DIFFERENT CONSCIOUSNESS CREATED BY SOME NIGERIAN FEMALE WRITERS TO COMBAT GENDER DISCRIMINATION: AN OVERVIEW OF NWAPA, EMECHETA AND OKOYE

Abstract

A sense of sanity prevailed in the pre-colonial Nigerian society as there were no conflicts over what roles that women played in the society along that of their male counterparts. The coming of the white man to the country changed the whole situation as the western education, religion and culture were absorbed by Nigerians and this affected their new outlook to life. The idea of freedom of women enshrined in such movement as feminism contradicted most of the earlier beliefs held by the traditional African societies of which Nigeria is part. Feminism in Nigerian context assumes a different face from what is obtainable in Europe and other Western countries. The cultural differences existing in Nigeria make it difficult, if not impossible for men and women to share equal rights and also be treated as equals in the social, political and economic spheres. No wonder a different term, ‘womanism’ is given to both African and Black-American women writing and that of their counterparts that engage in discourses on gender issues. This study is an overview of different consciousness created by some female Nigerian writers to combat and possibly discredit the traditional images created of them. It focuses on the writers’ use of the novel as a means of women narrative discourses. Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta and Ifeoma Okoye have distinguished themselves as strong voices that discussed issues that bother on women and added new dimensions to these problems. The result is that the novel genre has projected women in different new faces of strong and successful characters, contrary to the negative traditional image and perception earlier built of them.