An Intimate Rebuke

"An Intimate Rebuke is strikingly original and unprecedented. Laura S. Grillo's anthropological investigation positions Female Genital Power as a powerful reminder of the agency of African women as the bearers of moral authority and the embodiments of ancestors." - Chantal Zabus, author of Out in Africa: Same-Sex Desire in Sub-Saharan Literatures and Cultures

"This remarkable book offers a new and insightful understanding of West African women's rituals that feature public genital display, highlighting the central role that postmenopausal women have long played in the moral life of their communities. Presenting a complex, detailed, and revolutionary argument, An Intimate Rebuke could change the face of African studies, opening the field to a heightened sense of women's ritual activism, critical political acumen, and resistance to male tyranny." - Joseph Hellweg, author of Hunting the Ethical State: The Benkadi Movement of Côte d’Ivoire

"A detailed and thoughtful history of Côte d’Ivoire that gives due placement to civilian women who have largely been ignored in the definitive historical monographs. . . . Grillo’s scholarship has groundbreaking strengths. For those interested in religion, her detailed documentation of myth, ritual, secret societies, symbolism, witchcraft, and the appeal to the spiritual domain—and her defense of the inclusion of this knowledge as a requisite in understanding a country’s history—is utterly exquisite. . . . The work is inimitable—Grillo is sensitive, sensible, and devotes attention to detail." - Dianna Bell, Reading Religion

“Ultimately, Grillo demonstrates how knowledge of the moral authority of women elders remained and remains embedded in West Africa and that women enact FGP to defend not only social equity and justice but also their own rights. An Intimate Rebuke will be required reading for all future analysis of women’s authority and mobilization.” - Jill E. Kelly, African Studies Review

“Grillo’s work redefines our understanding of the use of ritual and moral values in the current postcolonial political order by focusing on the ignored phenomenon of Female Genital Power.... Grillo’s work is an important contribution to the study of gender, religion, history, and politics, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire but also in the whole West African subregion.” - Carole Ammann, Religious Studies Review