The term gender can refer to the biological distinction between man and woman. It can also signify the fact of being male or female as well as gender role or identity. The sexologists identified the difference between biological sex and gender as a role. The term gender is derived from the Middle English gendre which means a type or kind, referring to the Greek root gen (to produce). From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia, gender is:

The range of physical, biological, mental and behavioral characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between masculinity and feminity [1].

Gender identity is a person’s private sense and subjective experience. In addition, gender roles remain the social and behavioral norms that characterize each man or woman in social relationship. For instance, from the traditional point of view, housekeeping was the primary function of women and workplace the primary era of men. As far as decision-making was concerned, the last word belonged to men but both partners can make a final decision. Yet this prejudicial point of view may be critical both for the defenders of women’s rights.

Women attend household chores more often than men. Women’s revolt against gender discrimination is justified by their social victimization that is visible in forms of violence and oppression. Often portrayed as an inferior race, women play a significant role in the existence and the continuity of humankind through the complex and hard experience of childbirth. During the enlightenment period, the French writer Jean Jacques ROUSSEAU sought to establish a reform against the old regime which deprived women of their rights as he affirms:

The domestic role of women is a structural precondition for a modern society. In that period; girls are schooled but not eligible for leadership positions and viewed as less intelligent than men. Most of them are disadvantaged at as their intellectual ability and judgment are often underestimated. In India, the girls’ education rate lags behind the male literacy. The demand for males is encouraged by abortion [2]

This situation is explained by the parents’ tendency to think that girls’ education was a waste of resources and some of them left school due to eventual pregnancy and early marriage. Most of them were violated at earlier age. During the colonial period, women were socially and economically marginalized. For many decades, they suffered in silence from oppression, sexual harassment, violence and other social factors which weakened their status. But nowadays, the situation has changed; women are physicians, prime ministers and heads of states. So women’s empowerment appears in every aspects of social life. 

According to Ngugi, women play a major role in the moral guidance of their children in order to fight against the oppressive attitude of the white men. Hopeful for the future of their children, women are seen as perpetuators of traditional African values. In his essay, Decolonizing the Mind, Ngugi retold his childhood and his sense of identity torn between his Gikuyu language and the foreign European language which seems to destroy the cultural aesthetics of his people for language as a form of self-identity is also an expression of African culture. One can make a comparison between ACHEBE’s Things Fall Apart and Ngugi’s wedding at the Cross. 

Female empowerment is encouraged by modern literacy as a symbol of their freedom. Since 2012, the World Economic Forum as a non-profit organization and an independent international organization seeks to improve the state of the world by advocating recognition for women’s rights and aims to put an end to gender inequality. In 1963, the US president John Kennedy signed the federal law known as the Equal Pay Act in 1963 in order to abolish social inequalities based on sex as the Congress stated against this sex discrimination in hiring. Imperialism especially the capitalist system of production was the main cause of women’s oppression and exploitation. 

This work is divided into two parts. The first one sheds light on how colonization as a source of domination and cultural hegemony had brought out the erasure of African traditional ways and left drastic consequences on the colonized people’s ways of life. Female condition became worsened by the oppressive system of colonial dominance. The last part of this work evidences the concept of feminist trends developed by African intellectual writers in the aftermath of colonization, a period which culminated to the emergence of female voices advocating such gender issues as female empowerment and how the participation of women in society became a central issue in postcolonial African fiction.

Colonial Domination and Women’s Oppression

Since pre-colonial time, women have always been endowed with a strong sense of responsibility at home. As educators, child-bearers, they have been responsible for cooking, laundry, cleaning and childcare. Today, they continue to play an outstanding role outside their homes, as they participate to the cohesion and the maintenance of the traditional values within their communities. Women’s participation in rituals and ceremonies made them one of the most powerful voices in African traditional culture. 

However, the introduction of colonialism caused the erosion of women’s position. They no longer played a central role in socio-economic and religious lives of their communities. During that period, women were more subordinate to men who monopolized the central power in a patriarchal society where females were not allowed to have a say in decision-making within their communities. 

