This is the first comprehensive reader that brings African experiences to bear on the ongoing global discussions of women, gender, and society. Bringing together the essential writing on this topic from the last 25 years, these essays discuss gender in Africa from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

'Contributors to African Gender Studies address, in very valuable ways, a variety of theoretical and methodological issues regarding study of the status of women in Africa as contrasted with notions of feminism in the North. Among those issues are the construction of gender in different African contexts, innovative development strategies, the role of the African academic, pedagogies in the North and South, insider and outsider perspectives, and revisionist historiography. This volume should be required reading for all students of Africa and its diaspora.' - Betty J. Harris, University of Oklahoma

'For the diversity and renown of its authors as well as the breadth of its topical coverage, this book deserves a wide reading. Its subject matter, African gender studies, is important not only for Africa but also for its ability to affect both the discourse about and action on global issues dealing with gender, 'development,' and social and economic justice. ' - Cheryl Johnson-Odim, Columbia College Chicago; author of For Women and the Nation: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria