Oyeronke Oyewumi, Date of Birth

Oyeronke Oyewumi

Nigerian academic

Date of Birth: 10-Nov-1957

Profession: teacher, sociologist

Nationality: United States, Nigeria

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Oyèrónk?´ Oyèwùmí is a Nigerian feminist scholar and associate professor of sociology at Stony Brook University.
She acquired her bachelor's degree at the University of Ibadan in Ibadan, Nigeria and went on to pursue her graduate degree in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Oyewumi's interdisciplinary work foregrounds an African vantage point that remains largely underrepresented in academia.
Much of her academic research and writing has used African experiences to illuminate theoretical questions pertinent to a wide range of disciplines including sociology, political science, women studies, religion, history, and literature, all in an effort to broaden scholarly understanding to include non-Western cultures.
In all of her work, Oyeronke Oyewumi attempts to provide a more nuanced understanding of these societies, thereby avoiding reductionist formulations. In her 1997 monograph, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses, she offers a postcolonial feminist critique of Western dominance in African studies.
She explains that in spite of vast amounts of academic research claiming otherwise, the stratification of gender in Yoruba culture is entirely a colonial legacy.
The book won the American Sociological Association's 1998 Distinguished Book Award in the Gender and Sex category.