IGBO FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS ORIGINATED FROM WESTERN FEMINISM: DEBUNKING THE FALSEHOOD

Abstract

With the advent of the Feminist Movement in the contemporary West and its ripples across the world, it appears as if that marks the beginning of all women's enlightenment and struggles for equality with men. But this is not true, for prior to it or simultaneously, women in some other supposed male-dominated climes had already been involved in such struggles. Indeed, Igbo women's experience makes a viable case for this claim – as they have always had their indigenous feminist ways of persuading their menfolk for recognition, respect, and empowerment. This is why leadership of their communities used to feature gender-inclusive governance, especially prior to colonialism. It is also the reason for the women's resistance of the colonial system of governance, which sought to disempower, subjugate, and oppress them. This essay is motivated by a desire and need to disabuse the contemporary thought that, Western Feminist Movement stimulated the feminist tendencies to overwhelm the world and, particularly, Igbo society. It seeks to deploy expository method of literary discourses to render a thesis within the theoretical framework of Feminism, which avers that Igbo women have always considered themselves to be equal with their men even in matters of communal governance. And they play vital roles to that end. The essay concludes that, it is the feminist approach to life that provides the basis for women's continued empowerment in society as they are also considered by their men to be elemental in decision and policy-making processes.