Feminist constitutionalism: towards a constitutional dogma of African women

Abstract

This article demonstrates the failure of African constitutionalism to accompany the evolution of women's civil and political rights on the continent in an equal manner, to the extent that the law has presented itself as an instrument for maintaining power. It guarantees social and political privileges to men, who use cultural pretexts to reaffirm their hegemonic position as the only universal subject and who, at the same time, determine ways of legitimizing patriarchal, sexist and misogynist normativity, conveyed by a phallocentric discourse that limits various rights to women, victims of a policy and legal narrative linked to compulsory maternity, the reducibility of negative freedoms and the non-inclusion of women in the democratic process. This situation ends up affecting reproductive rights, the right to development, the right to work, the right to political participation and the right to participate at state level. On the other hand, there is a naturalization of androcentric and macho culture, which has contributed to high levels of domestic and sexual violence. The article calls for legislative, hermeneutic and public policy communication that can be triggered by African constitutionalism, with a view to achieving gender justice in African states, reversing the structural dimension of naturalized sexism.