Gender, Dress and Identity

08 May 2025
emily teaching
08 May 2025

Postdoctoral Research Fellow Emily Mashonganyika reflects on her experience guest teaching for African Feminist Studies: Debates on Gender, Politics, and Sexualities in Contemporary African Contexts. 

I delivered a guest lecture on the 22nd and 23rd of April 2025 in the course African Feminist Studies: Debates on Gender, Politics, and Sexualities in Contemporary African Contexts. My experience with guest teaching was a mixed bag of emotions. I was excited to share my PhD research, yet also anxious about how it would be received.

The class consisted of about 200 students, and my lecture focused on the concept of gender, identity and dress, particularly the construction of femininity and masculinity. I explored how fashion can be understood within specific cultural contexts, and how dress functions as both a form of agency and a means of control. We discussed how individuals present themselves in African contexts through dress, and how this reflects broader gendered expectations.

What struck me most was that many students had never considered themselves as active participants in constructing gender. We engaged in a detailed discussion about how seemingly petty, everyday actions contribute to the construction of gender especially through dress. We also examined African notions of collective identity, and how dress is used to express and reinforce communal values, drawing on the concepts of hunhu/ubuntu.

I learned a great deal from the students’ contributions, particularly regarding how gendered identities affect individuals, communities, and the wider world. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to share a part of my PhD thesis with them, and the insights I gained from our discussions will be invaluable for my upcoming publications.

What stood out most was how dress is often seen as a mundane, everyday aspect of life that can deepen understandings of gender when examined alongside notions of race, class, hunhu/ubuntu, and sexuality. It offers a powerful lens for critiquing contemporary concerns within African contexts.

Since the lectures, I have even received letters from students who wish to interview me further about the topics I covered. This experience has been enriching, both intellectually and personally

Emily Mashonganyika

Postdoctoral Research Fellow | Focus: Africa AI Ethics

Emily Mashonganyika is CCNY Pre-Postdoctoral Research Fellow at HUMA. She is currently completing a PhD in sociology at the University of Cape Town. Her research explores the factors that shape women's everyday clothing choices as a means of expression and negotiation of different forms of humanity. Emily’s work engages with questions of decoloniality and contributes to debates on gender, globalization, and the complexities of everyday relationships. As a social scientist, she examines the intersections of fashion, society, culture, and identity. Emily holds a BA of Technology Education degree from Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT), an MA in Education from Midlands State University (MSU) in Zimbabwe, and Advanced Diplomas in Clothing and Textiles, as well as Technology Education. Before joining UCT in 2020, she worked as a teacher in Zimbabwe.

Africa AI Ethics: Carnegie Corporation of New York + HUMA