CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
Feminism has continued to dominate the temporary literary discourse as african societies are becoming increasingly of the urgent necessity t o liberate and fully exploits the potential of women to enhance peaceful co-exisence and socoi-economic development .as an introductory chapter the focus here is to provide the background to the study, outline the problem as well as the aim and objective of the study .it also specifies the scope ,limitations, and also the method the research employs for its analyses and its benefit to the society and scholarship .additionally ,the authors biography is briefly captured.
1.1 Background to the Study
Women in Africa, to a large extent, are virtually regarded as ‘second class’human beings who are meant to be seen and not heard. Their lives revolve solely around procreation, motherhood, merging into the man’s world without protesting, and “brainwashed into accepting their slavish status” (Fonchingong, 136). Acholonu (217) opines that the African woman is “trapped in the claws of the taboos and the restrictions that only help to propel male chauvinism.” The oppression and suppression of women is not peculiar to the African woman alone. It is a worldwide phenomenon that women have had to grapple with in the last few centuries. Katrack (163) has further stated that “as a female child grows from childhood to womanhood to motherhood, she is controlled and owned by her father, her husband, then her sons”, thereby ensuring the continuation of the subjugation of women in the patriarchal society.
According to Judith Astellara, quoted in Azuike “feminism is a proposal for social transformation as well as a movement that strives to end the oppression of women.” (3). The passive, docile and insignificant woman is thus replaced by an assertive, strong willed, courageous and hardworking woman who is ready to take her destiny in her own hands and to decide her own fate. Women are, in this changing role of social consciousness, refusing gtobe “somebody else’s appendage” (Palmer 39). The writer therefore has the responsibility of shaping the minds and social awareness of members of every society in order to ensure the emergence of a society that does not discriminate on the basis of one’s gender.