A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ON WOMEN’S SUBORDINATION IN PRIVATE SPACES IN THREE SELECTED NIGERIAN DRAMA

Author: Ebifaghe O. Fawei, PhD 

ABSTRACT

Women with dreams and ambitions have become victims of subjugation through patriarchal dominance or women as subjugators themselves within the matrix of feminist discourse. Dramatists have done several works on violence against women. Literary scholars have interrogated several dramatic works along feminist lines; however, this study uses the works of select Nigerian dramatists to portray women subjugation and their plights in the private space. The study adopts a literary methodological approach based on content analysis of the selected primary texts with the support of literature method which includes library sources, internet based materials containing scholarly opinions on the subject of investigation. Specifically, it analysed Julie Okoh’s Mask, Sofola’s Wedlock of the gods, and Saviour Agoro’s The Remnant to unearth women’s subordination on the private space. It deploys Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “subaltern postcolonial theory”, which advocates freedom for the oppressed, to regain emancipation from exploitative individuals, group and institutions. The study discovered that women are subjugated in private spaces such as the matrimonial and the cultural spaces. Another finding of the work is that both men and women are subjugators of the woman’s private space. The work concludes that women subjugation is harmful to womanhood. It recommends gender balancing where men and women complement each other towards a common purpose of peaceful co-existence and development.

Keywords: Women, Space, Subordination, Private-lives, Nigerian Drama.

Works Cited

  • Agoro, Saviour N.A. The Remnant. Yenagoa: Neat and Solid Books, 2012.
  • Awoyemi, Taye. “Women Heroes in Ahmed Yerima’sYemoja and Sunnie Ododo’s Hard Choice.”In A Gazelle of the Savannah: Sunday Ododo and the Framing of Techno-Cultural Performance in Nigeria [Vols. 1].Ed. Osakwe S.Omoera, Sola Adeyemi, and Benedict Binebai. Rochester, UK: Alpha Crownes Publishers, 2012. 159-168.
  • Bell, Hooks. Feminist Theory from Margin to Centre. Boston: South End Press, 1984.
  • Binebai, Ben. Creating a Speaking Space: The Dimean Paradigm of Nationalism in Post-Colonial Nigeria. Ibadan: Kraft Books Ltd, 2013.
  • Lawanson, Olukemi I. and Dominic Umar I. “Gender Inequality and its Implication for Inclusive Growth in Nigeria from 1980 to 2018.” In Asian Economic and FinanciReview, 2019.
  • Njoku, Teresa U. “Beyond Phallo-Criticism: Issues and Trends in the Criticism of the African Feminist Novel.” Reconstructing the Canon: Festschrift in Honour of Professor Charles E. Nnolim. Ed. Austine Amanze Akpuda. Owerri: Skillmark Media, 2001. 195-207.
  • Okoh, Juliana OmonukponOmoifo. “Towards Feminist Theatre in Nigeria. An Inaugural Lecture Presented at the Department of Theatre Arts, Faculty of Humanities Inaugural Lecture Series no. 95. 30 Oct. 2012.
  • Proschel, Natascha. “Commodification and Culture: How Can Culture be economically used without selling it out?” M.A. Thesis, Modulvienna University, 2012.
  • Sofola, Zulu. Wedlock of the Gods. London: Evans, 1973.
  • Spivak, Gayatri C. A Literary Representation of the Subaltern: A Woman’s Text from theThird World.” In Other World: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen, 1987. 241-268.
  • Spivak, Gayatri C. “French Feminism in an International Frame.” In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New Yolk: Methuen, 1987. 134-153.
  • Spivak, Gayatri C. Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Ed. C. Nelson and L. Grossberg. Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988. 271-313.                                         .
  • Shihada, Isam .M. “The Patriarchal Class System in Nawal El Saadawi’sGod Dies by the Nile.”  Journal of Philosophy, vol.3, No, 1A, 2014. 165-191. UNFPA-http: //www.rcm.org.uk. Retrieved 3 Nov. 2023.