“The Ministry of Women’s Affairs will not be Feminist”: Jeanne Gervais and Gender Complementarity in Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

Abstract:This article traces the life and politics of Jeanne Gervais, the first Minister of Women’s Affairs in Côte d’Ivoire. Although she devoted her political career to projects for women’s empowerment, she consistently eschewed the term “feminist,” emphasizing instead the principle of gender complementarity that lay at the heart of her endeavors. Yet Gervais was far from conservative or out of step with the 1970s global women’s movement. Rather, her position reflected a desire to reconcile West African conceptions of motherhood with the postcolonial imperatives for development.