The Gender Backlash is no longer a novel phenomenon, both in Africa and globally. The emergence has trailed the observed success of gender equality both in developed and developing countries, including Africa. The gender backlash has been described as a way to snatch success away from women (Momsen, 2015), following the past three decades of significant progress in several aspects of gender inequality. While this has been significant in nominal terms across Africa, going by several known metrics, progress has become slower and actually declining especially in political representation, sustained in just a limited number of countries such as Rwanda, Cape Verde, and South Africa. Even in these countries with perceived progress, the representation of women in the public sector leadership and the professions remains delinked with the seeming progress and much less coherent with gender equality in other strategic areas of development. Such a delink is a symptom of resistance to real change, indicating that progress observed are token actions by governments. This has served to obscure the growing backlash in patriarchal Africa, exemplified by policy pushbacks such as the delay in ratifying binding obligations such as the CEDAW bill in many African countries and the growing incidence of negative gender norms and practices such as gender based violence. Many other disturbing gender gaps in critical areas of economic transformation are discernible, which are constraining Africa’s capacity for strong economic transformation and real and sustainable inclusive growth; these are the outcomes of the gender backlash, stemming from the emasculation of half of her population. Evidence of the gender backlash, globally, may worsen, given the growth of far-right-wing conservatism in Europe and the USA (Biroli and Cavinati, 2020; Flood, et al, 2021; Green and Shorrocks, 2023 – in the vote for Brexit).
In Africa, indicative studies including Msimang (2015), Baiazova, (2019), Akhire and Amon, (2024), to name just a few have posited that patriarchy and its trappings, which are ingrained in African governance systems, are causal to the gender backlash. Thus, if patriarchy is ideologically opposed to feminism, the gender backlash is seen as a response to the growth of feminism; as feminism has gained ground, patriarchal practices have gained new momentum to uphold negative gender norms and practices from the community level to the policy level, in spite of numerous non-discrimination legislations.
Is it time to rethink feminism as the major conceptual framework that has underpinned inclusive growth in Africa? Can an ideological shift – from gender equality and women empowerment to “the uplifting of the human self”, regardless of their characterization and of society, inter alia, which is ingrained in modern humanism, be a more acceptable pathway toward inclusive growth in Africa??
The questions to be addressed in this panel are to interrogate the thought that an ideological shift – from gender equality and women empowerment to “the uplifting of the human self”, regardless of their characterization and of society, inter alia, as ingrained in modern humanism, be a more acceptable pathway toward inclusive growth in Africa? Specifically:
– To what extent has feminism and its policy frameworks worked positively (or negatively) towards Africa’s quest for inclusive growth? What are the enduring challenges that have continued to harm progress in gender equality?
– For want of further evidence, what are some of the real evidences (empirical or observations) of overt and covert gender backlash in different sectors, countries, and cultures?
– How can the frameworks that have promoted gender equality, such as the BPA, be broadened to include all discriminated or underserved populations that have been ideologically termed “feminized bodies”?
– What institutional frameworks have proven positive for inclusive growth from a humanism perspective in different countries, from a historical perspective in pre and post-colonial Africa? Possible best practices?
– How can institutions and governance practices (development frameworks, policies and legislations) redress the growing backlash on feminism and/or promote the alternative humanist approach?
Panelists are invited to interrogate this broad proposal with scholarly insights and political inquiry. Other query lines are welcome to open wider spaces of interrogation of this likely contentious proposal – given the wide adoption of the feminist ideology in promoting gender and development policies, practices and scholarship. It is the hope that the discussions will propel inclusive scholarly, media, and policy exchanges, research studies, and policy recommendations that can lead to culturally adaptable and acceptable inclusive development frameworks in Africa.
Please send a short abstract of the aspect of the discussion/queries to be focused on.
Contact by email (boladale.akanji@quinnipiac.edu and copy bolaakanji@gmail.com).
Abstracts or the paper to be discussed should be received by March 15, 2025.
Indicate if an existing paper fits into this discussion and what stage the paper is (published, finished manuscript, in progress) or if you will be developing a new paper. An indication of either a positive or a negative inclination to the proposition of the topic will be helpful.
