Paper short abstract:

African women’s participation in politics is still at a vegetative stage. While previous studies have attributed the patriarchal culture across Africa as a principal factor responsible for this anomaly, this research takes the discourse further by using narrative and hermeneutic methods to interrogate the indigenous roles assigned to women in the traditional Yoruba society as embodied in the Yoruba proverbs and Odu Ifa corpus, not only to refute the patriarchal locus but also, to balance the gender equation regarding social and family relations among the traditional Yoruba. Ultimately, it is the conviction of the research that the indigenous roles assigned to the women fork in the traditional Yoruba society be allowed to be imported for contemporary use in our attempt to make considerable changes in global politics through transformative recognition.

Paper long abstract:

In recent times, there is an increased call for women to participate in African politics. Despite this move, African women’s participation in politics is still at a vegetative stage. This research discovers that gender and cyberbullying, character assassination, a campaign of calumny, and other denigrating methods are employed by men to ward off and frustrate women with the potential to venture into politics. This way, many women are deterred from joining and contributing their quota to their countries’ political and social lives. While previous studies have attributed the patriarchal culture across Africa as a principal factor responsible for this anomaly, this research takes the discourse further by using narrative and hermeneutic methods to interrogate the indigenous roles assigned to women in the traditional Yoruba society as embodied in the Yoruba proverbs and Odu Ifa corpus, not only to refute the patriarchal locus but also, to balance the gender equation regarding social and family relations among the traditional Yoruba. In order to make the problem vivid, the study considers examples of women’s level of participation in the politics of Nigeria. Ultimately, it is the conviction of the research that the indigenous roles assigned to the women fork in the traditional Yoruba society be allowed to be imported for contemporary use in our attempt to make considerable changes in global politics through transformative recognition.

Keywords: Traditional Yoruba, African Politics, Women, Political Participation, Transformative Recognition.