The erosion of women’s roles by colonial administration strengthened their disempowerment and social discrimination. However, women in post-independence era, reveal themselves more determined, powerful and independent. Most of them participate in the political running of their contemporary societies. As a result of their literacy, many lead political parties and governmental organs. Among them, we can name Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) who was an Indian politician and stateswoman. She was also the first female Prime Minister of India. Elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1959, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own bodyguards in 1984. 

Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007) was a Pakistani politician who also served as a Prime Minister of Pakistan. She was the first woman to lead a democratic government in a Muslim nation. Unfortunately, she was assassinated in 2007. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) became Britain’s Conservative Party leader who was the first woman to hold the position of Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. The most recent female chancellor Angela Merkel (1954) is a German politician who has served as a chancellor of Germany since 2005. She represents the backbone of female empowerment, political engagement and female emancipation in the 21st century. In Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Liberian politician, was the first female elected president who served from 2006 to 2018. Today, female emancipation gives way to a form of pacific resistance against oppression, sexual discrimination, injustice, harassment, violence and domination.

In traditional societies, men were considered a great asset. Most of men were segregated against female gender. In Tsitsi DANGAREMBGA’s Nervous Condition, the female character Tambou does not receive the same educational opportunity as her brother. Tambu leaves school because her father cannot afford to pay her fees. Motivated, Tambou decides to cultivate maize in order to pay her fees. But she finally gets educated when her brother dies:

The victimization, I saw, was universal. It didn’t depend on poverty, on the lack of education, or on tradition. It didn’t depend on any of the things I had thought it depends on. Men took it everywhere with them [3].

Flora NWAPA is another African novelist who also has dealt with women’s condition and suffering in modern society. Published in 1966, the novel Efuru is the first African book by a Nigerian woman to visualize the character of Efuru, an Igbo woman who lived in a small village in colonial West Africa. Efuru’s devotion to the lake goddess Uhamiri makes her more beautiful and wealthy in the eyes of the community. Flora NWAPA also addresses the issue of female genital mutilation, a term coined in the 1970s by the Austrian-American feminist Fran-Hosken. 

Formerly known as female circumcision until 1980, the term evolved with the Kenyan missionary council and became sexual mutilation of women in 1929. The practice is common in Africa especially in Somalia, Kenya, and most parts of sub-Saharan countries where the practice is commonly supported by traditional women with an aim to control women’s sexuality, honor and purity. Unfortunately, the practice known as the removal of the female genital organ through insane and non-medical means is viewed as a savage practice that can cause women’s sterility. The practice is banned by the U.N commission which seems dangerous to women’s health. In her ability to address women’s issues, NWAPA is praised by Lawrence who says:

Flora Nwapa excels at catching the exact tone of these women’s voices whether they are speaking malice or love, tenderness or anger, the words are not bound by their printed form, for they can be heard. The situation and concern which they are expressing might be spoken with local variations by women living in any small community for although Flora Nwapa’s women belong in an Ibo village, they convey insights which are valid anywhere [4].

In Efuru (1966), the Nigerian writer Flora NWAPA portrays how women are treated in patriarchal society. The female character Efuru displays a great measure of independence and self-assertion as she decides that she will be just a successful businesswoman in a patriarchal society. Although independent, Efuru was circumcised in accordance with tradition. Dignified and much respected in her surrounding, Efuru has experienced many unhappy marriages but remained faithful and helpful in her society. She is the type of woman who dares leave her unfaithful husband and marry another one in a patriarchal society where women are expected to endure the mistreatment of their husbands. 

In Flora NWAPA One Is Enough, the theme of childlessness is also explored with a great depth. The author describes the plight of childless women who are often victims of social stigma of childlessness in African societies either patriarchal or matriarchal where procreation is viewed as part and parcel of social stability and harmony. After six years of marriage, the female character was not able to give birth to a child. She is daily subjected to emotional and physical abuse at the hand of her husband and her mother in-law. She is daily beaten by her husband. As a result of her physical and emotional torture, Amaka left her husband in a desire to become a trader. Her decision to be more independent and more assertive makes her to tell Father Mcaid who decides to marry her again: 

I didn’t want to be a wife (…) A mistress, yes but not a wife (…) As a wife, I am never free. I am a shadow of myself. As a wife, I am almost impotent. I am in prison unable to advance in body and soul [5].

