Outsiders on the inside? Thinking about an intercultural understanding of gender identity

This paper focuses on the issue of identity, primarily (though not exclusively) in relation to Africana women. The author argues that female identity in Africa today has been both negated and fractured, and that this fracture comes about through the "globalization of woman' and the universalization of both the experience of women and of female "identity." She goes on to argue that the ghost of universalism continues to hover over our conceptions of woman, especially the Other woman (that is, the non-white, non-heterosexual, non-middle class woman), despite the postmodern call for the acceptance of difference. According to the author, African female identity has been negated and fractured not only through various cultural practices, but also through colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism.