Presenter Information
Leonard Nyuydze Zifac
Theology Department
Abstract
This paper employs Emilie M. Townes's womanist ethical framework—particularly her concept of the "cultural production of evil"—to critically examine Pope Benedict XVI's post-synodal exhortation Africae Munus (2011) and its treatment of African women's agency in peacebuilding. While Africae Munus calls the Church in Africa to serve reconciliation, justice, and peace, and acknowledges women's dignity and contributions to family and community life, the document largely confines women's roles to maternal, supportive, and domestic spheres without adequately challenging the patriarchal structures that systematically marginalize women from strategic leadership and formal peace processes. Drawing on Townes's analysis of how cultural narratives, religious discourse, and structural systems perpetuate injustice, this study argues that Africae Munus unconsciously reproduces a "fantastic hegemonic imagination" that romanticizes women's suffering and instrumentalizes their peace work while obscuring the root causes of gendered inequality. The paper examines empirical evidence of African women's grassroots peacebuilding initiatives—from Rwanda and Liberia to Cameroon and Ghana—and demonstrates how their agency is constrained by cultural norms, structural rigidity, and ecclesial patriarchy. It proposes a womanist-Catholic synthesis that reimagines peace not merely as spiritual reconciliation or individual moral conversion, but as a structural and cultural project requiring the full participation of women as architects, not auxiliaries, of peace. The synthesis integrates Catholic social teaching on human dignity and solidarity with womanist ethics' demand for systemic transformation, truth-telling, and the dismantling of patriarchal violence. Ultimately, the paper contends that sustainable peace in Africa depends on a paradigm shift from symbolic inclusion to substantive leadership, grounded in a theological anthropology that recognizes African women as prophetic agents of justice and generators of peace in resistance, wisdom, and collective action.
Keywords:Africae Munus, womanist ethics, cultural production of evil, African women, peacebuilding, patriarchy, Catholic social teaching, structural evil, reconciliation, gender justice
School
McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts
Advisor
Prof. Anna Scheid
Submission Type
Paper
Included in
Africana Studies Commons, Catholic Studies Commons, Ethics in Religion Commons, Practical Theology Commons
Women’s Peace Agency: Reading Africae Munus in the Framework of Emilie Townes’ Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil
This paper employs Emilie M. Townes's womanist ethical framework—particularly her concept of the "cultural production of evil"—to critically examine Pope Benedict XVI's post-synodal exhortation Africae Munus (2011) and its treatment of African women's agency in peacebuilding. While Africae Munus calls the Church in Africa to serve reconciliation, justice, and peace, and acknowledges women's dignity and contributions to family and community life, the document largely confines women's roles to maternal, supportive, and domestic spheres without adequately challenging the patriarchal structures that systematically marginalize women from strategic leadership and formal peace processes. Drawing on Townes's analysis of how cultural narratives, religious discourse, and structural systems perpetuate injustice, this study argues that Africae Munus unconsciously reproduces a "fantastic hegemonic imagination" that romanticizes women's suffering and instrumentalizes their peace work while obscuring the root causes of gendered inequality. The paper examines empirical evidence of African women's grassroots peacebuilding initiatives—from Rwanda and Liberia to Cameroon and Ghana—and demonstrates how their agency is constrained by cultural norms, structural rigidity, and ecclesial patriarchy. It proposes a womanist-Catholic synthesis that reimagines peace not merely as spiritual reconciliation or individual moral conversion, but as a structural and cultural project requiring the full participation of women as architects, not auxiliaries, of peace. The synthesis integrates Catholic social teaching on human dignity and solidarity with womanist ethics' demand for systemic transformation, truth-telling, and the dismantling of patriarchal violence. Ultimately, the paper contends that sustainable peace in Africa depends on a paradigm shift from symbolic inclusion to substantive leadership, grounded in a theological anthropology that recognizes African women as prophetic agents of justice and generators of peace in resistance, wisdom, and collective action.
Keywords:Africae Munus, womanist ethics, cultural production of evil, African women, peacebuilding, patriarchy, Catholic social teaching, structural evil, reconciliation, gender justice