Molara Ogundipe

Abiodun Omolara Ogundipe was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to a family of educators and clergy. Her mother was a teacher's college professor, who taught English and Math, and her father was an educator and missionary who followed the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, and raised his family as Swedenborgians.^[6] She attended Swedenborg Memorial School for her primary school education.The school had a radical curriculum that included African history and compulsory education in the local language till the fourth year of primary school..^[7] She attended Queen's School, Ede, and went on to become the first woman to obtain a first-class BA Honours degree in English at University College Ibadan, then a college of the University of London.^[8] She later earned a doctorate in Narratology (the theory of narrative) from Leiden University, one of the oldest universities in Europe. She taught English Studies, Writing, Comparative Literature and Gender from the perspectives of cultural studies and development at universities in several continents,^[9] and was also a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.^[10] She was married to Mr. Leslie, a Jamaican-born scholar and mathematician who hailed from a Garveyite family; they later divorced..^[11] She rose to prominence early in her career in the midst of a male-dominated artistic field concerned about the problems afflicting African men and women. She died at the age of 78 at her home in Ijebu-Igbo, Ogun State, Nigeria, in June 2019.^[1][12][13]She is survived by her two daughters: Dr. (Ts'gye Maryam) Rachel T. Leslie, a scholar of African manuscript cultures who writes on the significance of African legacies for global culture, and Dr. Isis Imotara Leslie, PhD, a political theorist who has taught at several US universities. Her grandchildren are Askia Tristan Folajimi Leslie, who graduated in Computer Engineering and Coding from the University of California, Berkeley, and Joshua Alessandro Victoriano, also known as Deacon Betere Selasse who was recently ordained a deacon in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Ethiopia.^[8]

Molara Ogundipe was described as being "at the forefront of the theoretical dynamism which is unfolding within African feminism. She has a powerful and deeply ingrained cultural understanding of the dynamics of gender relations in the pre-colonial and colonial Yoruba society as a pivot for theory",^[14] She was very intentional in demystifying the role of the Yoruba women, in a pre-colonial setting, countering Western depiction of the African woman as subservient, unintelligent, and oppressed, prior to Western feminism ideologies. She stated that Yoruba women during pre-colonial times were treated equally with men as human beings. ^[15]They were not confined to marriage and wifely duties as Western women were before the Western feminism movements.”^[16]I discovered that the Yoruba woman had more private and public spaces and respected roles than pre-feminist American middle-class women. They needed Betty Friedan; we already had the right to work outside the home and secure our material needs. This meant recognizing the ways in which we, African women, were ahead through our cultures, and condemning the poisonous aspects of borrowed cultures, including the belittling parts of our own inherited cultures.”^[17]Over the years, she was a critic of the oppression of women and argued that African women are more oppressed in their status and roles as wives. In view of their multiple identities, in some of which identities they enjoy status, privilege, recognition and agency. She criticized the plight of African women as due to the impact of imposed colonial and neo-colonial structures that often place African males at the height of social stratification. Their plight is also due to the internalization of patriarchy by African women themselves.^[18] She, however, insisted on an understanding of the complexity of the statuses of African women in their pre-colonial and indigenous cultures for any useful discussion or study of African women.

Molara Ogundipe-Leslie founded STIWA (Social Transformation of Africa Including Women), a theoretical framework grounded in the social transformation of Africa through the inclusion and engagement of African women in the continent's social, political, and economic progress. ^[19]STIWA is another branch of the African women's feminist movement. In examining the multi-layered responsibilities of African women, STIWA-nism, an African feminist theory describes the indigenous and contemporary African woman. "The reason for the acronym was to move us away from defining feminism and feminisms in relation to Euro-America or elsewhere and from declaiming loyalties or disloyalties”^[20] This theory specifically focuses on Africa’s socio-political and economic agency in advancing women's development, aiming for positive social transformation for Africa rather than adversarial or men-hating purposes. Ogundipe expressed that African feminist movements did not focus on distancing themselves from the male gender, but on coexisting and working harmoniously with it. In Molara Ogundipe's (2002) interview with Desire Lewis.  She uses a Yoruba proverb to translate this gender relationship. “If a man finds a snake and a woman kills it, it does not matter, as long as the snake is dead "^[21]Stiwanism is concerned with seven principles: "STIWA" 1) resists Western feminism 2) gives specific attention to African women in this contemporary moment 3) brings to the forefront indigenous feminism that has also existed in Africa 4) believes in both inclusion and participation in the socio-political transformation of the African continent 5) contends with a woman's body, personhood, nationhood, and society and how it operates within socio-economic hierarchies 6) is intentionally specific to the individual and collective identity (i.e. religion, class, and marital status) 7) recognizes that there are many factors and identities in Africa and individual personhoods operating in different and contradictory ways.^[22]

