In 1978, La Parole aux Négresses was published by Denoël, a feminist manifesto signed by the Senegalese anthropologist Awa Thiam. With this provocative title, the essayist, born in 1950, signified the breaking of the silence of African women and resized the contours of a feminist movement until then considered essentially Western. Disappeared from the shelves of French-speaking bookstores in the mid-1980s, the work nevertheless remained in memories thanks to the second-hand book circuit while, in its English translation, it continued its career, becoming a reference book in several faculties American. It finally reappears, Friday May 24, in France (ed. Divergences) and in Senegal (ed. Saaraba).
It is a book that “it is urgent to read”, “a necessary reissue”, underline the prefaces of 2024, both Senegalese. Both discovered La Parole aux Négresses during their higher studies and have since considered it a key moment in their intellectual training. The first, Mame-Fatou Niang, 42, professor of literature at the University of Pittsburgh, integrated it into her teaching. But, beyond this academic use, she evokes the almost organic experience of reading it: “Disturbation, pain, anger, disgust, joy, resolutions. But, after each reading, the impression of feeling an amputated part growing back. »
The second, Ndeye Fatou Kane, 37, writer and doctoral student in gender sociology at the University of Paris, insists on the “precious legacy” that the book is in her eyes: “Each reading is a rediscovery for the feminist that I am. » Deep respect then, feeling of sisterhood for these adopted nieces of the author? Certainly. Thus, undoubtedly, for a whole generation of researchers, creators, thinkers – and we hope thinkers – in today’s Africa who are challenged by feminist debates.
Hybridity
In fact, even if women’s movements often linked to political parties predate her speech – Ndeye Fatou Kane recalls, for example, the existence of the Union of Senegalese Women in 1958 -, Awa Thiam is historically the first African woman to dare to state, in a book, the problems that plague the lives of black women. The Word to the Negresses begins with their testimonies. They are called Yacine, Medina, Tabara, Mouna, Ekanem. They come from Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Nigeria… After their “words” Awa Thiam breaks the taboo by denouncing their “evils”: traditional practices of polygamy, dowry, genital mutilation, skin bleaching. Finally, the last part of the book is intended to be a call to action, even to revolution: “The solution to the women’s problem will be collective and international. The change in their status will be at this price or it will not be,” writes the author with emphasis, thus joining, after having established the specificity of the struggles of African women, the wider circle of global female oppression.
Awa Thiam was praised but also widely criticized in her time for the hybridity of her work. The scientific nature of his work has been called into question, to the point of denying him the ability to produce knowledge. Reactions that were, to say the least, condescending towards this intellectual who has twice had a doctorate from the university. Even Benoîte Groult, a French activist who signed the 1978 preface, maintains a certain self-control towards him. According to Mame Fatou Niang, the French feminist “will recognize [Awa Thiam’s] contribution on the aspect of patriarchal oppression and the submission of bodies, but will miss [her] proposal of interlocking systems: sexism, racism, class and colonialism , passing over in silence the radical and revolutionary horizon of [his] essay.”
However, these are the elements of the concept of intersectionality that Awa Thiam formulated forty-six years in advance. “Where the European complains of being doubly oppressed, the Negress is triple oppressed,” she writes. Oppression by gender, by class, and by race. Sexism-Racism-Existence of social classes (capitalism, colonialism or neo-colonialism). » Her speech is therefore just as strongly pioneering as it is political, founder of an Afrofeminism, which, after the International Year of Women decreed in 1975 by the United Nations, claims to be recognized in its specificities as much as to take its place in the global feminist movement.
“Invisibilized”
It is a considerable step that Awa Thiam took by signing his courageous essay. A step that is all the more interesting to measure today, in light of the evolution of women’s issues on the African continent. In this regard, in the afterword of the Senegalese reissue, sociologist Kani Diop strives to note certain progress such as the decline in the practice of genital mutilation, through state, legal and civil society mobilization. But she nevertheless considers that the subjects addressed by Awa Thiam remain relevant.
On this point, Ndèye Fatou Kane does more than approve, she protests: “La Parole aux Négresses is sadly topical. We continue to talk about depigmentation, polygamy, genital mutilation. However, in Gambia, the 2015 law which made excision illegal is in the process of being repealed… Even before the election of President Diomaye Faye, the stories which agitated opinion around Ousmane Sonko highlighted the fact that Senegalese women, feminists or not, were being made invisible. What message does the Ministry of Family and Solidarity send today, whose title does not contain the term “woman”? That women are confined to the domestic and reproductive sphere while men are entitled to that of production? The re-publication of the book will certainly revive the accusation of the Westernization of Senegalese feminists, which would be very far from reality. But the slayers of feminism will see that forty-six years ago, it was one of us who wrote this book and the West had nothing to do with it. »
Awa Thiam has hardly been heard since his book-event, preferring to stay away from the media spotlight. La Parole aux Négresses makes its voice and those of many women heard again. Who knows how many more paths will open up thanks to them?