In most patriarchal societies, women are relegated to the margins and their social status is minimized. Their role is limited to childbearing, housekeeping and other tasks within their homes. In many ways, Efuru resembles Amaka because of their desire to be more assertive and determined in their struggle against male oppression.

The Senegalese female writer Mariama BA (1929-1981) was one of the most influential female writers to analyze the condition of women in Western African societies. In her novel So Long a Letter (1989), the female character Aissatou wants to assert her womanhood by leaving her husband who takes a second wife. Her decision to walk away from her first marriage makes her more assertive and liberal against the traditional requirements of her society where her in-laws despised her because of her social status as a goldsmith. 

Many intellectual women portray characters who defy the cultural norms established by patriarchy. Ama Ata AIDOO (1942) is a Ghanaian academic and feminist writer who focuses on the empowerment of African women in patriarchal societies as well as their financial independence and determination to sever the traditional codes of marriage. In her novel Changes: A love Story, Ama Ata AIDOO analyses women’s condition and their determination to escape from marital forms of oppression and violence. 

Patriarchy and female empowerment remain the central theme of her novel. The female character Esi is an educated woman, a government official who has a master’s degree in education. She divorces her first husband and marries into a polygamous family. This University intellectual places a great value on her career. Consequently, women’s education paves the way for their liberation, independence and security as literacy symbolizes progress, success, and modernization. Esi’s grand-mother encourages her to leave her husband for another one in order to be more autonomous:

Leave one man, marry another, Esi, you can. You have got your job. The government gives you a house. You have got your car. You have already got your daughter. You didn’t even have to prove you are a woman to any man, old or new. You can pick and choose [6].

Esi’s grand-mother urges her to remarry as a result of her financial independence, as a guarantee of the female character. In patriarchal societies, some African women accept as fate their victimization and men’s oppression as a religious rite which they are unable to break down. Ama DARKO (1956) is a Ghanaian female writer who exposes the horrible realities of helpless victims of male exploitation. Among those passive and subservient women, Mara the female character in Ama DARKO’s novel Beyond the Horizon faces men’s beatings and their overt wickedness as she acknowledges her physical abuse:

I mean, Akobi beats me a lot at home, yes, but somehow I identify beatings like this with home. That African men also beat their wives in Europe somehow didn’t fit into my glorious picture of European life [7].

As a clerk, Akobi took his wife Mara to Germany as an illegal immigrant. When Akobi arrived in this European country, he began to heap all kinds of abuse and torture on Mara who is exposed to prostitution in a western country. Psychologically and physically devastated, Mara excludes any idea of returning to her homeland. In this respect, Ama DARKO explores the plight of uneducated women who helplessly accept men’s domination and abuse without any resistance. The female author also uses migration as a harbinger of evil theme in African literature.

Ousmane SEMBENE (1923-2007) was another Senegalese intellectual and one the most influential writers to reflect on female condition. This writer tries to promote the economic, social, religious emancipation of Senegalese women. As a major proponent of women’s rights and struggle for their liberation, this author also criticizes the colonial enterprise in Africa and its practices. SEMBENE was committed to women’s agency and political participation. His novel God’s Bits of Wood (1960) deals with a railroad strike in colonial Senegal of the 1940s. 

In this novel, Penda is a powerful female character who claims respect from everyone. At a moment, when women are not allowed to participate in strikes, Penda affirms her identity and leads women’s organization for the promotion of gender equality. She cannot tolerate subversive or demeaning behavior. She can also demonstrate a positive behavior and good leadership skills. Penda strongly believes that women have the same intellectual abilities to become leaders as any men.

One of the most important decisions taken by Penda is her announcement and participation in the march of women from Dakar to Thiès. The sense of female involvement and independence is an important agency for women’s progress. SEMBENE’s portrayal of Penda as a strong female character shows his feminist perspective and the determination of women in their fight for freedom. 

Cyprian EKWENSI (1921-2007) was a Nigerian author who can be described as the Charles Dickens of modern African literature as a result of his depicture of city life and its consequences on the city-dwellers. Jagua Nana is the first urban work in modern fiction. Jagua Nana is the heroine of EKWENSI’s second novel and one of the most representative female characters in the novel. A liberal woman, Jagua Nana’s migration to the city Lagos made her distant from the traditional ways of her community and reluctance to folkways.

