Abstract
This chapter examines African women’s complex relationship with the postcolonial state. More specifically, it explores the ways in which African statecraft has created opportunities and challenges for African women on the continent. Decker begins by looking at the status of women in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries to determine how state policies and practices have influenced their lives. She then examines the political trajectories of several women who got involved in politics and thus became part of the state. In the last section, she considers the role of activism as a tool for engaging the state from the outside. Decker concludes by returning to the gendering of African statecraft, theorizing how and to what extent African women can make the postcolonial state less patriarchal.
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Decker, A.C. (2018). African Women and the Postcolonial State. In: Shanguhyia, M., Falola, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of African Colonial and Postcolonial History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59426-6_44
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