Dr. Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué of Baylor University will speak in honor of Black History and Women's History Month. Her talk examines how debates about wearing slacks in 1960s West Cameroon framed negotiations about ideal womanhood, urban subjecthood, and public behavior as the newly created Federal Republic of Cameroon sought to balance the legacies of British and French colonization.
Embracing ideal womanhood through both western and African traditional feminine attire became a crucial way for English-speaking women to advance ideas about nationalism, identity, and public decorum. In this environment, the policing of wearing slacks took on a new nationalist urgency among Anglophone Cameroonians that continues to resonate today.
This talk has been made possible by generous support from the Grants Allocation Committee, the Faculty-Student Association, the African and African American Interdisciplinary Studies Unit, and the History and Social Studies Education Department.
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