Far from being a typical villager, Jagua Nana’s rural exodus participated to her downfall and decadence where girls are glossy, worked in offices like men, danced, smoked, wore high shoes and narrow slacks and were free and fast with their favors [8].

Lagos is viewed as a city where women could improve their self-assertion. This liberal girl attended a night-club called Tropicana with her boyfriend called Freddie, and later with another wealthy Syrian [9].

The city of Lagos is depicted as a space for prostitution where this female character learns from the world of fashion as a place of moral decadence. EKWENSI’s portrayal of the city parallels with the collapse of traditional values and the introduction of the new ways of life. During the colonial period; women’s low pay and hard living conditions often led to their victimization. They were not given a voice as they played a lesser role in the decision-making in their households. Most of female peasants were doomed to grab the land without any pay and financial support as this statement illustrates:

The role of women in production is offered by imperialist exploitation. Proletarisation can mean an endless hill of migrant or landless laboring, or unemployment and a shanty town home for millions of women. For women in the more developed semi-colonies, like South Korea, it can mean super exploitation while young followed by destitution once your capacity to work has been drained from you as a result of years (often starting when you are aging ten)of long hours and miserable pay. And for millions of other women, this process leads inexorable (a vast industry in places like Thailand) or to being exported as a servant wife in fact slave of men in the West (the Philippine brides for sale and the export of young women from Srilanka are both sickening examples of this trade in women [10].

During the colonial period, women were all the more depraved as they had no means of financial support. This situation led to mass exodus of male gender in order to earn a better living in urban areas leaving their families and their parents without any economic support. Most of women left by men in rural areas were raped and used as slaves by colonists. To a certain extent, women’s oppression was a natural phenomenon for which they were denied their rights and personality as well.

Women were victims of childbirth death and the rate was always overwhelming in Africa and in Asia. They suffered from all kinds of racism and misogynistic attitudes. Women’s subordination to patriarchal order paved the way for their oppression within African communities. In his book Marxism and Oppression, Lise Vogel analyzes the roots of women’s oppression and came to the conclusion that women were often oppressed by men through the denial of democratic rights as she argues:

Human beings have the capacity to produce more values than they need for their own immediate subsistence. (…)During the industrial revolution in England, women and children were drawn into long hours in the factories. All labor was performed by the children and women who most of unhealthy died at early age which cause family disruption and had a heavy consequence in the lives of its members [11].

Despite the ill-effects of colonization on the lives of the colonized people, postcolonial period will pave the way for the emancipation and empowerment of female gender in African modern literacy.

Feminism and Female Empowerment in Postcolonial African Literature

In fact, feminism tends to promote social, political, and economic equality between men and women. Feminism is also a movement that seeks to reorganize the world in order to promote gender equality in all human relations. It also rejects every differentiation between individuals and abolishes all gender privileges and burdens, and advocates common humanity of women and men. Feminism tends to liberate women from oppression and violations of human rights. In Ngugi’s Devil on the Cross, women are silenced from decision-making and kept away. Their thought is ignored by male gender due to traditional saying which silenced female voice and limited their achievements. 

This situation reduces women’s decision and judgment as Ngotho, with his attitude thinks that he will never take orders from a woman. Yet with Ngugi, women’s education leads to their own self-fulfillment and empowerment. In Weep, Not Child, women make their best to educate their children (males and females) in order to find solutions to the land issues and oppression. Women’s personality appears in Ngugi’s statement that describes them as the perpetuators of virtuous traditional values. Through his childhood remembrance, Ngugi celebrated the courage and generosity of his mother figure:

My mother the one who took care of us, that is, we three brothers and three sisters. She virtually shouldered every responsibility of our struggle for food, shelter, clothing and education. It was my mother who initially suggested that I go to school. I remember those nights when I would come back home from school, and not knowing that she could not read or write, I would tell her everything that I had learnt at school or read to her something and she could listen very keenly and give me a word of advice here and there [12].

