Mother Goddess and the Re-masculinisation of Black Men: When Afrocentric Pan-African Discourse Serves Anti-Gender Agendas

Written by: Bousso Seck

Translated by: Caroline Bocquet

Published on: 17/03/2025

Literature on women’s role in pan-African movements reveals deep contradictions and conflicts. What does it mean to reimagine gender while building a new continental order, and how does this vision actually unfold in practice? Caught between rejecting Western norms and reclaiming an “authentic”^[1]Auque-Pallez, Y., 2022. L’anti-genre au service d’une identité africaine « authentique » : Genre, sexualité et engagement panafricaniste en France. Politique africaine., African identity, gender has become controversial: some now view it as yet another Western attempt to undermine African societies, an ideology that threatens their very survival. This perspective positions African women and men as fixed, unchanging categories defined by divine nature, forming the backbone of an ideological framework that has gained widespread traction across the continent. This article seeks to rethink gender norms in Africa by offering a historical and cultural lens for understanding African women and their place within Afrocentric pan-African movements.

Afrocentric Pan-Africanism: How “Gender” Becomes a Weapon in Discourses of the Historical and Cultural Break from Neocolonialism

Pan-Africanism—both as an idea and a historical movement—works toward Africa’s emancipation and reconciliation. This postcolonial movement rallies around three main struggles: dismantling arbitrary European borders, confronting the primitive racialisation that subjected Africans to racial hierarchies, and uniting Africans across the continent and diaspora in building a truly global African community, politically, economically, socially, and culturally^[2]Boukari-Yabara, A., 2017. Africa Unite! Une histoire du panafricanisme.. Understanding this movement requires a historical and cultural lens that traces its roots back to anticolonial resistance and its vision of political and cultural self-determination. Beyond historically symbolic nations like Ghana and Senegal, emerging African powers such as South Africa, Niger, and Nigeria now play pivotal roles in reshaping continental power dynamics and advancing unity. As economic, cultural, and geopolitical leaders, these countries are steering Pan-Africanism’s evolution.

Pan-Africanism also represents Africans reclaiming their place at the centre of their own intellectual and political narratives. This means revisiting and rewriting the continent’s history from an African-centred perspective—drawing particularly on the work of historian and anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop, who challenged Eurocentric views of “Black” Africa^[3]Diop, C. A., 1979. Nations nègres et culture.. Afrocentrism positions Africans as subjects rather than objects of human history, grounded in scientific foundations that explain African historical experience^[4]Asante, M. K., 1998. The Afrocentric Idea. Temple University Press.. While this movement enriches pan-African conceptions of identity, Afrocentrism distinguishes itself through its more radical, supremacist ideology. Leaders like Kémi Seba champion the preservation of an “authentic” African identity, and anti-gender discourse has become central to this political and cultural project. Yet the ongoing economic, diplomatic, and cultural influence of former colonial powers, France and the United Kingdom especially, complicates pan-African discourse. Judith Butler speaks of the “growing phantasmal force^[5]Phantasmatique : représentation illusoire ou un imaginaire collectif qui façonne une perception subjective du monde of “gender”^[6]Butler, J., 2024. Who’s Afraid of Gender? Hardcover, a spectre that generates fear and anxiety. How is this phantom mobilised in Afrocentric pan-African discourse?

Differentialist and essentialist discourses often take on an almost prophetic tone, denouncing gender as an artificial, ’emasculating’ concept that clashes with Afro-identity goals. Léonora Miano shows how these discourses exploit perceptions of gender^[7]Léonora Miano, notamment dans L’Autre Langue des femmes. This reveals that they shut down any questioning of traditional patriarchal structures and confine women to predetermined roles. A striking example of this is the revival of ‘maternalism’ theories,^[8]Sakombi, N. P., 2024. La nécessité materniste championed by authors such as Natou Pedro Sakombi, who views femininity as an essential, inalienable foundation of African identity. While gender is often seen as a form of cultural interference, it can also be used to support local movements defending the rights of women and sexual minorities against the continent’s systemic and patriarchal oppression—an oppression that shows up in gender-based violence, rigid sexist norms, and the criminalisation of queer identities. These ideas resonate strongly across Africa and the diaspora, where they are used to promote traditional gender roles, reinforce gendered divisions of labour, and maintain strict hierarchies in domestic and social life.

