Recent Studies on African Women

For years, indeed until the recent emergence of feminism, the worlds of women were relatively unexplored. Social scientists solicited neither women's thoughts nor their opinions. They highlighted child-bearing and rearing as women's productive activities. Any roles other than the domestic were often misconstrued, if not entirely ignored. Women were written off to a mundane existence in the home. Now that the study of women has become respectable, a new literature has blossomed. As a discussant on a panel entitled "Women in the Migratory Process," Anthony Leeds stressed his "ever-increasing malaise with the spurious reification of 'women' as a unit of analysis-a unit I see ideologically generated, not scientifically" (Leeds, 1976: 69). Leeds's primary objection is with the individualistic emphasis of the category. Women should not be studies qua women, but as players in role-sets who articulate with the larger social fabric and whose activities are socially determined. Leeds's complaints are not uncommon. They are addressed, for example, by the editors of the anthologies under review. The collected pieces illustrate that often the biological fact of "woman" determines the kinds of roles that women play. The editors justify the publication of their respective volumes by setting forth explanations of why and how the subject of women has suffered, and why and how it should be pursued. Although the two books are related, they vary substantially. The Hafkin/Bay authors represent a variety of disciplines, but all are Africanists focusing upon African women. The Ardener contributors are all anthropologists, but their female subjects inhabit different geographic areas. The Hafkin/Bay