In South Africa, women’s voice was heard through that of Nadine GORDIMER. Famous for her anti-apartheid struggle, she raises against this radicalized system of racial discrimination. A close friend to Nelson Mandela, GORDIMER through her testimony reveals the revolutionary but pacific political life of Mandela as they share the same view of liberating millions of South African people from the jaw of segregated system of apartheid in South Africa:

To have lived one’s life at the same, and in the same natal country, as Nelson Mandela was guidance and a privilege we south Africans share. I also acknowledge the privilege of becoming one of his friends. I met him in 1964 during the Rivonia Trial, when he was being tried for acts of sabotage against the government and I was present in court when he was sentenced to life imprisonment [13].

In addition to this inequality, women are dedicated to childcare, shopping, cleansing, bill paying, and household repairs. In the struggle for the emancipation of black people, Ronald Reagan showed his objective to enforce the 1964 civil rights Act in America. The black people’s liberation is the gateway for women’s emancipation. One could witness the first black astronaut in the 1980s and the ratification of the 13th Amendment that led to the abolition of slavery in 1865. 

According to Paul BRIANS, EMECHETA emigrated from Nigeria to London with her young husband, only to find herself ultimately raising her children in a hostile and poverty-ridden environment. Through hard work, she became an influential writer focusing on the role of women in traditional African societies. Women’s suffering and oppression are emphasized by feminist African writers who today show in their writings women’s dignity and the role of female gender to the development and welfare of their societies. The plight of women’s situation is understood differently by African intellectual writers. Elechi AMADI is another Nigerian writer who deals with the issue of gender. In his 1966 book Concubine, Elechi AMADI addresses Nigerian beliefs and women’s condition before the arrival of the white man in Africa. About the novel Alastain NIVEN says:

Rooted firmly among the hunting and the fishing villages of the Niger Delta, the Concubine nevertheless possesses the timelessness and the universality of a major novel [14].

Ihuoma, the protagonist in Elechi AMADI’s The Concubine’s as unhappy as Nnu Ego in Buchi EMECHETA’s The Joys of Motherhood. Ihuoma, a beautiful widow is loved by many people in her community including the hunter Ekwueme. Set in eastern Nigerian village, the story is about Ihuoma as a woman of great beauty and dignity in a society governed by African traditional gods. The novel evidences disunity and rivalry between Madume and Emenike who later dies from lock chest. The story continues as Madume turns blind when a cobra spits in his eyes which result in his hanging. In many women’s writings, the domination of women is the subject matter as well as the infiltration of new ideas that reduce their dignity as mothers, educators, and workers.

The emergence of African women writers is the only voice of women’s empowerment. In this respect, women writers have made their best to discover the lost dignity in which most them are trapped by male patriarchy. Helen Chukwuma shows how women were unable to voice out their ill-feelings during colonial period while they were given a voice in pre-colonial time and participated to most important decisions within their traditional communities:

Silence was the virtue of women and passivity their garner, but it was not always so. Traditional societies in pre-colonial time, traditional spheres of power and influence for women in closely-knit organization that helped them maintain a voice. Colonialism has its merits but its new culture of ascendancy through education, white collar jobs and money-driven economy relegated women down the ladder [15].

The emergence of African women in the mid-sixties paved the way for women’s emancipation and quest for social rights and status. Women as educators and midwives needed more dignity and personality as Chinweizu IBEKWE, a Nigerian critic, poet and journalist acknowledges women’s empowerment in modern society. He asserts that female power exists in any society and is almost visible in marital life. This female empowerment manifests itself in three pillars such as “motherhood”, “bridehood” and “wifehood”as he argues:

Because every man has as boss his wife or his mother, or some other women in his life, men may rule the world. Thus contrary to appearances, woman is boss, the overall boss, of the world [16].

Flora NWAPA was the first African Nigerian voice to be heard in the 1966s and her novels Efuru and Idu symbolize African beauty and modesty through the female character Efuru who was not fecund and lived against the ill-fate of two failed marriages. In her novel Idu (1970), Flora NWAPA told the story of a woman who lost her husband and strived to make her best to find him in the land of the dead. NWAPA as the forunner of contemporary African women writers is perceived as the mother of modern African literature. In her literary writing, NWAPA addresses gender issues and portrays characters who are struggling for autonomy as she describes her Nigerian myths. Women’s condition is also another issue explored by the Zimbabwean novelist Tsitsi DANGAREMBGA. In her novel Nervous Condition (1988), she reviews the story of a Rhodesian family in post-colonial Rhodesia during the 1960s. The novel explores the issues of gender, class and race. 

