Womanism is the neologism coined by the American Alice Walker in her book In search of Our Mothers Gardens: Womanist Prose, argues that the life experiences of women of color in womanism was originally theologically oriented. The word comes from the theology of Jacquelyn Grant (White Women's Christ and Black Women's Jesus: Feminist Christology and womanist response; Perspectives on Womanist Theology). Delores Williams (Sisters in the wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk) and James Hal Cone (A Black Theology of liberation 1970) (1995: 67). Pioneer and leading scholar of womanistic theology, Delores Williams, defined Womanistic theology in the following way:
Womanist theology is concerned with a prophetic voice for the welfare of the entire African American community, men and women, adults and children. Womanist theology tries to help you see black women and to encourage them to have confidence in the significance of their experiences and their beliefs for the determination of the character of Christian religion in the African American community. Womanist theology challenges all repressive forces that impede the struggle of black women to survive and to develop
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a positive, productive life for the freedom and welfare of the family and women. Womanist theology stands against all oppression on the basis of race, gender, class, sexual preferences and physical abilities.
Based on the live experiences of black women in the United States, womanism strongly sided with all minority women, of low socio-economic status, as well as women and young people of all nations and countries, where hunger, war, poverty, tyranny and injustice prevailed. That was the point de départ of womanism. Its starting point was among colored people, who were in a difficult situation. Essed Philomena (1991:12) has stated this situation in the following:
Blacks in the United States tried virtually everything in their struggle for liberation - revolt, petitions, armed attacks, economic boycott, demonstrations, riots, court action, the vote alliances. Black Nationalism [...] due to among other things, continuous protests and the demands of market economy, social and political conditions has changed but the legacy of discrimination and legal segregation... has continued to affect race relations in the United states.
In other respects, it will be shown using the Böll’s novels and stories that womanism found in Böll's world also its point d'arrivée. Racism, sexism and class barriers are in fact a global problem. Whether in Germany or in the United States, there is one indigenous caste system, which of course determined the local conditions or features of the oppression. I believe the female sex is the most affected in such a situation. Malsenior Alice Walker, the first African American woman who has received both the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award, was famous for using the womanist idea in literary interpretation. In my opinion, the goals of the entire womanist engagements are as follows: We have agreed to a pact with our Euro-American fellow women against men. The latter have betrayed us. The only alternative left for us is to go back the same way again, and we must come up to a compromise with the men. I see this view confirmed by Ulrike Taubner of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (1985: 311):
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Thus, the different life context of women and men will be shared in the great commonality of a world life context and the different concern for men and women, which can then be pegged also at the size and scale of desirable social changes. The goal is equality between men and women.
Part of the view that the womanists want is the struggle for equality between women and men. An equality that will be zero hypocritical, absurd and contradictory. Women activists observe racism, injustice, arrogance and incompatible conditions, leading to all forms of discrimination: xenophobia, sexism, racism, caste, class system, fanaticism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, etc. The person who violates one should not complain if he is the victim of the other. The efforts of the women's movement are likely to remain controversial, as long as there is among women discrimination and injustice. Therefore, Alice Walker had to generalize and prove it in her writing. In view of her commitment and works she was ab initio oriented towards the Black Americans. Much of her earlier works such as (The Third Life of Grange Copeland), and Meridian were largely dedicated to the colored people of America. At that time, she wrote frequently about “the survival whole of my people''; her people are in this case the African Americans. She described this in 1973 during an interview with O'Brian:
I am preoccupied with the spiritual survival, survival whole of my people. But beyond that, I am committed to exploring the oppressions, the insanities, the loyalties, and the triumphs of black women... For me the black women are the most fascinating creations in the world.
Exaggerations like this and the radical opinion of the colored Americans, in my view was driving Alice Walker in the same case as in that of Europeans and Americans. It would have been more appropriate if the Womanists not only founded an alternative black-oriented theory from the beginning, but a global feminist theory using uniform requirements. None the less the womanists had to throw their one sided theory overboard immediately. Preferably thereafter a womanist theory which application should be internationally critically serviceable and literary beyond borders was
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scouted for. This is found in the later works of Alice Walker. Of interest are In the Temple of my Heart, The Color Purple and Possessing the Secret Joy (cf. genital mutilation in Africa). In this context the following broad definition of womanism according to Alice Walker are (1984: xi / xii):
Womanist is to Feminist as Purple is to Lavender. A black feminist or feminist of colour. A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or non-sexually. Appreciates and prefers women's culture, women's emotional flexibility... and women's strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally universalist...
The Being determines the existence, according to philosophers (cf. Marx: the Being determines the awareness). So we have to explain here, if we really needed a new feminist neologism for a more African or African- American feminist awareness, even though the term Black feminism exists. In my opinion, the existence of womanism has nothing to do with a word- formation and the creation of new ideas. The socio-political consciousness of African women is not new. Womanism is not an appendage to feminism. Basically, there must of course be a reaction wherever patriarchy, oppression and tyranny prevail. Such a response, or such a counterattack on the part of oppressed women, is called feminism, womanism, or Motherism or Stiwanism depending on the context. The womanism exists because sexism prevailed. Even in Africa there are clichés and stereotypes against women. There were prevailing social concepts which clearly show the existence of sexism such as those which express the following phrases: He who has a female child is as good as barren. Women, like chickens do not forage in one place. Women are betrayers and traitors. Do not divulge secrets to Women. What you will not say in public must not be said to your wife at home. Women cannot be trusted. Do not narrate critical issues to women. Women can kill. Women are weak. Women are commodities. Women are prostitutes. Old women are witches. Woman wrapper (men who love or respect women).
