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.
Through key topics and episodes across British Empire history, Woollacott examines how gender ideologies and practices affected both sexes and saturated imperial politics and culture. Contains: Women and unfree labour in the 18th and 19th centuries: slavery, convict transportation, emancipation and indentured labour: Narratives of interracial sexual assault and crises of imperial rule: Masculinities, imperial adventuring and wars: Gender and everyday life in colonial regimes: Women in anti-colonial and nationalist movements: Gender and empire in the metropole.