Abstract
The study has examined the extent of the marginalization of the
African woman in a sexist society which relegates womanhood to gender
roles. It has discovered, for instance that the persistent inequality
between men and women in the Nigeria society which Alkali works portray,
has contributed to the general disempowerment of women. Alkali however,
projects womanhood in a positive light she upholds female
potentialities which the patriarchal structure has represent. As a
feminist, she aims her female character with an intensity of vision and
makes role models out of them. This study has further discovered that
illiteracy among women is on a slow decline compared to that of men. The
education of the female child is a rarity in Northern Nigeria. This has
affected noticeably the quality of life that the female child
experiences. Zaynab Alkali has therefore, presents education as the most
essential weapon for challenging one aspect of gender inequality which
is the educational disempowerment of the woman. Feminist Aesthetic in
Zaynab Alkali’s in The Stillborn and The Virtuous Womanhas been
discussed and our findings reveal that education plays major role in
women emancipation and liberation in a patriarchal society. The study
has concluded that there is a need to re-evaluate and re-define gender
roles in African society in order to establish mutual complementary
between men and women and it recommended that both sexes should be
equally trained for the joy of motherhood to be full realized and that
education underscores a fundamental necessity for the mental and
material liberation of women from male domination.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter one
1.0 Introduction to the Study
1.1 Purpose/Significance
1.2 Scope and Limitation
1.3 Justification of the study
1.4 Methodology
1.5 The Research Questions
1.6 Authorial Background
Chapter two: the Literature Review
2.0 Introduction
2.1 Feminist Theory
2.2 Types of Feminism
2.2.1 Liberal Feminism
2.2.2 Radical Feminism
2.2.3 Marxist Feminism
2.2.4 Socialist Feminism
2.2.5 Cultural Feminism
2.2.6 Black/African Feminism
2.3 A Review of Feminist Aesthetics
Chapter three
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Plot Construction
3.2 Image of Womanhood
3.3 Feminist Tendencies
3.4 Gender Equity
3.5 Female Modern Characterization
3.6 Language and Style
3.7 The Function of Feminist Aesthetics in Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn
Chapter Four
4.0 Introduction
4.1 Plot Construction
4.2 Image of Womanhood
4.3 Gender Equity
4.4 Motherhood
4.5 Female Modern Characterization
4.6 Language and Style
4.7 The Feminist Aesthetics in Zaynab Alkali’s The Virtuous Woman
Chapter five
Summary
Findings
Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a
certain sex, but a woman has to define herself as a woman from start.
The masculine is regarded as the very type of humanity and woman is seen
as relative to man. This act is what gives birth to a term “Feminism”.
Feminism according to the Oxford Advanced Dictionary is “the movement
for recognition of women’s rights (legal, political, social etc.) equal
to possess by men”. Although, the term ‘Feminism’ has a history in
English linked with womens activism form the late 19th century to the
present, it is useful of distinguish feminist ideas or beliefs from
feminist political movements for even in periods when they have been no
significant in political activism around women’s subordination,
individual has been concerned with and the theorized about justice for
women.
Feminism is an ideology which is a direct reation to the social and
psychological restraints place upon women. Femilism come as a result of
an attempt by the women to liberate their feet from traditional claws in
African patriarchal society that allow the male see to exercise
authority and emphasis male supremacy over the female. This is basically
to bring impediments on the path of the women in realization of their
potentials.
Joseph (2001:163) also aserts that “in order to be almost inextricaly
successful in that chauvinist patriarchal society and authoritarian
set-up the society conditions and manipulates the economic and
psychological being of a woman”. Through history, women has always
struggled against male domination and suppression, be it political,
religious, economical or social.
The major reason for the women’s strive and thirst for quality with
men can be traced to the changing role for women in contemporary West
Africa is not to say that the traditional role of women as keeper of
home, mother obedient, mate participation in actions, economics are
being eliminated rather, it is to state a fairly obvious sociological
fact. Society is not stagnant technologies and science just as the
general societal changes have occurred in different part of the
countries, so also is the changes in the role of women. The changes in
the educational set up include changes in the educational set up include
changes attitudes economics, political and society environmental of
women which necessarily alter their roles.
Most African female writers seek to address the plight of women in
most of their works. The advent of women into an exclusively male world
was possible with an increasing sensitivity to inequalities of sexism.
This issue forms the base of the African women writers. The women came
to awareness that there is the heed to change the image of women from
the oppressed and the underdog.
As a result of this fact, gender scholars and feminist writers have
continuously lamented the sad plight of women, especially women who are
not adequately empowered, in their works. Feminist writers in Europe and
America like Virginia Woolf and Elaine Showalter have dwelt almost on
the same concerns that dominated the thematic pre-occupation of African
Feminist writers like Buchi Emecheta , Flora Nwapa, Ifeoma Okoye, Mariam
Ba, Zulu Sofola, Zaynab Alkali and others. The main concern of most of
these female is the problem confronting women. The female writer gives
manly qualities to their female characters and makes the men to play a
secondary role. This trend in female writers makes them feminist.
It is important to say that female writers also gained approval in
the society through the assistance of some male writers whose techniques
of writing are different from the female form. Showalter (1988:209)
posits that “there is any specifically male and female way of writing or
approaching test because human imagination is essentially genderless”
for examples is critical reading in Sembene Ousmane God’s Bits of
Wood (1962) which portray female characters as revolutionary activists.
