By Anote Ajeluorou and Greg
Nwakunor (just back from Port Harcourt)
Unarguably, patriarchy, the
practice of male authority and control in society, with women perceiving
themselves to be at its receiving end, has been blamed for the continuing
denigration women suffer in African societies. At its best, patriarchy seeks to
take away women’s voices and render them of little value than their male
counterpart, with the attendant effect that women’s rights are denied them in
preference to men’s.
Last week at the 5th Garden City Literary Festival (GCLF) in
Port Harcourt, the issue of women involvement in literature, especially as
writers, took centre-stage. With the theme, Women in Literature, the stage was set for women to rise up and stake
their claim to long-denied privileges as defined by male-dominated African
societies.
The women discussants included University of Science and
Technology teacher and gender expert, Prof. Chioma Opara, who chaired the
discussion, Prof. Onyemachi Udumukwu of Department of English Studies,
University of Port Harcourt, Ugandan writer, Doreen Baingana, one of Nigeria’s
youngest and newest authors, Chibundu Onuzo (author of The Spider King’s
Daughter) and Cote D’Ivoire writer,
lecturer at University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and keynote speaker,
Veronique Tadjo.
Interestingly, it was Rivers State governor, Rt. Hon. Rotimi
Chibuike Ameachi who put matters in their proper perspective when he submitted,
“Call it what you like, those (women) who write have been hurt by society.
Buchi Emecheta wrote as though she was fighting with society. It’s clear that
literature cannot divorce itself from society. You either belong to the people
or the ruling class. Look at Chinua Achebe and Ngugi Wa’Thiong’o; what did they
write? Achebe’s A Man of the People
is a replication of political life after independence…”
Amaechi, who also studied literature and is inspirational in
Rivers State Government’s sponsorship of the festival, GCLF, said women writers
joined the fray as a result of the imbalance of feminine portrayal in men’s
writing where women always wore the tag of subservience and mere objects that
could be seen and not heard.
Amaechi, who has long found Achebe’s grim political novel
written in 1966, A Man of the People,
as his own political manual, insisted that the novel has remained key in his
understanding of political behaviour on the continent. For Amaechi, therefore,
while the first republic politicians failed as Achebe records in his novel, his
counterpoise and a sequel to A Man of the People, Anthills of the Savannah, which ushered in military government, reveals the
sham of military rule.
But while the woman in A Man of the People, is used as a mere stool for satisfying men’s
pleasure, Achebe responds to have listened to female critics that his treatment
of women in his previous novels was stereotypical. So, he elevates Beatrice,
the heroine in Anthills of the Savannah to a pedestal of prestige. But Amaechi still contended that sex was
not an issue in Nigeria’s political arena, as both sexes have failed in being
able to manage the nation’s huge oil resources, saying that it had more to do
with whether you belong to the ruling class or the ordinary masses.
Earlier, keynoter, Tadjo had wondered whether there was such
a thing as female writing, what the role of African writer is, who an African
writer really is and what globalization has done to African writing and if
globalization should cow African writers. She, however, affirmed the reality of
female writing, with the deluge of theoretical constructs they have employed to
describe what their writing, which is intended to achieve in the big fight to
rescue women from the stranglehold of traditional patriarchy that denies them
their basic rights as human beings.
So, such terms as feminism, motherism, womanism, to Akachi
Ezeigbo’s snail sense feminism, to
Molara Ogundipe’s ‘Stiwa’ or Stiwanism’ (Social Transformation Including Women
in Africa), to nego-feminism (that is, feminism through negotiation, with
society, with men) and several such other terms. Tadjo argued that these were
valid means through women have made a case for patriarchy to make room for
women for self-expression.
Tadjo, however, stated, “Whatever
content we give to the word and its variants, the bottom line is that it will
always be relevant to the female condition in Africa. Women should have the
same the same rights and opportunities as men and in this domain, a lot of work
still needs to be done.
The struggle of women to take their lives into their
own hands and to be independent-minded, is part and parcel of our literary
history. It is also one of the defining qualities of women writing.
“Let’s
be clear: women do not want to become men. They simply want to have the same
rights as men. However, since this is still denied to them in many countries,
they must continue to affirm their presence as women. But their final objective
is for their difference, that is to say, their womanhood, to be fully accepted
in their societies”.
She concluded thus: “As time goes by, it is my contention that the perceived
difference between men and women writing will shrink. Already, a growing crop
of African women writers has departed from the conventionally “feminine” themes
of love and domesticity, (though we will agree that “the personal can be
political”) to tackle subjects like war, genocide, exile and history, with some
of those who have gained international stature, including Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie, Sefi Atta and the late Yvonne Vera on the English speaking-side and
Fatou Diome, Calixthe Beyala and Werewere Liking on the French-speaking side”.
On social commitment by writers, Onuzo would rather shun any
form of prescription for writing or writers, although she said it was hard for
a writer to run away from “commitment but to always focus on it is not good” so
as not to lose the essence of art. She also noted, “when engaged in art, you
can create wider messages otherwise, it’s not enjoyable; let the particular
become global”.
For Baingana also, there is no separation of messages from
art, just as social impact cannot be separated from art. She, however, touched
on the issue of identity, with the element of choice being very important. She
said the many variants of feminism highlights how important and seriously women
take their position in African society with a view to changing old perspectives
for new, better relationships with the menfolk in predominantly patriarchal
societies. She contended that the difference between men and women was merely a
social construct that has poisoned normal relationship that ought to exist
between the sexes.
