The voices of women in Africa. Love, marriage, slavery, apartheid

Abstract

The paper documents women’s self expression from Africa, from Limba stories and Somali love poetry to self-told tales of women under slavery and apartheid or of young girls reluctantly but submissively going into marriage, together with the images of deceit and infidelity often attributed to women in male-generated tales and observations. The paper is illustrated by historical texts from first hand research in the field, dating from the mid nineteenth century to the present.