Background
Molara Ogundipe was born in 1940 in Lagos, Nigeria. Her father was a missionary and reverend and her mother a teacher of English and Math in Teacher’s Colleges.
University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo, Nigeria
Ogundipe received an honorary degree of a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Ibadan.
University College London, Gower St, Bloomsbury, London, United Kingdom
Molara earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University College London in 1963.
Leiden University, Rapenburg 70, Leiden, Netherlands
Ogundipe was given a Ph.D. in Narratology from Leiden University.
Molara Ogundipe was born in 1940 in Lagos, Nigeria. Her father was a missionary and reverend and her mother a teacher of English and Math in Teacher’s Colleges.
Ogundipe attended Queens School in Ede and received an honorary degree of a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University College Ibadan (nowadays the University of Ibadan). In 1963, Molara earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University College London. She was given a Ph.D. in Narratology from Leiden University.
Ogundipe taught English Studies, Writing, Comparative Literature and Gender from the perspectives of cultural studies and development at Ogun State University (nowadays Olabisi Onabanjo University), University of Port Harcourt, Legon University in Ghana, Northwestern University and many other American universities. She was also a professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Port Harcourt.
In addition, for many years in the 1980s, Ogundipe was a columnist and a member of the Editorial Board of The Guardian and briefly in her post-retirement years a columnist for The Nation in Lagos. She was the founder and director of the Foundation for International Education and Monitoring.
Molara lived and worked in West Africa, where she set up writing centres at universities, in addition to her work on literature, gender and film, in contribution to her commitment to inter-generational education and mentoring.
Ogundipe was in the leadership of feminist activism and gender studies in Africa for decades. She argued for African-centred feminism that she termed "Stiwanism" (Social Transformation in Africa Including Women) in her book Recreating Ourselves.
Stiwanism is concerned with seven principles: "STIWA" 1) resists Western feminism 2) gives specific attention to African women in this contemporary moment 3) brings to the forefront indigenous feminism that has also existed in Africa 4) believes in both inclusion and participation in the socio-political transformation of the African continent 5) contends with a woman’s body, personhood, nationhood, and society and how it operates within socio-economic hierarchies 6) is intentionally specific to the individual and collective identity (ie. religion, class, and marital status) 7) recognizes that there are many factors and identities in Africa and individual personhoods operating in different and contradictory ways.
Ogundipe earlier in her career had posited that a true feminist writer had to understand or describe effectively a woman's viewpoint and how to tell the story about a woman. She strongly believed that rediscovering the role of women in Nigeria's social and political institutions may be the best way to improve those institutions.
Ogundipe was a founding member of Women in Nigeria and the Association of African Women for Research and Development.
Molara Ogundipe was married. She is survived by her two daughters.