Abstract

African women have been leaders since immemorial. However, their leadership has always been marginalized by research and scholarly writing. The leadership of women has played a critical role in many African societies. Zambia is a patriarchal society; most of the social networks that women have access to, as well as their socio-economic status, are markedly different when compared to men. To understand what leadership is from the perspectives of African women means understanding leadership identity, defined as the extent to which one sees oneself as a leader.This chapter will provide scholarly work with recommendations for equitable responses to women’s leadership. Given the interdisciplinary nature of women’s leadership, I employ a comprehensive model combining critical pedagogy concepts (Freire, Pedagogy of the oppressed. In Toward a sociology of education, pp. 374–386, Routledge, 1970) and African feminist theory (Wane, African indigenous feminist thought: An anti-colonial project. In The politics of cultural knowledge, pp. 7–21, Brill, 2011), which will bring the experiences of African women and analyze how African women as marginalized groups construct leadership in different contexts. Critical pedagogy provides a lens to understand how women, who often occupy lower positions of power when compared to male students in learning environments, can become change agents within their communities and challenge traditional education models that are systematically biased. The African feminist approach places African women in the center, a vantage point from which they can create a web of their lives that reflects their lived experiences. The chapter is based on the voices from the grassroots and centered on African Indigenous ways of knowing, overcoming barriers in developing shared, just transition models, learning from women’s experiences, and analyzing how African women as a marginalized group construct leadership in different contexts.