This cultural struggle also challenges Abrahamic religions—Christianity and Islam—which were brought and imposed by colonists and slave traders. It’s worth noting that the revival of so-called ‘African’ religions fits into this identity-based framework and helps to fuel anti-gender discourse. The Kemetism religion, particularly influential and rooted in Cheikh Anta Diop’s work, revives ancient Egyptian polytheism. Kemetism, from “kemet”, meaning ‘black land’ or ‘land of the Blacks’, sits at the heart of some Afrocentric and Black supremacist movements. The Ka Tribe, founded by Kémi Seba and dissolved in 2004, claimed to follow this approach. Kémi Seba—a highly controversial figure now leading the NGO Urgences Panafricanistes—remains influential in the pan-African movement across French-speaking Africa. As special advisor to Abdourahmane Tiani, Niger’s head of state, he commands significant attention among people of African descent in France and Belgium. Despite convictions for inciting racial hatred and Holocaust denial, this prominent activist has over 300,000 Instagram followers and enjoys support from many French-speaking public figures. A champion of Black identity, he promotes an essentialist view of gender^[9]Interview youtube Thinkerview, Francophobie en Afrique et dans les DOM-TOM ? Kemi Seba, 24 novembre 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjgm_mJ5nrs&t=1129s.

A hierarchical and differentialist approach to gender: emphasis on the “natural” roles of the sexes

Afrocentric identity is characterised by a differentialist and essentialist view of gender. Grounded in transcendent principles often tied to African traditions and cultural values, this perspective resists challenges. Gender as a social construct of sexual identity finds no place here. Instead, the differences between the sexes are explained by a natural will that matches sex to gender attributes defined by an unchanging essence. This understanding of gender doesn’t question traditional gender roles but rather frames them as part of a social balance that must be preserved.

Afrocentric pan-Africanist activists firmly oppose post-constructivist feminist theories that deconstruct gender binaries and heteronormativity^[10]Auque-Pallez, Y., 2022. L’anti-genre au service d’une identité africaine « authentique » : Genre, sexualité et engagement panafricaniste en France. Politique africaine.. In response to white feminism, which has been criticised for overlooking the specificities of social race, movements led by women who claim Afrocentrism have emerged. These movements and concepts allow Afro-descendant women to assert their role within Afrocentric groups—an ideology largely dominated by male perspectives—where they often remain a minority. One example is Clenora Hudson-Weems, an academic and theorist of Black feminism who originated Africana womanism^[11]Hudson-Weems, C., 2010. Africana Womanism: An authentic agenda for women of Africana descent. Tri-state Defender.. This ideology, specific to Afro-descendants, focuses on the struggles, needs, and desires of women while giving particular attention to racial injustices. Africana womanism operates within a differentialist and essentialist framework, with strictly defined and valued gender roles. This idea echoes the concept of “maternism”^[12]Acholonu, C., 1995. Motherism: The Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism. Owerri, Afa Publications. developed by Catherine Acholonu, which has influenced and been taken up by Afrocentric women’s movements. Maternism opposes the concept of “natural” equality between the sexes defended by feminism and emphasises the importance of “natural” roles for men and women. Here, gender inequality doesn’t diminish women’s role in African social structures but rather elevates their role as mothers and guardians of tradition. The African woman is portrayed as the maternal figure of Africa and humanity as a whole, and through her strength and “sacred” character, she is seen as best positioned to dismantle Western supremacy.

