African womanist activism: Is it political presence or political participation empowerment?

Abstract

African women are faced with and confronted by a patriarchal system that is largely embedded in many African societies. The grooming of girls in their early stages of life, propels them to become subordinates to their youngest brothers being boys’ at that stage, by further obliterating their competitive mindset. In that regard, this existence of the so-called education meaning indoctrination in some instances, portrayed what they grasped in their early stages in life became a long chain, in which African feminist scholars, as well as African feminists (activists), are trying to ratify it, as it calls for male dominance all the way. For some time the presence of women and their impact has been clouded by their absence of them in pursuing political activism as well as pastoral. From that thinking, African women in the continental structures and political presence are completely absent. From that instance, the paper is aimed at analyzing the trend in women’s participation in Africa, funnelling the study to their political participation. In that retrospect, the paper further alludes to women's activism movements as the advocacy for their lack of political participation in infrastructural offices. By looking at these frequent movements of women in the continental aspect, the paper funnels the ubiquity of women's movements to the narrow nature, of requesting more efficient types of machinery for women and also the quest for the development of democracy for the African continent. In a broader sense, the paper is aimed at looking patriarchal system as a narrative of the absence of women’s political presence in Africa, occurrences of women’s activism movements on the African continent and the call for efficient national types of machinery for women and construction of democracy in Africa. The paper is reliant upon existing thoughts in induce the methodological content of this paper. The thematic analysis for this paper revolves around Sustainable Development Goals 5 and the political participation of women.