The Depiction Of Women In The Struggle For Cultural, Political And Economic Freedom In The Works Of Some Selected African Writers.

Abstract

Gender stereotypes have existed in African societies for a long time. In these societies, it is generally believed that women are the weaker sex, subservient to men, objects of sexuality, and incapable of taking critical decisions affecting their own lives and those of their communities. Following these assumptions, male writers have often been accused of projecting these stereotypes in their works. Indeed, this is true to a large extent as many male writers seemed to play down the role of women in the African society. While Cyprian Ekwensi presents the city girl as a prostitute, Oyono, in Houseboy, depicts Madame and Sophia as beautiful sexual objects fit only for male consumption. But at the same time that most male authors and indeed some female writers were presenting female characters as second-class human species, others had begun to see the potential in women to assume roles previously thought to be exclusive to men. One of these is Sembene Ousmane. God’s Bits of Wood (originally Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu) is a protest novel that has been given a contemporary political setting, and tells of the strike along the Dakar – Niger railway in 1947/48 in demand for better working conditions. Though they are beaten, murdered and tortured by the white employers, they win in the end with the women playing active roles. There is also Asiedu Yirenkyi’s Kivuli from which he has Blood and Tears which also unearths the wind of change that is blowing with the strong desire of women fight for equality and freedom. We can also make mention of the late Efo Mawugbe in his novel In the Chest of a Woman, which also exposes us to the wind of change in issues concerning women from male perspectives. Mention can be made of Wole Soyinka in his Kongi’s Harvest and Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of The Savannah which are some of the selected texts for this research. This study seeks to examine the economic, political and social roles played by the female characters to alleviate the privations of the daily sufferings they encounter in the society. This will be done by library research involving primary and secondary texts.