It is essential to examine how these discourses circulate and are appropriated. What shifts when women defend these ideologies as key players, compared to men who integrate them into a broader strategy for the pan-African Afrocentric project? In reality, while these female authors help legitimise these ideas, their role often remains confined to the domestic and cultural sphere, with men remaining at the forefront of political struggle. Even when women’s discourses sometimes soften the dominant male ideology, gender roles remain highly hierarchical and shaped by an essentialist vision common to both groups. The pan-African Afrocentric movement, by defending a ‘natural’ order, emphasises women’s place as pillars of African society and family structure. This celebration of the ‘mother goddess’ role develops alongside renewed efforts to virilise men. In this struggle, Afrocentric activists sometimes choose to overlook gender oppression and the concerns of sexual minorities in the name of ‘racial’ unity against what they see as Western imperialism.

However, this anti-gender dimension of the Afrocentric movement isn’t directly tied to Pan-Africanism itself but represents a reinterpretation of cultural Pan-Africanism aimed at revaluing Black men—and, more broadly, racialised men—who have been ’emasculated’ by a ‘white gaze’ that denies their virility^[13]Amaouche, M., Kateb, Y., & Nicolas-Teboul, L., 2015. Pour une approche matérialiste de la question raciale : Une réponse aux Indigènes de la République.. This stands in contrast to the virile character of colonisers, embodied by dominant white male figures, and the emasculation of colonised and enslaved peoples by being reduced to subordination^[14]Sinha, M., 1995. Colonial Masculinity. The “Manly Englishman” and the “Effeminate Bengali” in the late Nineteenth Century. Manchester University Press.. Black men possess both a predefined external identity shaped by others who view them through racial stereotypes and an “inner being” that recognises this perception as stripping them of perspective and humanity^[15]Viveros Vigoya, M., 2018. Les couleurs de la masculinité : Expériences intersectionnelles et pratiques de pouvoir en Amérique latine. This feeling is powerfully mobilised by Afrocentric activists, making it difficult for Black women to openly denounce sexism and patriarchy without feeling they’re betraying the men in their community^[16]Amaouche, M., Kateb, Y., & Nicolas-Teboul, L., 2015. Pour une approche matérialiste de la question raciale : Une réponse aux Indigènes de la République..

An essentialist approach to gender roles: return to identity or colonial legacy?

The affirmation of Black masculinities has become a major cultural issue, especially among Afrocentric pan-Africanist activists. This discourse claims to defend African authenticity against what’s seen as ‘Western gender ideology’. Black men today are often portrayed as ‘castrated’, having lost their central place in family structures^[17]White, D. G., 1985. Ar’n’t I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South. W. W. Norton.. Afrocentrism, rooted in a strong masculinist tradition, argues that women now dominate society and that men are becoming feminised—a narrative aligned with the essentialist theories of Cheikh Anta Diop. While Diop recognises influential female figures in pre-colonial Africa^[18]UNESCO Femmes africaines, Panafricanisme et Renaissance africain, Portail : la science et la culture, 2015., he still maintains that the ideal political system is male-led, echoing a long Western tradition stretching back to Aristotle^[19]Awondo, P., Bouilly, E., & N’Diaye, M., 2022. L’anti-genre en Afrique. Une catégorie globale en pratiques. Revue Politique africaine. This vision calls for a ‘return to the natural order’ where men would reclaim their place within the home, reasserting the pater familias model. From this perspective, feminist movements and gender debates threaten this order and are viewed as foreign impositions.

Tensions around gender and sexuality in Africa crystallise in a clash between Western social movements and an African tradition that remains unchanging. Western universalism struggles to gain legitimacy among many Africans, particularly regarding homosexuality, which is seen as a foreign import threatening cultural identity and social structure. It’s often viewed as a pathology or deviance, with some even linking it to paedophilia or zoophilia. Afrocentrist Frances Cress Welsing goes so far as to call Black homosexuals “traitors”^[20]Welsing, F. C., 1991. The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors. Chicago, Third World Press., accusing them of participating in the destruction of authentic African identity and being complicit in a Western project to dissolve Black families. In January 2024, Amnesty International raised alarm about the proliferation of discriminatory laws targeting the LGBTQIA+ community across the African continent^[21]Amnesty International, Afrique, Un barrage de lois discriminatoires attise la haine à l’égard des personnes LGBTI, du 9 janvier 2024 : … Continue reading. This growing challenge to their identity brings legal and social restrictions that further deepen their marginalisation.

