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Abstract

Senegalese women’s socio-cultural and economic status has always been shaped by local customs, religion, and gender structures. During the colonial period, against the backdrop of the opportunity to have a Western education, economic changes and extremely rapid urbanization encouraged Senegalese women to join the political arena in supporting various male political leaders. This trend continued during the post-colonial period, leading to the election of female parliamentarians and women holding high governmental positions in the 1960s and 1970s. The 1980s saw the creation of more vocal and visible women’s organizations such as the Yewwu-Yewwi “Pour la Liberation des Femmes” movement of women, as the country was facing the rapid growth of Islamic fundamentalism and sexism in urban areas. These women decided to fight for the protection of women’s rights such as equality in heritage, the right to land and education, and protection of married women’s rights. However, the Yewwu-Yewwi movement disappeared in the early 1990s. Was the movement not able to mobilize Senegalese women in general because it used a women’s emancipation discourse embedded in a Western paradigm, or were the anti-women’s-emancipation groups, mostly male traditionalists and fundamentalist Islamic groups, too powerful to challenge in Senegal during the 1980s and early 1990s?

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