deny women recognition is not only oppressive and disrespectful but also infers a denial of their personhood and dignity. Thus, we should be critical of how we philosophise and, to my caution, be continually reflective on whether our doing of philosophy, especially African philosophy, speaks to the primary objectives of decolonisation, which includes emancipating the colonised and recentring the knowledge of the marginalised.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the participants at the Wild Coast Symposium on Recognition, organised by the Centre for Leadership Ethics in Africa (CLEA) at the University of Fort Hare and members of the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (ACEPS) at the University of Johannesburg for their comments and constructive discussions. I am also thankful to the reviewers for their feedback, which was very helpful in improving this article.
Notes
This is derived from Serequeberhan's characterisation of African philosophy as a practice of resistance (2009: 46).
This is taken from Hutchinson and Jenkins’ (2013) introduction to the book Women in Philosophy titled ‘Searching for Sofia: Gender and Philosophy in the 21st Century’. Although they do not explicitly explain their reference to ‘Sofia’, my interpretation, drawing from the understanding that sophia means wisdom in Greek, which also works as the suffix for philosophia (or ‘philosophy’), which literally translates to ‘love of wisdom’. I take it that their undertaking concerns the search for female philosophers, given the absence of women in the history of philosophy.
See, for example, Fidelis Okafor's (1997) comparison of Western and African philosophy; Thaddeus Metz's (2010) comparison between African and Western moral theories in a bioethical context; and Godwin Azenabor's (2008) comparative study on the foundation of morality between African ethics and Kant's categorical imperative.
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