But this vision of a deeply conservative Africa deserves scrutiny. The heteropatriarchal and cisnormative model defended by Afrocentric anti-gender activists is actually rooted in colonial ideology, built on Eurocentric concepts and Christian values. The paradox is striking: while these discourses claim to resist Western recolonisation of the continent, they actually perpetuate a social structure shaped by colonial domination. Afrocentric Pan-Africanist discourse manipulates and reinterprets cultural Pan-Africanism to rally Africans around anti-gender rhetoric. Yet far from promoting genuine identity and cultural empowerment, this approach sacralises a colonial conception of gender and sexuality while reinforcing power dynamics between Africa and the West. Political scientist Haley McEwen notes that this rhetoric simply perpetuates patterns inherited from Western domination^[22]McEwen, H, 2021. Inventing Family: Colonial Knowledge Politics of “Family” and the Coloniality of “Pro-Family” Activism in Africa. Africa Today. However, other pan-African approaches have offered alternatives to colonialist and Eurocentric visions. Thomas Sankara, former president of Burkina Faso (1983-1987), took an innovative stance on women’s place in African society. He championed a radically progressive vision of gender equality, insisting on women’s empowerment and their participation at all levels of society, including politics. Unlike Afrocentric masculinist discourses that call for a return to tradition, Sankara encouraged redefining social roles based on emancipation and equality. He maintained that the struggle for gender equality was inseparable from the fight against imperialism and neocolonialism, integrating feminist concerns into a broader pan-Africanist project. He declared that “the revolution is also women’s business”^[23]Sankara, T.,1987. Discours à la nation lors de la Journée internationale de la femme. This approach remains an essential reference today for African feminist movements seeking to decolonise mindsets^[24]Savané, M.-A., 2018). Gender and Politics in Africa: The Legacy of Thomas Sankara. African Studies Review and propose an emancipation model aligned with African socio-cultural realities.

Gender issues: historical manipulation and cultural reinterpretations

Anti-gender attitudes are a major concern within the pan-African Afrocentric movement. Through historical manipulation and cultural reinterpretations, this movement has successfully created and rallied many Africans to its deterministic and differentialist view of gender. Yet this approach stems from a colonial legacy that imposed a Eurocentric conception of family, gender, and sexuality. Masculinist and anti-gender discourses rooted in ideological and political Afrocentrism require close attention, especially given their widespread circulation on social media. These discourses have a significant impact on the lived realities of gender minorities. There’s been a resurgence of discrimination and oppression against gender minorities that, under the guise of returning to an ‘authentic’ African identity, now threatens anyone who doesn’t fit this societal model. However, some authors, like Jo Güstin^[25]Güstin, J., 2019. Ah Si si, il faut souffrir pour être française propose rethinking Pan-Africanism through an intersectional lens, breaking away from the patriarchal, heteronormative approach borrowed from colonial culture. Other committed African authors—including Ama Ata Aidoo, Flora Nwapa, and Mariama Ba—embrace this intersectional perspective. By questioning the patriarchal model, they’re reimagining Black identity^[26]The conversation : Ata Aidoo: the pioneering writer from Ghana left behind a string of feminist classics, the conversation, 7 juin 2023: … Continue reading and offering a more inclusive and egalitarian vision of future African societies. 

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author. 

To cite this work: Bousso Seck, “Mother Goddess and the Re-masculinisation of Black Men: When Afrocentric Pan-African Discourse Serves Anti-Gender Agendas”, 17 March 2025, Gender in Geopolitics Institute.