Spain’s former African colonies – Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara – share similar histories. Both are under the yoke of authoritarian regimes and are recognised by human rights organisations as among the worst places in the world for oppression and lack of civil liberties. Yet the resistance movement in one is apparently dominated by women, in the other by men.
© 2019, University Press of Wisconsin
The book explores gendered resistance to the Obiang dictatorship in Equatorial Guinea, to the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and, before that, to Spanish colonialism in both countries. It also examines how concerns about equality and women’s rights can be co-opted within authoritarian projects. The Moroccan and Equatoguinean regimes, in partnership with Western states and corporations, promote the idea of promoting equality while undermining women’s rights in order to profit from oil, minerals and other natural resources. This ‘genderwashing’, together with local, indigenous and colonial historical norms imposed by men and women, and Western biased ideas about the roles of men and women in Africa and the Arab world, play a determining role in the shape and composition of public resistance to authoritarian regimes.
- Title : Silenced Resistance – Women, Dictatorships, and Genderwashing in Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea
- Author : Joanna Allan
- Editor : University Press of Wisconsin
- Date of publication : April 2019
- Number of pages : 360
- ISBN : 978-0299318406
- Price : 68,90 €