The writings show how gender relations have been constructed on the African continent and reflect the changes in approach and inquiry that have been brought about as the authors consider gender identities and difference in their work. Specific themes covered here include the contestation and representation of gender, femininity and masculinity: livelihoods and life ways: gender and religion, gender and culture: gender and governance.
The essays assembled here explore African women's encounters with European colonialisms. They focus on the ways in which women negotiated that range of political, economic, and social forces embraced by the term 'colonial' - from European rule, missions, taxation, and cash cropping to biomedicine, labour migration, white settlement, and racialized discourses of power.
The authors address questions such as: What is the meaning of gender in an African context? Why does gender usually connote women? Why has gender taken hold in Africa when feminism hasn’t? Is gender yet another Western construct that has been applied to Africa? They show gender as an applied rather than theoretical tool and discuss themes such as the performance of sexuality, lesbianism, women’s political mobilization, the work of gendered NGOs, and the role of masculinity in a gendered world.