On 18 May the University of Bayreuth will festively honour Dr. Fatou Sow with the BIGSAS Honorary Doctorate. With this award, the Senegalese sociologist Dr. Fatou Sow – based at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris – is recognised for her unwavering commitment to the cause of women and her outstanding scholarly achievements in feminist topics on the African continent. Sow is a veritable pioneer of gender studies and African feminism, who has worked at the forefront of women’s rights in West Africa and beyond for more than half a century.