GENDER IDEOLOGIES AS A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSING GENDER-BASED OPPRESSION IN NIGERIAN FICTION

Abstract

This research focuses on the narrative incidents of gender ideologies that have informed different social constructions, hierarchies, treatment, value systems, and responses in the selected novels of two female Nigerian novelists of Igbo descent. The patriarchal and feminist ideologies are two separate concerns inextricably linked to the selected authors and their novels. The patriarchal “deity†ego of superiority visible in Igbo customs is discernible in the narrative patterns of the novelists. Inherent in this dilemma is the feminist opposition that puts a strain on customs that promote actions of gender-based oppression visible in the forms of forced marriage, sexism, discrimination, inequality, sexual exploitation, verbal/emotional abuse and spousal battery. The premises of this paper centres on feminist concepts and the dualistic ideologies that capture the portraiture of denigrating female experiences and the degree of psychological effects discernible in the writers’ projection of the female psyche. Buchi Emecheta’s The Bride Price (1976) has displayed a feminist mentality that hinged on radicle paradigm, while Gloria Ogo’s While Men Slept (2017) has adopted a womanist stance in negotiating between duty and self-fulfilment under subjugation with severe emotional/psychological stress. Despite the two different ideological feminist tools employed in representing the realities of the African women in the novels, there are still evidences of neurotic manifestation due to the overwhelming stress of gender-based oppression acts. One implication is that the Afro-Feminist view of gender complementarity and accommodation has led to oppressive emotional repression. This contradicts the male writers’ processes of describing female pain in a phase that demands self-discovery and inward freedom.