African feminism is an ever expanding form of literature that has a different meaning to each individual; it is a multifaceted term that can have a negative impact in society or a positive one. By posing questions that men typically do not ask in their literature, women’s literature expands the audience’s view of Africa as a whole, making their literature more appealing and relatable for their intended audience. They often use strong female protagonists to demonstrate the issues that women face in reality; issues that men often write about as well, but fail to provide a holistic view. These female authors know about these issues they write about, such as child rights, women’s rights, child marriage, inheritance rights, as well as struggles …show more content…
Through their writing, they critically analyze the ways of female African life. Take July’s People for example; Nadine Gordimer talks about the feeling of alienation when the lead woman, Maureen, is both physically and mentally displaced from everything she has known. Because of the role reversal shift in the novel when Maureen’s servant July has to take the Smale’s family back to his home village for refuge from the chaos erupting in the cities nearby, Maureen is at a loss for words when she, a white woman, is now under the house rules of July, a black man. Maureen also has to struggle with multiple relationships with the men in her life (her father, her husband, and July) to which she holds a different relationship with them all. While the Smales family is white, many African women can relate to Maureen in the sense that she is constantly under the influence and rule of some man in her life. Our Sister Killjoy also demonstrates the relationship between black and white, and how many times, Africans are the subject of desire for Europeans. This idea dates all the way back to colonialism and the slave trade, but still resonates in modern times. Sissie, a well-educated African woman, is the object of desire for European woman Marija, with whom a lesbian scene is with. This romantic idolization of Sissie that resides within Marija is one …show more content…
In The River Between, women are encouraged to go through a rite of passage into womanhood that requires them to participate in circumcision of their own. Without being circumcised, many women believe that men will not find them desirable based on the standard that society has set. The Journey of Ibn Fattouma pins women for trophies, when Qindil and Arousa’s new husband fight over her for her love. It gets to a certain point, however, when the fighting becomes more of a war over who the better man in society is, and the trophy is Arousa. This dehumanizing aspect of the novel is expressive of how women feel, although it’s not produced through the eyes of Arousa herself, one can infer how she feels. Looking at A General Theory of Oblivion, it’s evident that this novel is representative of all women in African society, in that they are often locked in a single world mentally, not physically, and that they refrain from taking part in politics but not by their own choosing. This novel represents the lack of social and political involvement women have in society. Viewing the male literature side by side with women’s literature, it’s easily notable which type of novel writing is more appealing to women, and which one exposes the reality of African
In the book entitled Abina and the Important Men, by Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke is about a woman named Abina, who wakes up one morning and decides that she wants to change the way that women are portrayed in society. Although slaves in the 19th century were considered free, women had a more difficult time achieving freedom due to, how the culture was shaped, inequality between men and women and negative effects on society as a whole. Western and African cultures believe that all women should be silent, they are not allowed to say what is on their mind. Women’s opinions didn’t matter; they were considered useless. They were accepted to be housegirls, where females had to cook, clean and nurture their children if they had any.
Historically, the job of women in society is to care for the husband, the home, and the children. As a homemaker, it has been up to the woman to support the husband and care for the house; as a mother, the role was to care for the children and pass along cultural traditions and values to the children. These roles are no different in the African-American community, except for the fact that they are magnified to even larger proportions. The image of the mother in African-American culture is one of guidance, love, and wisdom; quite often the mother is the shaping and driving force of African-American children. This is reflected in the literature of the African-American as a special bond of love and loyalty to the mother figure. Just as the role of motherhood in African-American culture is magnified and elevated, so is the role of the wife. The literature reflects this by showing the African-American man struggling to make a living for himself and his family with his wife either being emotionally or physically submissive. Understanding the role of women in the African-American community starts by examining the roles of women in African-American literature. Because literature is a reflection of the community from which it comes, the portrayal of women in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain (1952) is consistent with the roles mentioned above.
Clenora Hudson-Weems, founder of Africana womanist theory, defines Africana womanism as “an ideology created and designed for all women of African descent. It is grounded in African culture, and therefore, it necessarily focuses on the unique experiences, struggles, needs and desires of Africana women” (Hudson-Weems, 2007). Finding the existing philosophies dealing with women’s issues lacking, Hudson-Weems sought out a new perspective that would reflect the unique experience of Africana women. This paper explores the formation of Africana womanism and how it departs from traditional feminist theory. While Africana womanism claims to better meet the needs of Africana women than traditional feminism, there are a number of fundamental deficiencies in that theory as well. This paper will focus specifically on Black feminism in examining this failings.
Colonialism was when Europe took over most of Africa and Asia, and then Post-Colonialism followed. During Post-Colonialism people from Europe began to question the way European literature talked about people of color (Africans, Asians). This lens allows people to see the racism behind what they are reading, that it be intentional or unintentional. It questions poetic ideas like (darkness = evil) and (light = goodness, purity). It all gives you a different perspective on parts of the book to realize what is happening. OMAN tells the story of two friends during the Great Depression who go to a farm to fulfill their wish of owning a farm. Lennie has makes the whole dream harder because he must always watch out to make sure he doesn’t get in trouble. He has already gotten in to trouble in the past, and now he is too in this new farm.
