Zusammenfassung / Summary
Der Aufstieg der Frauen zur Macht im afrikanischen Kontext wird in der Regel der verführerischen Verwendung ihrer Körper zugeschrieben. Die wahre Geschichte von Ahebi von Igboland (Westafrika – Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts) dient als Paradebeispiel für diese sexistische Haltung. Ihre Geschichte findet auch einige Parallelen in der apokryphen Geschichte von Judith, die ihr Volk mit ihrer Schönheit und Verführungskunst befreite. Dieser Artikel verwendet feministische Hermeneutik, vor allem die Kritik der Freud’schen psychoanalytischen Konzepte von Judith Butler, um diese sexistische Haltung in Frage zu stellen.
In the African context, women have never featured prominently in the enterprise of politics and power play. Even when they do rise to power, their achievement is usually attributed to the seductive use of their bodies. This sexist attitude is clearly seen in the true story of Ahebi of Igboland,38 who was arguably the only woman warrant chief in colonial West Africa (late 19th century). Her rise to fame and power was attributed to her ability to utilize the power of the female body to seduce the colonial masters into giving her the position. Ahebi’s story finds some parallels in the apocryphal story of Judith, who liberated her people by gaining entrance to Holofernes’ tent through her beauty and seductiveness. This article will explore this sexist attitude and, using some feminist hermeneutic keys, will try to analyse the phenomenon of female body power politics. The question is, can we attribute the rise of women to power only to the way they use their bodies as in Judith, or to their own sheer intellectual and political ability? This paper seeks to address this question and posits that women in politics do not rise to power only through the seductive use of their bodies. The theoretical framework is based on Judith Butler’s critique of Freudian psychoanalytic concepts.