Africa

This syllabus is designed for senior undergraduate, or early postgraduate students. Its objectives are:

 

 

Strengthening Gender and Women’s Studies for Africa’s Transformation (GWS Africa) Project

The AGI’s Strengthening Gender and Women’s Studies for Africa’s Transformation (GWS Africa) Project pursues the Institute’s mission by developing and disseminating intellectual resources, and supporting intellectual dialogue and networking.

Compulsory heterosexuality/heteronormativity

Lisa Lindsay’s and Stephan Miescher’s edited collection, Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa (section 7a) addresses the construction of masculinities during the socio-economic and cultural transformations of the colonial and postcolonial periods.

Websites of Interest

New African magazine,

Available: http://www.africasia.com/newafrican/
 
New African Woman magazine,

Available: http://www.africasia.com/newafricanwoman/

Rhodes Journalism Review,
Available: http://www.rjr.ru.ac.za/
  

About Feminist Africa

Africa Feminist Africa is a continental gender studies journal produced by a community of feminist scholars. Currently based at the African Gender Institute in Cape Town, Feminist Africa provides a forum for progressive, cutting-edge gender research and feminist dialogue focused on the continent.

Teaching and curricula on gender and women.s studies in Africa have predominantly focused on issues of development and/or policy, as indicated by a recent and ongoing survey carried out by the African Gender Institute. At the same time, scholars, practitioners and policy makers recognise that there is a “gap” between policy and its implementation.

Assoc. Prof. Jane Bennett 

We would like to thank and acknowledge the World Association of Christian Communication (WACC) for allowing us to use some of the profiles they put together. We also thank all the women who agreed to have their profiles included in this project. With time, more profiles will be included.

This course aims to introduce students to the various approaches and assumptions that are implicit in the phrase Gender and Development. The everyday use of the term Development assumes that societies are on a linear path of continuous material improvement in terms of technology, economics, population growth, health, and education. Secondly, the phrase Gender and Development is usually understood to mean that women need to be brought on board the development project. Critics of the linear approach to development argue that social change linked to colonialism and migration in the third world have contributed to these societies’ economic and social underdevelopment. Similarly feminists have argued that development for women is more complex than a simple process of adding women to general development.