▼ Since the colonial era, there has been a hierarchy between the colonizers and the colonized nations. Due to this stratification of power between these two groups, a series of conflicts has presented itself and a racist discourse has been used in order to describe the colonies’ peoples and cultures. Unfortunately, the women of the former colonies, like Sub-Saharan African women, have particularly suffered due to these interactions. Even in the Western feminist movement, the rhetoric found therein supported this hierarchy and concentrated solely on women’s empowerment in the white, Western context. As a result, African women can no longer support this subjugation by the Western woman and have demanded the right of self-representation. Despite the racist past that had formerly defined the interaction between these two groups, these two types of feminisms are starting to reconcile because Western feminist academics are beginning to accept the value of the African perspective. In reality, it is due to this incorporation of the African woman in the development of Western feminist discourse that has allowed her to develop a more positive image that she herself created. Advisors/Committee Members: Toman, Cheryl.