OHAZURUME - Unizik Journal of Culture and Civilization

Many critics have written about women in African novels and the roles they play. Some argue in favour of the fact that in novels written by men, women are not regarded as important parts of the society while others are of the opinion that women are regarded based on the tradition of the people. Therefore, discrimination against women in African traditional societies starts from the day the female infant steps into the world. In many cultures, sons enjoy greater importance than daughters because they are the ones that can perpetuate their lineage while daughters are married off to perpetuate other family's lineage. Today, the women's argument remains that they are still far from achieving equal treatment with their men counterparts in all spheres of human conduct. In fact, the novelists even more than the men and every other woman writer in Africa today, sees education—a fundamental— as the most potent means of women's liberation. Their heroines are free and fulfilled in direct proposition to the extent of their learning. Education gives women a vision of human experience beyond narrow confines of their lives and the effects of its denial can be seen in the lives of some of the characters. The Egyptian, Nawal ElSaadawi, the critic,"has written Woman at Point Zero to show the ostracism and hatred of women in Arab world provoking inhumanity. ElSaadawi in the novel, advances the theme of education, portraying the kind of education that the girl-child receives in the Arab world as waste. Saadawi is of the opinion that parents and the educational system pay lip service to human values, equity, work and freedom. The researchers examine the traditional view of women in the society, especially among men’s folk. The theoretical framework used is cultural Feminism. Cultural feminism refers to the separatist idea that women innately possess an evolved essence, which distinguishes them from men; giving them societal advantages that culture at large has historically qualified as weaknesses. Cultural feminists believe that a woman’s perspective should receive more credence. Critics argue that cultural feminism relies too heavily on the “essentialist” tenets of society’s gender binary. Cultural feminism retreated to vanguards, working instead to build a women's culture. Some of these efforts had some social benefit: rape crisis centers, for example; and of course, many cultural feminists have been active in social issues (but as individuals, not as part of a movement). As various 1960s movements for social change fell apart or got co-opted, folks got pessimistic about the very possibility of social change. Many of then turned their attention to building alternatives, so that if they couldn't change the dominant society, they could avoid it as much as possible. That, in a nutshell, is what the shift from radical feminism to cultural feminism was about. These alternative-building efforts were accompanied with reasons explaining (perhaps justifying) the abandonment of working for social change. Notions that women are "inherently kinder and gentler" are one of the foundations of cultural feminism, and remain a major part of it. A similar concept held by some cultural feminists is that while various sex differences might not be biologically determined, they are still so thoroughly ingrained as to be intractable. But the central source of thoughts, research, and findings in this paper will always be the author’s novel and literary works well- known and established in the world of literature.

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