Although the institutionalization of the fields of Black and Women’s Studies were still years away, the aforementioned black women, along with many others, were essential to the development of the epistemological and theoretical concepts that would later become the foundation. We can clearly see gaps in the literature in the area of Black Women’s Studies, as the writers discuss these women from the standpoint of either the Africana or Feminist Tradition. Some make mention of the intersection of racial and gendered oppression, but only in passing
For centuries, educated and talented women were restricted to household and motherhood. It was only after a century of dissatisfaction and turmoil that women got access to freedom and equality. In the early 1960’s, women of diverse backgrounds dedicated tremendous efforts to the political movements of the country, which includes the Civil Rights movement, anti-poverty, Black power and many others (Hayden & King, 1965). The Africa...
Head, Bessie. “Snapshots of a Wedding.” Unwinding Threads: Writing by Women in Africa. Ed. Charlotte H. Bruner, et al. London: Heinmann Books, 1983. 157-161.
When it comes to post-colonial literature, most initially think about the colonization of other countries and how it has affected the natives. Though it is the most well known form of post-colonial literature, it is not the most wide-spread. By slightly altering the framing in which one looks at it, the idea that feminist literature by women from a patriarchal society is post-colonial literature begins to make sense.
In today’s advanced societies, many laws require men and women to be treated equally. However, in many aspects of life they are still in a subordinated position. Women often do not have equal wages as the men in the same areas; they are still referred to as the “more vulnerable” sex and are highly influenced by men. Choosing my Extended Essay topic I wanted to investigate novels that depict stories in which we can see how exposed women are to the will of men surrounding them. I believe that as being woman I can learn from the way these characters overcome their limitations and become independent, fully liberated from their barriers. When I first saw the movie “Precious” (based on Sapphire’s “Push”) I was shocked at how unprotected the heroine, Precious, is towards society. She is an African-American teenage girl who struggles with accepting herself and her past, but the cruel “unwritten laws” of her time constantly prevent her rise until she becomes the part of a community that will empower her to triumph over her barriers. “The Color Purple” is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Alice Walker which tells the story of a black woman’s, Celie’s, striving for emancipation. (Whitted, 2004) These novels share a similar focus, the self-actualization of a multi-disadvantaged character who with the help of her surrounding will be able to triumph over her original status. In both “The Color Purple” and “Push”, the main characters are exposed to the desire of the men surrounding them, and are doubly vulnerable in society because not only are they women but they also belong to the African-American race, which embodies another barrier for them to emancipate in a world where the white race is still superior to, and more desired as theirs.
Nothing has more of an effect to the controversial conversation of women’s liberation than literature. The subtle cues from Cosmopolitan emphasizing femininity: beauty, sensuality, appreciating the female body… Self-help guidebooks persisting the woman to let go and just be free for once. It is liberating for the woman to see such medias to act upon what they were thinking and to even go beyond that. Talks of
The experiences of the women of the African diaspora are as diverse as the regions they have come to inhabit. Despite the variety in their local realities, African and African-descended women across the planet share in many common experiences. Wherever they have made their homes, these women tend to occupy inferior or marginalized positions within their societies. Whether in the United States, Europe, Latin America, or even Africa itself, black women must confront what Patricia Hill Collins describes as a “matrix of domination” which has, for centuries, perpetuated their subjugation and oppression. According to Collins, a matrix of domination is a comprehensive social organization in which intersecting oppressions are created and maintained (Collins 246). Although these systems are manifested differently depending on the cultural context in which they were birthed, most have similar origins. In the cases of both Africa and the United States, the most salient factor in the development of oppressive orders is the widespread European colonization which took place from the sixteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. This historic domination of Africans and their descendants, combined with the near-universal presence of patriarchy in human cultures, have worked together to place black women among the most oppressed groups worldwide.
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
African American women writers and thinkers are one of those Postcolonial groups that have asserted their voices and experiences in a world, which has denied them the right to exist. The Patriarchal fathers have silenced women from even the dominant communities into submission, so it was nothing new for Black women to be muted for centuries together by the all powerful white patriarchal powers. Black women have been facing oppression on more than one count. There has been covert resistance and resentment from these women, which have been beautifully depicted in the 2012 movie The Help, but it was only in the late 60’s and early 70’s when Black women overtly came to forefront with the establishment of The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO).
As with many surface readings I have performed as a student of literature, however, my perspective on The Joys of Motherhood began to evolve. First, I realized and accepted Nnu Ego's failure to react against oppressive forces in order to bring about change for herself and the daughters of Africa; I consoled myself, reasoning that the novel still deserves the feminist label because it calls attention to the plight of the African woman and because its author and protagonist are female. Rereading the novel, however, also triggered the silencing of my initial response. I focused on such passages as the dying wish of Ona, Nnu Ego's mother, who implored Agbadi, Nnu Ego's father, ...
A feminist analysis on the other hand shows that Anowa is a woman who is struggling against the 1870’s African feminist identity (the identity of weakness). The drama surrounds the story of a young woman called Anowa who disobeys her parents by marrying Kofi Ako, a man who has a reputation for indolence and migrates with him to a far place. Childless after several years of marriage, Anowa realises that Kofi had sacrificed his manhood for wealth. Upon Anowa’s realisation, Kofi in disgrace shoots himself while Anowa too drowns herself. In a postcolonial analysis of “Anowa”, we can see some evidence of colonialism.