What is a woman? A decolonial African feminist analysis of womanhoods in Lesotho

Abstract

Feminists across a variety of contexts have written extensively about womanhood. Recently the question of difference—to account for the cultural, ethnic and racial diversity among women themselves—has become a highly contested issue in feminist theories. Tensions have ensued where “western feminisms” have been criticised for bias that is embedded in the objectification of “different” women regarded as “other” as “traditional” and therefore inferior. Several African feminists have also questioned “western” concepts such as gender and their relevance to the African context. Womanhood—a set of socially defined attributes appropriate for women—holds different meanings depending on the context in which it is defined. Drawing on decolonial African feminist approaches, this qualitative study aimed to understand the meaning of “womanhood” from the perspectives of never-married women (methepa) in Lesotho, where womanhood is defined in terms of marriage. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 methepa from various contexts in Lesotho. As opposed to the “traditional” definition that accounts for a single attribute—woman as “wife”—methepa defined “womanhood” in different ways. By foregrounding respectability, sexual empowerment, mothering and personhood, these women deconstructed binarised gendered categories. This paper builds on the indigenous and also draws from the indigenous for knowledge production. In so doing, it deconstructs metanarratives and reconfigures knowledges around women’s sexualities, agency and “womanhoods” in Lesotho, as a contribution to pluriversal knowledge production.