Talk:Drag in Africa

Fawziyah's Peer Review
General Notes:

First Lead Section:

You might want to dial down the tone of the writing itself. I can sense that you are passionate about this topic when it's supposed to be neutral. For example, you write, “Drag allows men to embrace their femininity, just as much as it allows for marginalized individuals to show their authenticity in a creative and powerful way” This is very opinionated. You could re-word this to say, “Drag is a form of expression that taps into what society would deem as feminine. The practice is a common gateway for expression among marginalized groups.” I know it's boring but it has to be neutral.

Second Lead Section:

I like how you have a section for Gender Expression in Pre-Colonial Africa. I would’ve liked to see an introductory sentence explaining what exactly this would entail but given the time constraints of this assignment that is understandable. Something you might like to add for this section is how homophobia is an imported ideology and explain how some countries are overturning these homophobic laws, like Botswana, here’s an article on it with references: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/african-sexuality-and-legacy-imported-homophobia

Third Lead Section:

I like how you break apart this article into a timeline of Pre-Colonial, and Contemporary. I would’ve liked to see an introductory sentence on what contemporary drag is, as a little introductory paragraph into the continued sections below. You might want to add a section on Nigeria, (or add a sentence about the representation of Nigerian Drag in the British show Sex Education through the Nigerian character Eric Effiong, played by openly gay Rwandan actor Ncuti Gatwa. ( I love this show personally and thought of it while reading your article :))

South Africa: Italic text

“Formerly served as government overseer” (not server) Say the character Evita, when you start your new sentence. Instead of saying she has children with a black man, say she has children with an indigenous South African because the word black is too ambiguous and refers to a diaspora and not this specific country. Overall, much more neutral than the first lead section flowed very nicely, I like how you showed Afrikanner and Native South African drag artists and how you connected them to political movements at the time. It would also be cool to add whether there were any South African, Nigerian, or Kenyan (or any African for that matter that entered any popularized Drag race, like RuPaul’s drag race for example.

Kenya:Italic text

Straight to the point and very neutral, nice!

Overall Notes (Answering the Guiding Questions)

The article was very informative and well-written. It has a lot of connections to political movements at the time and flowed well with a clear timeline and switches from overall history and contemporary times A place that needs improvement is the tone of the first lead section. It's heavily opinionated with positive admiration for the history of drag. While that's wonderful, it comes off as a little biased and less neutral. Try to just read over it and reword the positive phrases like “challenge, embrace, change, showcase, undermine” for more neutral phrases like, “propose an alternate view of gender norms, or alternate masculine traits for feminine traits in a way that attempts to …” instead of outright saying they challenge it because some could argue that they aren’t making an impact at all on gender norms (which they are but either way it's argumentative) Also, it might be helpful in the future to add a section on Nigeria if you can (it's the most populated country in Africa. I would be surprised if there weren't and Nigerian drag queens or Nigerian American/Nigerian British drag queens around the world). You could also add sections on media, whether African drag is being portrayed more than before. The most important thing I would say to improve on the article is to make it more neutral, and add more to the Pre-Colonial section if you can. This article is well-organized and the structure makes perfect sense. I didn’t notice anything about this article that could be applicable to mine, but if you know of any NGOs that are centered around gay rights, homophobia, LGBTQ+, gender expression, etc. in West Africa, please send them my way :). As a reader, I would like to know more about pre-colonial drag, or interpretations of gender identity. You could add things about the matriarchies in Africa, or add the non-binary gods/goddesses/ deities in ancient religious practices if you would like. Your references look good to me! --21:32, 3 April 2022 (UTC)FML09 (talk)

Feedback from New Page Review process
I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: Nice work.

North8000 (talk) 16:18, 1 June 2022 (UTC)