The title is inspired from FANON’s The Wretched of the Earth. Women are viewed as weak and incapable of any promotion and success. In this respect, Tambu, the protagonist of the novel has expressed this predicament of gender discrimination when her father refuses to send her to the mission school in order to get a good education like her brother. But finally, changes occur, Tambo as a courageous woman was finally supported by her uncle who is the dean of the mission school. But although her uncle participated to the welfare of his extended family, he opposes his own wife’s employment as she got a master’s degree and stayed at home as a housewife. 

Male are discriminated against female gender and this situation causes women’s enslavement and despair. This discrimination against women is a recurrent issue in traditional culture. Female are relegated to the status of a mother or farmers with less responsibility. Despite his education, Babamukuru who is Tambu’s uncle always sticks to the traditional customs and beliefs of his community. In this respect, the female writer explores the clash between tradition and modernity and its consequences on female gender. 

One can argue that colonialism goes hand in hand with racism. In terms of gender inequality, the male character Babamukuru often belittles his daughters’ accomplishment and achievement in favor of his sons. DANGAREMBGA, who ranks as the advocate of African post-colonial feminism, tends to promote women’s justice and emancipation. The author focuses on the gap that exists between educated and uneducated: 

I am only saying what I think, just like she did. She did tell us, didn’t she, what she thinks, and did anyone say anything! No. Why not? Because Maiguru is educated. That is why you all kept quiet. Because she is rich and comes here and flashes her money around, so you listen to her as though you want to eat the words that come from her mouth. But me, I am not educated, am I? I’m just poor and ignorant, so you want me to keep quiet, you say I mustn’t talk. Ehe! I am poor and ignorant, that’s me, but I have a mouth and it will keep on talking, it won’t keep quiet [17].

In this novel, women’s struggle is not active but passive as their battle is achieved through courage and success. Nervous Condition is a semi-autobiographical coming of age story. Back from England to Nyasha, Tambu’s cousin finds two different worlds and cultures. The female writer manages to define her position in a male-dominated society torn by the effects of patriarchy and colonization. Tambu’s education was only possible after her brother Nhamo’s death. Since there was no other son in her family, Tambu, the eldest daughter was sent to school in order to receive a Western education. This is a means to say that in patriarchal societies, the role of female gender is neglected to the benefit of male gender. This issue of gender inequality is still dominant in our African societies especially in the cultural, economic and social levels. 

In this sense, Ngugi’s novel Weep, Not Child, is about the victimization of Kenyan people from land confiscation by the colonial settlers. In 1994, over 200 scholars from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America met at Penn State Berks Campus in Pennsylvania to celebrate Ngugi’s work, described as a groundbreaking example of the modern African fiction. Ngugi assumes the awareness of women’s role in modern African societies.

In Africa especially in Kenya, decisions have been made by Kenyan government to promote women’s rights. In 2010, the constitution raised against women’s discrimination based on sex in an aim to favor their representation in political sphere. The convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against women was voted as the National Gender and Equality Commission Act. There was also the banning of women’s genital cutting through the law entitled as the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act. The sexual offence Act is enforced against women’s rape and all acts of physical harassment. 

The situation of women has changed owing to education which has contributed to their empowerment and provided them with much courage and effort to fight against the predicament of most women who are victims of oppression and violence during colonial rule. Nowadays, women feel the need to participate fully to their development. In this respect, the president Paul Kagame, the Rwandan politician and former military leader urges the African nations to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in order to promote African development. He addresses during the fifth Tokyo International conference for African development (Ticad):

The question that we must address now is how is to make more progress in removing barriers to equal opportunity and promote great empowerment. That will be done when we all recognize that the question of equality should be part of our values as a society and therefore an obligation to raise everyone to the level where they can play their rightful role in development 

The author believes that the low status, demonizing and scapegoating of women’s urban economic activity continues to affect their battles. Therefore, colonial policy was a real obstacle to women’s progress as well as their marginalization as farmers. This gender blindness and disempowerment of women persist today in some areas in Africa where women are compelled to work hard on the farm. 

