The womb and the field: How colonialism turned African women into permanent infrastructure

Colonialism did not merely exploit African women; it transformed them into permanent infrastructure for empire. African women’s bodies became sites upon which economic, social, and political systems were built, maintained, and stabilized. Their labor in fields, homes, and communities functioned as the invisible architecture supporting colonial expansion and capitalist accumulation.

This article argues that African women were not only workers within colonial systems but structural components of those systems, forcibly positioned to absorb economic shock, reproduce labor, and sustain social order. “Women were forced to work in mostly of the farms in Europe, supporting men, being abused sexually, brutally killed and mistreated while being exhibited as sex tools in Europe”.

Source: www.myjoyonline.com

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