An ongoing discussion between “African” and “Western” feminists revolves around motherhood as possible means for empowerment. This is assumed by a number of African feminists and differs from Western feminist conceptions of empowerment. The latter presumes that women’s capacity in the sphere of childcare predominantly feeds into an increased efficacy in pre-assigned roles with restricting implications, rather than promoting women’s empowerment. Empowerment in this context is often defined as enabling women to make strategic life choices’, which entails the exercise of ‘transformative agency’ implying resistance against patriarchal power structures. Meanhwile, in many African contexts, empowering effects of motherhood are recognised to have a strong impact on women’s identity, internal, and external respect (Amadiume, 1997; Oyewumi, 2000). In my qualitative research, I found strong views that motherhood indeed has strong implications for women’s empowerment. While preassigned normative roles of motherhood can be restricting for women, it became clear that within these spheres, women can develop a strong sense of agency and pursue life choices, that are not necessarily a form of resistance against gendered power structures. I also found that those effects can spill over to other domains in the household can lead to women’s greater independence and this could indeed challenge gendered power structures. I suggest that the analysis of women’s empowerment needs to be widened to not only look at the restrictive aspects of motherhood, but also at the possibly empowering effect and potential for women’s identity and agency. This needs to go beyond a definition of empowerment as resistance against patriarchal restrictions, and acknowledges how women themselves understand their actions and exercise agency within patriarchal social structures around them (Mahmood, 2001; Mohanty, 2005).