first exam

Pamela J. Olubunmi Smith wrote the following article about the struggles of feminism in African women. The increase of the feminist movement in America not only drove action for women rights across the states but in Africa as well. Although feminist movements in Africa grew stronger, African women have a history of their own. Smith talks about the women’s riots to fight for their rights. The Harry Thukua Massacre in Kenya, The Anlu Uprising and The Aba Women’s Riot in Eastern Nigeria are only a few of historic female rebellions to be heard. These protests all had different goals and meaning. Women protested against oppressive colonial agricultural policies. Because of this, the advantage of their rights to crops were taken from them. Smith lets her reader know that there has been no silence in women suffrage in African. “In the casof Eastern Nigeria as in other colonized parts of the continent, the imposition of government systems alien to women’s autonomy and economic security and put in place the subordination of women”. Meaning that long before the 1920s, feminism was still relevant and was charged by anti-colonial sentiments. The government system was still foreign to the idea of feminism and was slowly eating away at the idea. Bohannon and Curtin states that “women like all commodity became property” as they describe pre-colonial African women’s “high social positioning”. Women economic and political positions were dropped. Smith then mentions that even though there is an infinite battle with a male-dominated capitalist government, women still protested and kept guarding their rights. Feminism in Africa still have a long road a head of it. Feminism in Africa is far from leaving conventional traditional social mores but the status of women enhances with modemization and African feminism is continuing to increase and be more well known for all African women.

Second Example