Feminism

By Rabi Ummi Umar

Recently, I found myself in the heart of Abuja—a bustling city surrounded by the everyday hustle and bustle of urban life. The streets were alive with activities—commercial drivers calling out for passengers, pedestrians hurrying to their destinations, and the overall pace of the city reflecting the urgency of modern life.

Though an intern, I was there with some female staff writers of Economic Confidential, a tabloid published by Image Merchants Promotion (IMPR) Limited. This, however, was not for leisure or sightseeing but for an official assignment—to shoot an episode of ‘Economy on the Streets’ for the Economic Confidential’s YouTube channel. Yet, what caught my attention was something that went beyond the task at hand, revealing a deeper issue about women’s involvement in public discourse.

As a budding communicator, this ‘field trip’ was more than just an opportunity to write news stories, features, or opinion pieces. It was a chance to extend my skills beyond the written word, to engage directly with the public through a street interview—what we call a vox pop—to gauge Nigerians’ thoughts on the contentious issue of the reintroduction of fuel subsidies.

It was also a chance to experience the realities of journalism beyond the confines of a newsroom. To my surprise, I noticed that most of the respondents were men. Conversely, women seemed reluctant to lend their voices or share their opinions on the matter.

At first, I rationalised that perhaps the women were in a hurry, given that it was a weekday. I thought they might not have a few minutes to discuss Nigeria’s pressing economic challenges as more important tasks were awaiting them.

However, as the seconds, minutes, and hours ticked by and the number of women who declined to participate grew, it became clear that they did not want to discuss our nation’s challenges.

This realisation took me back to last year when I was on my Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) with News Digest, an online media platform. I was invited as a guest on WE FM (106.3), a radio station in Abuja, to discuss “Women Participation in Politics.”

During that discussion, I argued passionately that there were insufficient opportunities for women to engage in politics, and I stood firmly by my belief. Yet, a year later, my experience during the street interviews has led me to question this stance. The opportunities, it seems, are indeed out there.

On the streets, even though these women were not holding political office themselves, they had the chance to contribute to public discourse. Yet, they chose not to. This realisation troubles me because it raises questions about women’s participation in public life—whether in political offices or the organised private sector.

We frequently hear discussions about gender equality, inclusivity, roles, and the presence of women in positions of power. However, when we look deeper, we might find that men are not the primary reason women like myself remain on the periphery of public discourse or power.

As women, we may contribute to our marginalisation by refusing to seize opportunities, even when they are right before us. This brings me to a few questions we should all consider: Are women not given opportunities because men seek to dominate?

Are women holding themselves back because society expects them to remain confined to domestic roles? Are we, as women, making efforts to break free from these constraints? Or are we simply holding ourselves back?

While I leave these questions for you to ponder, I want to call on women to recognise that opportunities exist to showcase our capabilities, our capacity to deliver, and much more. We should strive to reach our goals based on what we have to offer.

But we must start somewhere, even if it’s as simple as participating in a street interview. Your voice is vital to society’s prosperity. No matter how insignificant you may think your contribution is, your participation in various aspects of society, community, and the nation at large matters more than you realise. Your voice truly matters.

Rabi Ummi Umar is a student of Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin. She can be reached at rabiumar058@gmail.com.

By Abdullahi Yusuf Tela

Introduction 

In many societies, women are constantly reminded of their roles as wives and mothers. They are saddled with the responsibilities of producing and nurturing children and caring for the home. Over the years, however, women have embarked on a struggle aimed at affirming their identities while at the same time doing all they can to transform the societal, cultural, or traditional perceptions of their gender. Women are striving very hard to change these perceptions through education and by creating awareness.

Female writers have significantly helped by making the female characters in their works more prominent. They aim to have female characters that are powerful and outspoken. This is because women in most male writings are often illustrated as subservient. 

In 1966, Flora Nwapa broke the silence of women by publishing her first novel, Efuru, inspiring other female writers. These women used literature to explain the state of their societies, either good or bad, and the importance of female existence in society. These feminist writers include Zaynab Alkali, Buchi Emecheta, Mobolaji Adenubi, and Hilary Rouse-Amadi.

