Example 3: Walker

The primary focus of Nigerian feminism is the welfare of women and the girl child. However other burning issues of female subjugation led to fragmentation in Nigerian feminist agenda.

Prominent among these issues are inequality and marginalisation of women. Nigerian feminist theories came to limelight to curb these burning issues. They are reactions against the one dimensional status quo. Thus, Nigerian feminism fragmented to suit specific purposes. There is no doubt that Nigerian feminist theories are adaptations and appropriations of western civilization and feminist struggles; but theyhave captured Nigeria feminist and gender issues.

Consequently, Nigerian feminism has brought forth several other theories to drive home the central issue of gender equality. They include: Womanism (Walker 1982), Stiwanism (Ogundipe 1994), Motherism (Nnaemeka 1997) and Negro-feminism (Nnaemeka 1999). Even though these theories have emerged from Nigerian feminism and feminism as a whole, they have contributed to the proliferation of Nigerian feminist agenda.

However, this study is hinged on the theoretical premise of womanism and motherism. The two theories closely align with liberal or conservative feminism and gender equality; in a sense both, unlike core Western feminism, are anti-separatist and anti-combative in approach thereby encouraging women to associate with men in a relationship of equals or partners and not master/servant relationship. Womanism as a feminist movement is associated with Alice Walker, a Black American novelist and poet who was an active voice in the Black feminist movement.

Alice Walker‟s first conception of womanism can be captured from her definition of who a womanist is. She maintains that a womanist is:

A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or non-sexually, appreciates and prefers women‟s culture, women‟s emotional flexibility… women‟s strength…

committed to survival and wholeness of an entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health… loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the spirit… Loves struggle. Loves the folk. Loves herself.

Regardless. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. (Linda Napikoski, np)

It is a movement for the survival of the black race, taking into consideration the ugly experiences of black women hence the much cited phrase credited to Walker that “womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender” thereby suggesting that womanism is the broad ideological umbrella under which feminism falls. The theory has been adopted by the researcher as it has been understood as a movement that is capable of addressing the woman question from the standpoint of Nigeria‟s peculiar socio-cultural settings. It therefore, can be rightly said that womanism represents Nigerian women‟s reaction or response to gender discrimination and oppression. As a movement, womanism seeks to reform patriarchal structures by actively encouraging accommodation and dialogue between men and women as a necessary step towards reconciling both genders and consequently engendering cooperation between the two. It seeks to achieve this by espousing and adopting anti-militarist and anti-separatist approaches while at the same time tackling, arguing vehemently against as well as working towards dismantling socio-cultural roadblocks erected by the society that make it impossible for women in Nigeria to realise their abilities and potentials. Womanism encourages the educational and economic empowerment of women as a way of encouraging them to rise above oppression, marginalisation and other social restrictions. In a further attempt to provide an apt definition of womanism, Walker says, “…it is the lived experience of ―women of colour and also bases on the struggle

of the African woman.” (n.p). The relevance of Walker‟ womanism gave Nigerian women the impetus to evolve Nigerian womanism. Hence, Nigerian womanism has come to influence Nigerian feminist agenda as well as influencing most Nigerian women playwrights to focus on gender equality in their plays. Thusthe difference between Nigerianand Eurocentric feminism is that Eurocentric feminism preaches gender separatism and extremism. They champion the total extinction of men, but Nigerian womanism is against separatism; rather, they believe in gender equality and equity. Theoretical provisions of womanism are similar to those of motherism even though the proponent of the theory, Catherine Obianuju Acholonu symbolises woman in a mother. Acholonu„s thought on motherism, is simply, equal rights for mothers. According to Acholonu: “the traditional role of the African woman has essentially been that of a matriarch and social nurturer. Motherism would refer to an Afrocentric feminist theory: . . . anchored on the matrix of motherhood . . .” (Acholonu, 1995). This is born out of her conviction that a mother has the ability of the woman to nurture a child into adulthood as well as her ability to organise her home. Thus, motherism does not subjugate men but seeks for a level playing ground where the woman will succeed as a mother. Hence, it isan Afro-centric feminist theory hinged on the matrix of a woman as a mother. This concept also gives the woman a central position in Nigerian cosmology as the channel of survival and continuance of race that unite the community.

