[citation needed] In 1989, she served as president of the World Student Christian Federation and founded the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians.
In 2011, she was the 9th Annual Patricia Reif, IHM, Memorial Lecture speaker and presented “Women and Violence in Africa: the Plight of Widows and the Churches' Response” on Monday, November 14, 2011 in the Mudd Theater at the Claremont School of Theology.
[9] In 1989 Oduyoye, convened and launched the first meeting of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians at Trinity College in Accra, Ghana.
Seventy-nine women gathered from across the African continent to see how they could address patriarchy, racism, and sexism rooted in both culture and religion, a theological method Oduyoye developed at Harvard.
While the first group was primarily Christian, the Circle nourishes "communality," face-to-face encounters, that encourage solidarity in the struggle with the multiple religious traditions that find expression on the African continent.
Teresia Hinga, who attended this first conference of the Circle said that Oduyoye was frustrated at not seeing African women represented in global liberation theologies.
The primary goal of the circle is to systematically apply a "hermeneutics of suspicion" to both religion and culture and promote publications and research that facilitates injustices, especially sexism.
While the first group was primarily Christian, the Circle seeks communality with the multiple religious traditions that find expression on the African continent.
"[14] Furthermore, the ways Europe subjugated Ghana's wealth contradicted Oduyoye's experiences on her grandfather's coconut farm of an interconnected economy.
In the United States, Alice Walker and Mary Daly raised awareness of genital mutilation as a primary concern for all women.
A second problem that Oduyoye identified within Western feminist theology was a singularly positive depiction of missionaries and their supposed benefit to African populations.
"[23] Oduyoye holds churches accountable for their contributions to patriarchy and sexism, and argues that men and women have equal status before God.
"[26] Oduyoye draws on hospitality and sisterhood as resources for solidarity to help people in the Global South deal with the effects of shared oppressions.