Ousmane Sembene was an auteur in the surest sense of the word. One of the defining characteristics of his film work is his constant reflection on, and depiction of, the African woman in post-independence society. Many of the theories written about Sembene's films situate him as having a womanist/ feminist sensibility in his presentations and themes. While films like Faat Kiné (2000) and Moolaadé (2004) do indeed reflect Sembene's understanding of a twenty-first century African political aesthetic which must include the African woman's uplift as a means of reshaping society, Sembene's foregrounding of womanist issues speaks significantly about the presence (and absence) of the African male in his critiques.

This paper discusses Sembene's depiction of masculinity in the films Faat Kiné and Moolaadé. As a Senegalese woman who raises her out-of-wedlock children, who cares for her mother and who manages a gas station, Faat Kiné is the model of success. As a small village mother bound by tradition and religion, Collé Ardo Gallo Sy must summon help stronger than both to fight a system that would mutilate little girls ‘for their own good’. Yet, for the presence of the women's stories, both the films are a particularly derisive critique of the men in Faat Kiné's and Colle's lives and by effect masculinity in the society. If Faat Kiné represents what women can achieve and Collé what they have endured, then the fathers in the films denote what men have failed to achieve and what they have failed to prevent in the same societies.