Recognizing and defending the moral value of blackwomxn : a critical feminist analysis of normative African conceptions of personhood

Abstract

Blackwomxn exist in an unbearable social condition. They are more vulnerable to sexual and physical violence, femicide and child marriages. In many nations, they are not equal under the law evinced by differential property and association rights, mobility and religious liberty as compared to men. In the academy, they are perceived as knowledge consumers, and are subject to sexual harassment as well as economic exploitation. This social condition reveals a social order as racial heteropatriarchy which has severe limitations on Blackwomxn’s personhood. It limits Blackwomxn because it disempowers them on the basis of their racialized gender. Heeding to Kwame Gyekye’s assertion that normative theories should practically intervene in social ills, I turned to Afro-personhood conceptions to motivate for a direct intervention in this social condition because the theories claim to defend the normative value of all persons owing to their gender-neutral nature. On closer inspection, I find that normative African conceptions of personhood are “gendered in pernicious ways that make the theory ineffective social tools for defending Blackwomxn’s personhood” (Gama 2023: 389). Motivated by this contradiction, I contend that we need a non-gendered theory of personhood as an Afroversal Selfhood theory. Ultimately, my aim is to advocate for guiding norms and principles that do not give moral value to persons according to their gender. Rather, an Afroversal Selfhood theory is truly gender-neutral aiming at defending the moral value of all persons.