Gender and Feminist Meditations on Women’s Political Participation in Africa
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Across Africa, women continue to face structural, cultural, and political barriers that limit their participation in governance. This volume, financially supported by Akina Mama Wa Afrika, brings together scholars and activists to explore the diverse ways women are challenging these constraints and claiming space in political life. From Nigerian women using social media to amplify their voices, to Zimbabwe’s Nambya women dealing with patriarchal cultural practices, the chapters examine both the obstacles and strategies for empowerment. Empirical studies from South Africa, Ghana, and Uganda highlight how rural women, literary interventions, and activist-leaders like Stella Nyanzi are reshaping political participation and challenging entrenched gender norms. Drawing on African feminism, comparative analyses, and real-world case studies, the book offers insights into increasing women’s representation in decision-making platforms and national assemblies, advancing gender equality, and fostering inclusive governance. Essential for scholars, policymakers, and advocates, this collection illuminates the pathways toward a more equitable political future in Africa. Dr Dikeledi A. Mokoena is a South African academic and lecturer at the University of Johannesburg's Department of Anthropology and Development Studies. Her research focuses on Gender, Politics of Development and Feminist Political Economy, which explores the intersection of gender and economics in African contexts. Dr Mokoena is a former youth leader of a pan-Africanist movement and has served in various leadership portfolios. Dr Mokoena has a colourful history in political activism & remains an activist scholar. Her work is centred around promoting pan-African unity, collective leadership, and African feminist principles for a more just and equal world. Sharon Adetutu OMOTOSO is an Associate Researcher at the Institute for the Future of Knowledge, University of Johannesburg. She is also Associate Professor (Gender and Media Studies) at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan where she heads the Women’s Research and Documentation Centre (WORDOC). Her works integrate the transdisciplinary fields of Applied Ethics, Media/Information Literacy, Gender Studies, Higher education leadership, African Politics and African Philosophy. On these, she serves on editorial boards of scholarly journals and consults for international agencies. As an Alexandra von Humboldt fellow, her strength lies in developing innovative concepts that contribute to debates in scholarship, activism, and policy engagements.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.017 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".