Walter Rodney Ctiticism

As time passed, European domination drastically altered the African landscape – both physically and culturally. Traditional roles, practices, and beliefs were either completely subverted or modified to fall in line with European cultural ideals. Doubtlessly, this process of subjugation worked to the detriment of native populations throughout the continent. Even though all members of indigenous communities have suffered under this system, African women remain especially vulnerable to its harmful effects. As Mary Kolawole points out in her comprehensive work, Womanism and African Consciousness, these women must confront a set of oppressions unique to their position as both black Africans and women. During her discussion of African women’s current struggle for recognition, Kolawole argues that, although colonialism displaced many African traditions, the patriarchal social structure remained. In many ways, she holds, European colonization widened the rift between African men and women even further (Kolawole 34). Although African and European traditions share in the elevation of the male over the female, most African cultures offered women a greater position of respect within society, as well as more “positive avenues of self-liberation” than were available to European women

The first chapter in Boahen’s book is titled “Eve of Colonial Conquest” and this section gives the readers a background of the colonialism in Africa through a look at the fundamental economic, political, and social changes that occurred just a few decades before colonialism took root. Boahen states that the trade of “natural products” is the most significant economic change in Africa by 1880. Just before the trading of “natural products” slave trades were abolished.

European powers shamelessly exploited the people and resources of Africa in the 19th century. They often tried to justify their actions by using ideology, religion and moralism. After the end of the African slave trade, the development of steam power, and medical discovery, European nations started exploring not only the coast but also the unmapped interior of the continent. In this essay, I will explain the main driving forces behind African Imperialism. The Western europeans countries all competed for land and resources because of their self interest. They sought natural resources, and technology gave them the ability to exploit them. The philosophy of national pride however, was the primary reason. (Main document) (Doc C, D & B)

The changes in African life during the slave trade era form an important element in the economic and technological development of Africa. Although the Atlantic slave trade had a negative effect on both the economy and technology, it is important to understand that slavery was not a new concept to Africa. In fact, internal slavery existed in Africa for many years. Slaves included war captives, the kidnapped, adulterers, and other criminals and outcasts. However, the number of persons held in slavery in Africa, was very small, since no economic or social system had developed for exploiting them (Manning 97). The new system-Atlantic slave trade-became quite different from the early African slavery. The

The purpose of this book is to offer his perspective on how Africans were treated in the Americas from 1550 to 1812.

In a patriarchal society such as colonial Latin America, women were considered second class citizens. No matter their class or ethnicity, all women experienced the social and cultural limitations that are subjected to them by this patriarchal society. Women had limited access to education, women are used to satisfy men’s personal desires and legal systems neglected women’s court rights while heavily advocating men’s. However, not all women are subjected to the same limitations because of the difference in one’s economic status and ethnic identity. Nonetheless, women still found a way to carve out a space for themselves in attempt to overcome these regulations set by a patriarchal society.

The narrative by Olaudah Equiano gives an interesting perspective of slavery both within and outside of Africa in the eighteenth century. From these writings we can gain insight into the religion and customs of an African culture. We can also see how developed the system of trade was within Africa, and worldwide by this time. Finally, we hear an insider's view on being enslaved, how slaves were treated in Africa, and what the treatment of African slaves was like at the hands of the Europeans.

Women face two key forms of oppression in this world, powerlessness and exploitation. These two forms fall into Iris M. Young’s ideas of oppression in her article “Five Faces of Oppression”. The definition of cultural imperialism and exploitation used in this essay are taken from Young’s essay. Cultural imperialism is where the dominant customs and morals of a society are rendered as the norm and those who are not in the norm are considered others. Exploitation is a form of oppression where a class structure is present and this class structure includes a dominant group of people who are in power of a subordinate group. Two authors, John Stuart Mill and Simone de Beauvoir, talk about how the oppression of women is not due to nature. It is rather, in Mill’s view, due to a premodern law of force which divides men and women between the strong and the weak. Beauvoir sees this oppression of women as a result from socialization, which conformed women to become immanent. Both these authors have reasonable arguments and have a similar understanding that the inferiority of women is not from the simple nature of being women. Other factors come into play when understanding why women are oppressed, and both authors recognize the fact that society and old habits must change for the equality of women and men to become a reality.

