Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí

Oyěwùmí's accolades reflect the depth and reach of her scholarship. Her 1997 book The Invention of Women earned the American Sociological Association's Distinguished Book Award, a rare honor for a first monograph. That recognition helped cement her place as a leading theorist of African feminist thought. In 2021, the African Studies Association awarded her its Distinguished Africanist Award, the highest honor in the field, acknowledging decades of path-breaking work. Her ideas have been taught in universities across Africa, Europe, and the Americas, and her Google Scholar profile shows thousands of citations. She has lectured in over a dozen countries, and her work continues to inspire new generations of scholars questioning the universality of gender categories.