Oyeronke Oyewumi

About the Author

Oyeronke Oyewumi is a pioneering Nigerian sociologist and gender studies scholar whose groundbreaking work challenges Western-centric notions of gender and identity. Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, she earned her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and has held faculty positions at institutions including Oberlin College and Stony Brook University. Oyewumi's scholarship draws on Yoruba culture to critique the imposition of binary gender categories on African societies, advocating for a decolonized understanding of social structures. Her influential book, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, published in 1997, remains a cornerstone in feminist theory, inspiring global conversations on intersectionality, postcolonialism, and cultural relativism in gender analysis.