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In view of the above points, one should not speak of black feminism or African feminism as if the feminist experience and feminist activism are imported from abroad. As we have already explained in the previous sections, the experience of feminism gave birth to feminism as a concept. This is exactly what we want to show for womanism. Daphne William Ntiri shows in her introduction to Clenora Hudson Weeds, Africana womanism (1993: 1) that white feminism is not just adequate to express the reality of black women coupled with their different experience of exclusion especially by white feminists:
For years African Women have found themselves in a serious ideological predicament. In the absence of viable organized women`s groups they have been invited to embrace feminism as an instrument of emancipation and as a new-found source of empowerment and status-building. Unfortunately, the majority of Africa women on public platforms have rejected feminism for a multiplicity of reasons. First there is the unquestionable need to reclaim African women; second, they are perplexed over the racist origins of the feminist movement, third, they have found little solace in the doctrines and mission of the feminist movement, the realities, struggles and expectations of the two groups remain on different planes. The privileges and advantages still belong to the dominant group.
That womanism can and should stand on its own feet, in my opinion is undeniable. I can corroborate this fact with gender identity and the role of African women in the pre-colonial time. At that time, women became much more prominent in the social life. The question of whether men and women had equal rights and the same treatment in those societies does not arise. Their (African women’s) socially enviable position was still very noticeable. The dual-sex political system was stable; each gender independently controlled its management machine (vgl.Henderson 1966:311-313, 1969; Lebeu 1963:94). Thus, although the king ruled, the queen also had her roles and portfolio. This situation was of course in the Igbo-African kingdoms. In Women in World Religions and Literatures (2008: 74, see also Uchendu P, K
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1975 and Ekejiuba 1967:633-666), I have already clarified this historical fact as follows:
The dual sex political system ensured that each sex managed its own matters and had its own kingship, institution, age grades, titles and secret societies... In these societies there was the Omu which is the institution of the queen. The Omu had the Omu society. It is a menopausal post for women, notably the first daughters. It may have been introduced much later due to the Igala influence. Like the Obi, which is the kingship equivalent, the Omu is of royal lineage and is sacred coupled with the attendant sexual taboos. Only very powerful and wealthy women could attain such heights.
From other Igbo kingdoms like that of Ossomari there are reports of omus who were the top Commanders. The Omu and her subordinates were agents of Commerce and industry. The last Omu (Queen) in the Kingdom of Onitsha, Omu Nwagboka, according to Basden (1938:209-211) died in 1886 (Orjinta 2008:75). In addition, the cultural-historical subject as to whether women operated in pre-colonial African societies economically independent projects shall be clarified here. The African woman was never culturally defined as a housewife. She was employed and contributed to the economic support of the family. She was autonomous, but in complementarity with her husband. I have previously (ibid. 2008: 77, see also Nina Emma Mba 1982:13) supported this fact as follows:
The African woman excelled in trading, skills, artefacts farming, animal husbandry, crafts, sorcery and herbalism. In this way she had property rights even though she was denied inheritance rights. Since economic prowess was the key to social and political accession in the traditional African culture, irrespective of sex, men and women complemented each other`s efforts in economic acquisition by dint of hard and sincere work.
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But also for the African women many social activities were taboo. Inaccessible to women were the majority of the socio-political business just like the situation of women in Europe. The reasons for such exclusion are irrational. Such marginalization are usually based on superstitious beliefs. Terms like Stereotypy, clichés, sexism, Stalinism, etc can be used here. Outside the circle of the oppressed, it is often difficult to feel the cruelty and persecution of women like in any other situation of discrimination and injustice: However just like in every situation of oppression, those who profit from the exploitation and discrimination always do not feel that anything is wrong. They rarely understand the condition of the masses. Only very few minorities, who have courage and conscience dare reform the unjust situation. In our context, the oppressors are the machos who refuse both the women in developing countries as well as in Europe and America much of their due rights. In addition, European women shot themselves away from their fellow women / sisters coming from the Third World. As a result, this other aggrieved and scandalized sisters withdrew from the Euro- American feminist movement to justify their modified versions of feminism. Meanwhile, the African-American feminists made the same mistake of exclusion. They looked down on African women. Some of the political turmoils in countries like Liberia stem from the superiority complex of the returnee blacks who now see themselves as half whites and want to lord it over the indigenous blacks who welcomed back from slave trade and offered them abode.This situation has also contributed to the way that both the Euro-American feminism and the African-American Black feminism viewed by black African women, and the women from the Third World. The latter only feel at home in womanism and in other contraptions of home grown women consciousness. Womanism as an ideology portrays the awareness of African women who recognize their interests and needs, and are diplomatically and gender-aware struggling to attain them while not loosing site of their vocation as mother and the welfare of their families (husband and children) and communites.