Phallocratic and patriarchy maintained sexual violence and controlled women. Their way of controlling was to rape, female genital mutilation, force marriage and polygamy. European did not succeed in wiping out the black African civilization. Thiam credits the mothers/ancestors of the country, they held on to their belief to keep African civilization alive. In the phallocratic system European women and African women suffers oppression and exploitation by the capitalist as the male worker. Women also struggle wage on their own native land. Women and man fighting and bearing arms for the liberation of their country, only then they are seen to be equal as man. Women are capable just as men in assimilating skills of guerrilla warfare.

In “Heterosexualism and the Colonial/ Modern Gender System,” Maria Lugones offers the idea that gender targets women of color. Lugones brings up the research of Oyeronke Oyewumi, who looked into how gender affected the structure of the Yoruba people, especially since gender was not a concept that was originally part of their culture. Once the idea of “women,” was implemented into the community through colonization, women were identified in contrast to men who were then considered the “norm.” (Lugones). If the women did not have a penis, they were reduced as women, beneath men and they no longer had any power in their communities. The Yoruba men accepted this idea and then collaborated with colonists to further oppress women (Lugones). Paula

In the novel Abina and the Important Men¸ by Trevor Getz and Liz Clarke, numerous themes of colonial history in Ghana are revealed. The story depicts a run-away slave named Abina bringing her former master to court in order to press charges of unlawful enslavement. At first glance, this novel seems to be merely a depiction of one woman’s struggle to achieve justice in the Manichean colonial world of Ghana during the 1870s. A more thorough analysis of the novel, however, illuminates certain intrinsic qualities that yield a better understanding of how complex colonial rule was in Ghana and other British colonies. By discussing the background on Asante slavery and British abolition, why Abina’s case was not successful in convicting her slave master, and the internal split of colonial against colonial, a grasp on how the British failed their civilizing mission will be reached.

In this regard, literature is viewed as both a product and a representation of the social realities in Africa. In this way, from a sociological perspective, the selected texts for the study were read against the social situation which determined their creation and functionality in society.

As it stands in our modern age, both the general public at large and scholars within all factions of academia have acknowledged the horrific documented abuses perpetrated by colonial powers from the Age of Exploration to the present day. Similarly, the mechanics behind the oppression of women have been exhaustively researched and debated over. However, if one is to analyze and compare literature born out of the height of the colonial age, and literature released within our own lifetime, they may actually arguably find very little difference in how they characterize women; in particular, there seems to still be a racial element of subjugation, whether intentional or not. By examining the dynamics between the feminine ‘natural’ and the masculine ‘human’ in Aphra Behn’s 1688 novel ‘Oroonoko’ and Couto’s ‘The Tuner of Silences’, published in 2009, I will argue how men and women are constructed differently in the literary sense as not only as natural beings, but also as inhabiting natural assumed roles in relation to one another and the ecology they are a part of. Specifically, these texts illuminate the striking similarity between the human cultural imposition on natural spaces, and the masculine imposition and domination of female identities. I will demonstrate how the European woman, present in both of these texts, negotiates and holds a unique place of rank within not only the colonial framework, but also within the gendered ecology of human civilization, and as such serves

What the narrator notes above, claims Rodney, is what resulted in the underdevelopment of Africa.

Colonialism is and has been a reality during previous centuries. As a political and economical reality it entailed significant consequences in the colonized country's politics, geographical maps, and people's lives, fates and temperaments. As the consequences are hard to ignore the writers of the formerly colonized countries never forgot to write about it and their people's lives before, during and after their country's colonization. As Emecheta is one of these writer who is born and brought up in Nigeria, a colony of British Empire until 1960, postcolonial approach is one of the most appropriate critical methods to deal with her narratives. Besides, since she is focusing on women in the colonial and postcolonial setting trying to