Oluwadamilola Idowu

Oluwadamilola's paper

Colonial Legacies and Gender-based Violence:

Enduring Patterns, emerging perspectives and pathways to post-colonial restoration for African women in British diaspora

This work considers the intersection of colonial legacies, gender-based violence and resistance among African women in the British Empire. It offers critical understanding to the historical structural and social factors that shaped African women’s vulnerability and subjugated them to systemic inequality. In this sense, this work aims to identify patterns of oppression and evaluate the perspectives that shaped resistance of such oppressions. It shows how patriarchal and racial hierarchies that shaped the imperial rule among British colonies played critical part in the institutionalization of violence against African women. Additionally, it affirms that this reality continued to shape gender power dynamism that continued to victimize these women even in the postcolonial era. Beyond identifying these patterns, this research evaluates the perspectives of feminist scholars from Africa and the Diaspora who played essential roles in redefining gender power dynamism in the postcolonial era. These perspectives provide historical narratives which foster an intersectional historical approach that addresses race, class and gender equality. It further decolonizes the Eurocentric models of historical feminism which often relegates the experiences of women from the Global South. Beyond identifying the patterns of oppression and perspectives of resistance, this research assesses historical imports to proffer pathways for a postcolonial restorative justice. Discourses around a community-based approach to justice and the intricacies of legal reforms provides backgrounds for both cultural and social transformations that challenge patriarchal norms and promote values that prevent future violence against women.

Trigger warnings:

Gender-based violence