The invention of women
Subtitle: making an African sense of Western gender discourses
By: Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí.
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Minneapolis
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 229
Copyright date: 1997
Subjects: Women, Yoruba -- Social conditions; Women, Yoruba -- History; Philosophy, Yoruba; Sex role -- Nigeria; Body, Human -- Social aspects -- Nigeria
Description: The "woman question", this book asserts, is a Western one, and not a proper lens for viewing African society. A work that rethinks gender as a Western contruction, The Invention of Women offers a new way of understanding both Yoruban and Western cultures.

Oyewumi traces the misapplication of Western, body-oriented concepts of gender through the history of gender discourses in Yoruba studies. Her analysis shows the paradoxical nature of two fundamental assumptions of feminist theory: that gender is socially constructed in old Yoruba society, and that social organization was determined by relative age.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-222) and index.