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Experts in women’s studies, political science, and global diplomacy have praised African women for continuing to redefine leadership through resilience, agency, and innovation, despite decades of systemic exclusion from political life.
This was the crux of conversations at the latest edition of the Toyin Falola Interviews, held virtually on Sunday across multiple social media platforms.
Themed “Women in Africa: Global Perspectives,” the discussion brought together a formidable panel of international scholars whose research spans politics, history, gender, and diplomacy.
The dialogue was moderated by Professor Abimbola Adunni Adelakun, Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. The featured authors included Dr. Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, Associate Professor of Political Science at Babcock University, Nigeria, and Professor Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.
Other panelists were Professor Damilola Agbalajobi, Professor of Political Science at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria; Professor Khushi Singh Rathore, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, Italy; Professor Tinuade Ojo, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations and Director of the Centre for Race, Gender and Class at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa; Professor Mary Owusu, historian and specialist in Ghanaian and African intellectual history and historiography; Professor Grace Ese-osa Idahosa, Assistant Professor of Education and Social Justice and Director of Studies for Education at King’s College, University of Cambridge, UK, as well as Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Change, University of Johannesburg, South Africa; and Professor Christine Vogt-William, Director of Gender and Diversity at the Africa Multiple Cluster, University of Bayreuth, Germany.
The conversation opened with reflections on women’s political participation across Africa. Professor Agbalajobi underscored the importance of women’s agency in reshaping governance structures. “My research has consistently focused on women’s political representation, gender dimension of conflict and inclusive governance,” she explained.
“Today, I am greatly honoured to contribute to this important conversation by discussing which explore the resilience, the agency and transformative roles of women in African politics and peacebuilding. These themes are not only central to my research, but also to the broader struggle for equity and justice across the continent.”
She highlighted that despite institutional hurdles, women have historically relied on resilience and grassroots networks to secure political visibility. According to her, quota systems, though imperfect, have also played a decisive role in helping women claim political space in societies still dominated by patriarchal traditions.
Yet, for other panelists, the issue went beyond representation in parliaments. Professor Khushi Singh Rathore drew attention to the glaring absence of African women in diplomatic and transnational histories. “One thing which has long caught my fascination has been the histories of women’s transnationalism, especially in postcolonial societies,” she noted.
“It completely baffles me how we had so many strong women who were travelling across the Global South and meeting their counterparts, but I don’t read about them in the international history that I am taught as a scholar of diplomacy.”
Rathore argued that the dominant historical canon privileges narratives filtered through the West. By doing so, it sidelines South-South solidarities that were critical to postcolonial nation-building and women’s activism.
“Works like this reorient intellectual debates by moving beyond the West and the fixation with writing our histories only through encounters with the global North,” she stressed.
The question of women’s erasure was further emphasized by Professor Mary Owusu, who described the silences in African intellectual history as both telling and troubling. “I realised the better question is not so much where are the women as why are there no women in African intellectual history? Why aren’t they on that same footing?” she asked.
Owusu traced this erasure to methodological biases. “Thinking through why the women are missing, I realised that the women are missing because when we are doing intellectual history, we are text-centric. And that has erased the lives and works of women who were pioneers in their fields,” she explained. She called for a redefinition of “intellectual work” to include oral traditions, activism, and other non-textual contributions through which women shaped knowledge and society.
From political science to historiography, the panelists collectively highlighted a pattern: African women have often been present, active, and influential, yet absent from mainstream accounts. Professor Grace Ese-osa Idahosa and Professor Tinuade Ojo further discussed the intersections of gender with class, race, and education, stressing that African women must be studied within the broader contexts of inequality and social justice.
Professor Christine Vogt-William added that African women’s contributions should also be examined within global feminist discourses, without flattening their experiences into Western frameworks. For her, intersectionality and diversity remain central to understanding how African women navigate politics and society.
The event drew a wide and interactive online audience, as viewers engaged the speakers in real-time. Questions revolved around how to ensure women’s stories are not only written but also institutionalized in education and policy, and how international feminist debates can be enriched by African women’s perspectives.