They take up the leadership roles to fight oppression in the society.
The women march from Thies to Dakar with no food and water, though many
lose their lives in the struggle, those who are left to achieve success
at the end of the railway strike. Ngugi Wa also shows the sterling
quality of women in the African society. In a Grain of Wheat, women did
not only stand by their men, they also participate in various active
parts in the struggle for freedom and Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the
Jewel (1964) would be shallow without paying attention to the influence
of the women folk in the strike action in the novel and the roles play
by Sadiku and Sidi in the play respectively.
Education therefore is believed by many writers to be the major agent
of women’s liberation and emancipation with Western form of education,
more women are now empowered to express themselves and assert their
right to be heard. Women thereby write to create awareness in the
societies. The awareness will lead women to speak out their minds in
matters concerning them.
Aesthetics on the other hand means the study of beauty of art. From
the consideration of this project topic Feminist Aesthetic in Zaynab
Alkali’s The Stillborn and The Virtuous Woman implies those elements and
facts the novelist write to glorify womanhood in struggle for the
attainment of self liberation and transformation for the beauty and
betterment of the societal growth. Through feminism, she identifies the
social qualities imposed on feminine roles which place excessive
restraints upon women and conclude that neither a woman nor a man can be
free unless each rejects fixed roles in all their forms. Her belief is
that it is essential that women throughout Africa be allowed and
encouraged to fulfil their potential for them to make an effective
contribution to nation building.
1.2 Purpose of the study
This project work is to examine and emphasized the ideological
production of ‘Femininity’ as ‘other’ of patriarchy and the need
therefore for women to become ‘real’ subjects and to discover their
‘true’ selves. It also examine the theme of female oppression by men as
well as the struggle by women for emancipation in Zaynab Alkali’s The
Stillborn and The Virtuous Woman where you will see how African women in
projected. All her works hoped to promote an awareness of female
educational development which would lead to the socio-economic and
political empowerment of more African women.
This project work centred on how improvement can be brought women
condition in Africa. Zaynab Alkali writes to asses as one of the
African writer on feminists and recipes for improving the women
condition in Africa.
1.3 Scope of THE study
The scope of this project work is focused on Feminist Aesthetic in
African Literature with a close study of two novels written by one of
the Nigerian leading female writer, Zaynab Alkali. The novels to be
studied are The Stillborn and The Virtuous Woman. Reference shall
however be made to other relevant works which centre on feminism in the
African sense of the word.
1.4 Justification of the study
In Africa culture, women have been subjected to oppression,
depression, suppression, rejection, and segregation and unfair and undue
victimizations. This is duely because of the insignificant view that
the analysis of Zaynab Alkali’s novels The Stillborn and The Virtuous
Woman will be carried out to identify how she function in instructing
the society thereby helping it to develop and also bring out the beauty
of woman significance for the betterment of the society. In the process
of data collected, the library would be consulted before embarking on
this project. There is need to find out what has been written on the
subject so as to guide the researcher on the general nature of the work
and to add more view to improve or better the on-going project.
However, this study will attempt to pay a critical attention to the
awareness created in the above books of Zaynab Alkali so as to bring out
the aesthetics of feminism and their contributions to societal growth.
1.5 METHODOLOGY
There will be a general study of various texts with aim of finding
two that relate to feminism. Having done this, a research will be
carried out to pursue works connecting to the element and concept under
study of feminism including works previously written on the concept.
This will give root of background to the study. Any information gathered
will be used to carry out proper work.
The analysis of Zaynab Alkali’s novels The Stillborn and The Virtuous
Woman will be carried out to identify how they function in instructing
the society thereby helping it to develop and also bring out the beauty
of woman significant and betterment of the society. In the process of
data collection, the library would be consulted before embarking on this
project, there is need to find out what has been written on the subject
so as to guide the researcher on the general nature of the work and to
add more view to improve or better the on-going project.
1.6 THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What are the tenets of gender aesthetics?
What are the primary concerns of these two novels of Zaynab Alkali’s The Stillborn and The Virtuous Woman to feminism issue?
What is the significance of women in the society?
1.7 Authorial background of zaynab alkali
Zaynab’s father is said to have come from Dam, a village in Borno
State in the Northern part of Nigeria, but he moved to Gongola also in
the northern region where Zaynab herself was born and brought up in the
early 1960s. She attended Queen’s College and later went for further
Degree in English before taking up the post of Principal of Shekaka
Girl’s College, Kano in 1976, she was appointed as lecturer at Bayero
University, Kano.
Zaynab Alkali’s belongs to the group of African Feminist writer that
fervently decry the condition of women. Her published books are The
Stillborn (1984), The Virtuous Woman (1986), The Descendent (2003) and
other short stories collection Cowbells and other Stories (1997). Her
pre-occupation is the plight of women in a society where the only means
of survival, physical and emotional is to attain considerable level of
education and economic independence.
As a feminist writer, Zaynab writes to deconstruct and at the same
time to correct the evils of patriarchy in her society. In this society,
women are regarded as mere subordinate to their men counterpart. They
are subjugated and oppressed under the guise of male supremacy over
female. The way out is what Zaynab Alkali’s trying to depict in her
works