According to Acholonu, motherism is:

A multi-dimensional theory which involves the dynamics of ordering, recording, creating structures, building and rebuilding in cooperation with Mother Nature at all levels of human endeavour. Cooperation with nature is paramount to motherism and the task of the motherist is that of healing and protecting the natural cohesive essence of the family, the child, the society and the environment.

Therefore, the motherist must be a humanist, a healer, a co-creator with God and nature: an environmentalist. (111)

As a theoretical framework, motherism is “against the straight-jacket nature of Western feminism which embodies separateness, individualism, violent confrontation and antagonism”

(Roseline Yacim,192). To accentuate her explanation of motherism, Yacim goes further to note Acholonu‟s stand on the true nature of a motherist. According to Acholonu as cited by Yacim:

The motherist is the man or woman committed to the survival of mother earth as a hologrammatic entity. The weapon of motherism is love, tolerance, service and mutual cooperation of the sexes, not antagonism, aggression, militancy or violent confrontation, as has been the case with radical feminism. (192)

As a movement, motherism embodies or represents the struggles of an oppressed and subjugated group for freedom from oppressive and dehumanising cultural practices that hold the Nigerian woman in captivity. It connotes motherhood, nature and nurture. It seeks to evaluate men and women in a manner that encourages complementarity of the sexes rather than equality or an outright dethronement of patriarchy or enthronement of matriarchy over patriarchy. This complementarity of the sexes is an attempt to create genuine awareness that men should not be seen as rivals to women. It is a movement that seeks a healthy mental disposition that sees men and women as equals or partners.

Unarguably, motherism is a movement that shares with womanism similar values of tolerance, accommodation and mutual cooperation between men and women in the task of ordering, re-ordering and creating the necessary structures that will enable Nigerian women gain freedom from oppressive structures and institutionalised conventions. Both womanism and motherism appear to be communal in their orientation and application and therefore, can be said to be ideologically committed to ensuring that the destiny of an oppressed group in the society is discussed in a meaningful context with a view to changing the status quo and replacing it with a modified system under which the Nigerian society will have no option but to reckon with women as equal partners with men in the collective enterprise of developing the society. The two

theories no doubt, have been appropriated by Nigerian feminists because of the suitability of their feminist ideological viewpoints to the Nigerian feminist agenda. Grace E. Okereke broadly defines African feminism and by extension, Nigerian feminism thus:

African feminism cherishes what is good in tradition but rejects that which diminishes the woman as an individual and as part of the society. In this feminism, motherhood, companionship, mutual growth and interdependence of man and woman in marriage are cherished, but polygamy, male dominance, sexism and patriarchal definition of woman are rejected. (13)

In other words, womanism and motherism rolled into one have given birth to Nigerian feminism, which is concerned with protecting Nigerian womanhood against being bastardised or debased by the society. Contextual analysis of the ideological viewpoints expressed in the selected plays shows that they are strongly supported by both theories. The researcher, therefore, combines womanism and motherism as propounded by Walker and Acholonu to arrive at a theoretical framework for this study.

In adopting the non-militarist, non-combative and non-separatist strategies or approaches which are core tenets of womanism and motherism, the women‟s heroism in the selected texts lies in their ability and determination to stay committed to their cause, to stay focused and united in their struggles for justice and freedom. Therefore, it can be said that both Walker and Acholonu have through their theories, provided an invincible foothold for the collective ideologies expressed in the selected plays for this study as their ideologies about women‟s organised struggles against patriarchal domination using the combined tools of tolerance, mutual cooperation and love constitute a common philosophical thread that runs through the selected plays.