Notably, Azizah, like other female writers, has been able to outline the following feminist angles in her book, A Sackful of Wishes.   

Cultural Feminism:

Cultural feminism celebrates human attributes in women. It focuses on the feminist virtues by celebrating the positive sides of women. In A Sackful of Wishes of Azizah Idris M., Inna Binta, Hadiza’s mother, is a character who portrays aspects of cultural feminism. Inna Binta is a calm, reserved woman who faces a lot of tragedies as a new bride to Mallam Musa. She is hated and manipulated by her co-wife, Mairo Lauje. Inna Binta’s character shows a woman with patience despite the confrontations she faced from Mama Mairo. Cultural feminism believes that there is strength in a woman’s silence. They see the strength in women in the face of oppression. 

Hadiza’s mother, Inna Binta, could endure hardship from her co-wife or return to her parents. Binta remains strong even when Mairo Lauje makes her evil plot to charm her into never staying in Mal Musa’s house. 

Despite all the plots, Binta says, “It’s okay, I can do that . . .as long as she lets me stay with you. You are worth it.”

It is evident from the above quote that Binta, as being put in the cultural feminism, wanted peace for herself, her husband, and her children; that was why she heeded Mama Mairo’s deal. At this point, the cultural feminists view the mother’s strength as crucial. “Mothers have to be strong to take on both roles, loving, protecting, and counselling in turns” (Ngcobo 536).

Marxist feminism: 

The Marxist feminist approach propounded by Karl Marx is embedded in this work. The author portrays Hadiza Musa as someone who earnestly wants to earn for herself and feed her children. When she faces hunger, starvation and poverty, Hadiza immediately engages in a skilled job to take care of her children. She was into plaiting people’s hair and got an immense reward in cash. Hadiza becomes her own woman, independently sourcing and feeding herself and her children. 

It should be noted that Marxist feminists connect the oppression of women to social exploitation and oppression. A Sackful of Wishes by Azizah Idris M. majorly portrays an oppression of the female gender. According to Sotunsa, Marxist feminists believe that male domination is one of the societal ills, and gender oppression must be overcome to overcome societal ills. Hadiza resists the dominance of her husband, AR, whom society believes she needs to bow to. In the text, Hadiza says:  

“I want to start a business.” 

“I don’t have enough money, but I have skill in weaving hair. So, I’m going to start making people’s hair, I want your permission.” (129)

When her husband, AZ, decides to stop her, Hadiza says:

You can’t stop me, you know. You don’t feed me, nor clothe me, you don’t know how I buy my detergent or my body cream or provide the needs of Maahir. You just go out and come home. Some nights, you would try to come near me. Why do you think I got the money for those perfumes and creams that make me feel smooth and appealing to you? You either man up and hold on to your responsibilities or you let me start a business. (129)    

Fortunately for Hadiza, she wins the battle to make people’s hair after Umma Sala, Abdurrazak’s mother, intervenes.   

In portraying her bizarre situation, Hadiza was quoted as thus: 

I resorted to selling two of my wrappers from Mahir’s naming gifts to buy some foodstuffs since I was so heavy, I could not plait my customers’ hair at this stage. I found it difficult to sit for long. They did not sell for much. I saved some of the cash because I knew my situation, and I could need it anytime. I bought some spaghetti and vegetables. My sisters came to check on me the next day. We ate and chatted, and I even gave them some transport fare. Nobody would think things were amiss in my house. (141) 

Another portrayal of Marxist feminism in the text is in the character of Umma Sala, Abdurrazak’s mother. Umma is the boss of the house because her husband, Abdurrazak’s father, is not earning much, and she’s making money with her food business. 

As it turns out, Umma took over control of the house. With her business as a food vendor and other small businesses, whenever she did something in the house, she billed it to Baffa. Whether he had it or not, he would pay when he got some money. 

Radical Feminism: 

A Sackful of Wishes by Azizah Idris M. portrays richly a form of radical feminist approach. Radical feminists view society fundamentally as a patriarchy in which men dominate and oppress women. According to Shulamith Firestone, radical feminists seek to abolish the patriarchy in a struggle to liberate women and girls from an unjust society by challenging existing social norms and institutions. This struggle includes opposing the sexual objectification of women, raising public awareness about such issues as rape and violence against women. 