This cult of domesticity reduced women’s power and social status. Unlike colonial Africa which depraved women of their uppermost rights and gender roles, post-colonial Africa sees the emergence and the promotion of women’s position through women’s scholarship which puts an end to their disempowerment. In fact, women’s experience during colonial period is perceived by many as a legacy of disruption as Inge BRINKMAN asserts that colonialism is the main source of women’s oppression:

An abrupt and disruptive than most history writing assumes, thus countering the usual chronology of African history (…) African women were in many ways seen as a problem; their actions did not often fit in with colonial notions of law and order. Women were expected to stay at home [19].

Women under colonial rule were exploited economically. In this respect, they suffered from land confiscation or economic dependence on men. Land loss was equated with women’s subsistence. Women’s confiscation of land by colonial settlers was added to forced labor mostly accompanied by acts of physical and sexual abuse. 

They were forced to work on the farms left by men who migrated towards urban areas in search of employment. Female bore usually the economic repercussions of male migrant labor. Another economic alienation directed against women was taxes imposed by colonial masters even when men migrated to urban areas. Another aspect of alienation was through cash crop economy which the African farmers were forbidden to grow. The socio-political impact of colonialism on women was to spread their white man’s burden causing women’s enslavement and male migration.

Women have always played a central role in African traditional societies where having many children was seen as a prestige and a sign of power. However colonialism which led to the downfall of traditional ways of life did undermine women’s rights and status in African traditional societies. ACHEBE as the advocate of African values especially Nigerian culture has shed light on the cultural and religious consequences of colonial rule which had entirely impacted negatively the participation of women as role models of their societies. ACHEBE’s novel Things Fall Apart is a perfect illustration of female subordination. 

But after the independence era which corresponded to the liberation of colonized natives of the Third world, feminist agenda in the quest of identity as well as the promotion of human rights and female emancipation became the subject matter in postcolonial literary thinking despite many social and cultural factors that weakened women’s status and position in their societies. Women continue to participate fully to the development and well-being of their communities.

In my opinion, women’s access to education, healthcare, employment, political participation, peace and freedom will facilitate their complete integration in their communities and accentuate their well-being and ability to feel as free citizens.

1. Wikipedia, "Gender." Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/w iki/Ge nder.

2. Who and what do we mean by sex and gender. World Health Organization, www.who.int/gender/what-is-gender/en/.

3. Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Condition. Zimbabwe Publishing Press: The Women’s Press, 1988, pp. 115-16.

4. Reads, Amy. Efuru. amckireads.com/2011/07/22/review.

5. Nwapa, Flora. One Is Enough. Africa World Press, 1992, p. 127.

6. Aidoo, Ama Ata. Changes: A Love Story. The Feminist Press, 1991, p. 109.

7. Darko, Ama. Beyond the Horizon. African Writers Series: Heinemann, 1995, p. 73.

8. Ekwensi, Cyprian. Jagua Nana. Hutchinson, 1961, p. 167.

9. Ekwensi, Cyprian. Jagua Nana. Hutchinson, 1961, p. 15.

10. Wikipedia, "Sexism." Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sex ism.

11. The basis of women’s oppression. www.marxists.org/.../ basis.htm.

12. Gikandi, Simon. Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 82.

13. Gordimer, Nadine. Biographical Nobel Prize. www.nobel. prize.org/nobel_prizes/Lit.

14. Wikipedia, "Elechi Amadi." Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wi ki/Elechi_Amadi.

15. Chukwuma, Helen. Feminism in African Literature: Essays on Criticism. New Generations Books, 1994, p. 135.

16. Ibekwe, Chinweizu. Anatomy of Female Power: A Masculinist Dissection of Matriarchy. Pero Press, 1990, p. 12.

17. Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Condition. Seattle Press, 1988, p. 142.

18. Dudley, Elizabeth. Universal Education. www.royalafrican society.org/analysis.

19. Brinkman, Inge. "Women in African colonial histories." Review, vol. 50, no. 2, 2003.