Widely regarded as sympathising with feminism in his works,
Prof. Udumukwu said his interest as a teacher of literature enables him to
examine all writings whether by men or women. He regards commitment as a writer
being answerable to something or society in their writing, saying, “You must
master your craft; you must be committed to your art and not necessarily to
something. A writer must be committed to signature, to be responsible.
He noted, “My interest is to understand women and their
signature – the manipulation of resources, subject matter, the mastery of
language. Most women write from the first person narrative voice as opposed to
the third person, as a device that calls attention to themselves as subject,
and as calling attention to women’s space in society to her existence”.
Tadjo stated that African writers have long expressed
commitment in their writing, starting from Negritude writers to independence
and post-independence writers, adding, “We need something more at the back of
our minds when we live in our kind of societies”. Tadjo also echoed what has
come to preoccupy the minds of most writers on the continent: the absence of
readers! Whatever the disposition of writers to their crafts and societies,
there have to be readers to drive the messages home otherwise it becomes a
futile effort. Absence of robust readers poses a limitation to writing, she
noted.
Self-censorship was a limitation she said that was peculiar
to African women writers, as they are not able to say what they have to say
because of cultural constraints and taboos erected by patriarchy, which she
said encumbered women’s writing.
Prof. Opara put it down to what she called cultural
ambivalence, the many constraints to women’s full self-expression, but which
she called alienation in male writers as a result of foreign influence that has
come to define most writings on the continent.
For young Onuzo, the call to write in local languages is a
bit outdated, noting that Nigerian writers have long adopted a brand of English
that has come to be accepted in the world as a nuance that is unique and native
to Nigeria, which has universal application at the same time.
ALSO, why is it that in
critical canon, African women writers are often left out? Baingana put it down
to a reinforcement of status quo, saying that sometimes criteria used were
suspect. She asked: Who is to determine a good book? The more women get
involved in canonisation, the more things will get better. She also said the
personal narrative voice often employed by women was to give agency to the
female voice that has long been muffled by the male’s, but that it shouldn’t be
prescriptive so as not to lose its potency.
On when an African female writer would win the Nobel Prize,
Udumukwu said the politics of the Nobel has to be examined first, noting that
it was possible for an African ‘woman in our generation’ to win it, just as
women elsewhere have won it. He enjoined women writers to pay attention to
critical structures of writing such as plot construction, characterisation,
style and language, where some women writers have performed poorly in the past,
adding that writers must write well to merit being regarded as such.
On the material condition of writing on the continent, Onuzo
acknowledged the renaissance taking place on the continent and foresees a
bright future for Africa as a place where readership would emerge, just as Europe
had foreseen the death of the novel.
Baingana, however, lamented the absence of “structures to
support literature in Africa” as found in Europe and America, where festivals
such as GCLF happen all the time as avenues for writers to expose their writings
to the public. She noted that the problem of infrastructure needed to be
resolved to lift the continent from its current parlous position.
On the differences between men and female writers, Pa
Gabriel Okara said he was interested in hearing about women and male writers.
He asked, “Can a female singer change her voice to a male voice and vice versa?
Is it possible? They may sing about the same things, say political situations,
but it must be with different voices. If you’re a female or male writer, be yourself
and let the readers or critics talk about it. When I’m writing, I don’t think
about myself as a male writer; and I don’t think female writers should think
about themselves as such. There is no such thing as female or male writing
styles; they may differ but they are doing the same thing”.
Elechi Amadi (author of The Concubines, Estrangement, The
Great Ponds, etc), who has written a
great deal about and on women, noted that half the human population is made up
of women, saying, “Whether we like it or not, there are different ways men and
women think. A great way to enter into the psychology of a woman, into a
woman’s mind is to read her; so, too, she can’t get inside a man’s mind. So,
there are bound to be differences in writing.
“Sexual discrimination is a reality and it has to be
examined. It’s bound to colour a woman’s work, like it was in South Africa
during Apartheid. Women cannot escape the discrimination they suffer in
society; it’s a grim social reality. Take women not being allowed to do certain
things in society, it’s bound to feature in their writing. So, men and women
live in different situations; they cannot write the same way. So, critics
should examine the psychology of women’s writing and come up with a complete
picture of their writing”.
Also, emeritus professor of History, E.J. Alagoa stated how
really proud he was of young author, Onuzo, who recently bagged a first class
degree in History from King’s College, London, who is a historian like himself.
He went on to chronicle women ascendancy in the Niger Delta region, saying they
had been a creative force in time past. Although men now take political
leadership, Alagoa said it wasn’t alway so in the ancient past where renowned
women had previously held sway. A certain Queen Tambassa of Bonny, he said, had
held office and led the island town with great wisdom.
A retired librarian in the audience restated that importance
of readers in the book chain, saying, “If there are no readers, writers will
not be able to write and vice versa. We must put books in libraries. When we
were young, books were much more easily available. Now, there are no public
libraries”. She accused governments of talking glibly about reading culture
without necessarily taking direct action to effect it.
While commending Rivers State Government of building model
schools, she expressed the hope that government would have the presence of mind
to also equip them with libraries where students could find books to read. She
lamented the absence of public libraries in a city as big as Port Harcourt,
saying, “We need to make books available in our communities”.
Dr. (Mrs.) Onuzo, Chibundu’s mother, a medical doctor,
brought a biological slant to the discourse on creative writing when she argued
that all writing should be viewed from feminine prism “because all writing
comes from ideas to fertilization, and then to crystallization like conceiving
a child; men and women are not on different sides but on the same side”, and
should therefore channel their writing towards creating harmony between the
sexes rather than create needless frictions.
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