The central character, Hadiza Musa, exhibits a taste of radical feminism as a woman who mysteriously falls in love with a man so obsessed with her that Hadiza rebels against her husband’s oppressive behaviours. The radical feminism inked in the work portrays Hadiza as a woman who stays firmly and fights against starvation, rape, humiliation, and disrespect from her husband and, subsequently, his. Hadiza Musa rebels to the extent that she leaves her husband’s house several times out of her mother’s frustration and anger. 

Hadiza states that: 

I was fed up with my life. I was just twenty-five years old, but I had seen the difficulties of a sixty-year-old’s lifetime. I did not put on fancy clothes, nor did make-up appeal to me. I had forgotten how to laugh heartily, my soul was a wreck, my spirit in shambles. I was a walking time bomb waiting to explore. The things I bore in my chest were unimaginable. I had a sackful of wishes that I craved, that I needed to explore but could not do that because I was a coward. There, that’s it. (172)

Her rebellious act makes her stand tall against society, which tends to make her return to her horrible marriage. With the assistance of her brother, Yusuf, Hadiza can take the matter to court. She perseveres despite the intricacies of her husband, Abdurrazak, until she finally gets a favourable judgment dissolving the marriage.  

Conclusion

A Sackful of Wishes is one of the many texts that portray the difficulties, hardships, pain, angst, and oppression women experience in their marriages. It is one of the works that uses a feminist approach to fight for women’s freedom and free them from society’s shackles. 

Thus, it is evident from the text that there still exists a repressive and hostile environment against women. The text shows how young Hadiza faces and traverses through oppression and pain from her psychopath husband and his mother. 

Abdullahi Yusuf Tela wrote via abdullahiyusuftela@yahoo.com.

• Title: Nearly All The Men in Lagos Are Mad

• Author: Damilare Kuku

• Genre: Fiction

• Date of Publication: 2021

• Page: 198
• Publisher: Masobe Books

• Reviewer: Aliyu Idris

It is the author’s debut. It entails twelve short stories narrated in cooperative narration; almost every story revolves around a subject regarding the woman or feminine gender.

From the book title, you may sense that it’s questionable, derogatory and disrespectful to men. However, the book exposes the sufferings of women and how the men of Lagos behave, especially towards women. It involves the story of sacrifice, endurance, rape, patriarchy and phallocentric, deceit and betrayal. Women are presented as saints. But, as it happens in reality, some characters found in some stories are the reason for their suffering.

Another crucial issue highlighted and promoted in the book is the concept of feminism. Just like contemporary feminists, I am not flabbergasted to find out that one of the author’s inspirations to produce the book is a feminist (Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie).

Almost every female writer who writes in any genre of literature promotes feminism right from the 19th and 20th-century feminists such as Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and Kate Millet down to the present-day feminists.

Because contemporary feminist writers do not stick to one feminist ideology but many subcategories. For instance, every story in the book has a different class of feminist ideology. For example, the first story titled “Cuck-Up” uses Amazon feminism to potray how defiant women are despite appearing weak and passive.

The last story in the book, “Independence Day,”  uses cultural feminism, showing women’s kindness and gentility.

Eco-feminism in the story “Anointed Wife” emphasises that patriarchial societies are detrimental to women.

Charles E Brazzler, in his book Literary Criticism An Introduction to Theory and Practice Fifth Edition, asserts that it’s the view of contemporary feminists that subjugation of women still exists worldwide. Issues such as rape, prostitution, social injustice, early marriages, polygamy etc., the feminist writers continue to add their voices to protest through their pens and papers.

It should be noted that feminism has been broadly international in scope, and many local and general factors dictate its disposition. For example, writers from Arab traditions such as Fatima Mernissi and Leila Ahmed have attempted to articulate a feminist vision distinctly marked by their specific cultural concerns. The same is true of African-American feminists such as Alice Walker and feminists of Asian heritage such as Gayatri Spivak (Habib 2005:669).