Ogundipe was a leader in feminist activism for decades. She was a founding member of AAWORD (Association of African Women in Research and Development), founded in 1977^[23]. This association's focus was on nationalism, identity, and cultural awareness. She was also a founding member of WIN (Women In Nigeria), an association that analyzed Nigerian Women's oppression through the lens of socio-economic challenges. At its onset, WIN was one of the most successful associations in Nigeria. She gave keynote addresses, lectured, and represented the women of her associations in many seminars and conferences, including the UN World Conference on Women in Kenya in 1985.^[24] writing the foreword document that was presented at the conference.^[25] She was also the Founder and Director of the Foundation for International Education and Mentoring, which is dedicated to teaching young women the doctrine and virtues of feminist theories and gender equality.^[9]

Ogundipe was the pioneer Head of Department of English at the then Ogun State University (now Olabisi Onabanjo University) for several years.^[26] She particularly inspired a number of graduates of that department, who went on to be successful creative writers in their own right. She spoke with an impeccable English accent, even though born and bred in Nigeria and was regarded as, perhaps, the best African indigenous speaker of the English language in her own time.She lived and worked in West Africa, where she set up writing centres at universities, in addition to her work on literature, gender and film, in contribution to her commitment to inter-generational education and mentoring.

Molara Ogundipe was in the leadership of feminist and gender studies in Africa since graduating in 1963 from the University of London.^[9] She wrote for numerous academic and general publications, and also published books of non-fiction as well as a collection of poetry. Her work is included in anthologies of women's writing: her piece "Not spinning on the axis of Maleness" is in the 1984 anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology, edited by Robin Morgan,^[3] and poems by her are in the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.^[27][13]

As a Nigerian scholar, critic, educator and activist, Ogundipe is recognized as one of the foremost writers on African women and feminism.^[28] She argued for an African-centred feminism that she termed "Stiwanism" (Social Transformation in Africa Including Women) in her book Recreating Ourselves. Earlier in her career had posited that a true feminist writer had to understand or describe effectively a woman's viewpoint and how to tell the story about a woman. She strongly believed that rediscovering the role of women in Nigeria's social and political institutions may be the best way to improve those institutions. She was known as a writer whose works capture most vividly the complexities of African life. In Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Transformations, she wrote brilliantly about the dilemma of writing in her traditional language and men's resistance to gender equality.^[2] Through the vast literary experiences and many gender-related writings, Ogundipe provided "intricate oeuvre" that enable African feminists to engage in bringing meaningful changes in issues related to gender, family and society that can drive national and continental development.^[14]

Molara Ogundipe has contributed extensively to African gender disparity issues and has never shied away from pushing  back on issues that continue to showcase African women through the  lens of patriarchal African male domination. She criticized one of the leading African scholars, Professor Ali Mazrui, for sexism and for marginalizing the significance of African women in Africa’s cultural transformation.^[29] She was also critical of the Nigerian government's women-funded programs, which inhibited genuine women's mobilization and democracy, due to male-dominated self-interests and hierarchical policies.^[30]

A distinguished scholar and literary theorist, she published numerous works of poetry and literary criticism in addition to her works cited below.

Books

• Sew the Old Days and Other Poems, 1985
• Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women & Critical Transformations, 1994
• (ed.) Women as Oral Artists, 1994
• (ed. with Carole Boyce-Davies) Moving Beyond Boundaries, April 1995 (two volumes).
• Gender and subjectivity. Readings of "Song of Lawino". Dissertation Leiden University. Leiden, CNWS, 1999
• Indigenous and Contemporary Gender Concepts and Issues in Africa: Implications for Nigeria’s development. Lagos, Benin, Ibadan, Jos, Oxford, Zaria: Malthouse Limited P., 2005.

Selected shorter writings

• Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara. “Beyond Hearsay and Academic Journalism: The Black Woman and Ali Mazrui.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 24, no. 1, 1993, pp. 105–12. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3820202. Accessed 22 Mar. 2026.^[31]

• Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara, and Carole Boyce Davies. “Introduction.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 25, no. 3, 1994, pp. 1–6. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3819841. Accessed 22 Mar. 2026.^[32]