Feminist Empathy: Unsettling African Cultural Norms inThe Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives

An African woman’s dilemma in The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives: A bosadi perspective on the challenges and pains of infertility

“…Could it be that the physiological appearance of women exposes them to much exploitations by virtue of their sexuality? According to Eze (2015):…”

Inf(l)ecting mind/body dialectics: Self-emancipation through insubordiNation in Chika Unigwe’s Night Dancer

“…Without overlooking men’s role in oppressing women, Unigwe is thus more critical of women’s (mis)treatment of each other than of Mike’s wrongs, both denouncing a patriarchal system in which women contribute to oppress each other, and bearing witness to a potential self-liberation on women’s behalf through fostering solidarity among themselves. These events mark Unigwe’s calling for what Eze refers to as “feminist empathy”, the capacity to identify with a woman afflicted by undeserved and socially imposed distress (2015: 311).…”

“…A similar pattern of action can be found in Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees (2015), which introduces Ijeoma: a lesbian character coerced into heterosexual marriage, but who recovers her rebelliousness and refuses to perform normalized gender roles, just like Ezi. Okparanta and Unigwe set forth a scenario in which Nigerian women can find strategies to react against and counter their oppression, reinforcing the view of third-generation female characters empowering themselves as they interrogate and redefine pre-established hierarchical positions within the family (Eze, 2015: 321; Nadaswaran, 2011: 20; Zabus, 2008: 94). The development of a complex and ever-growing feminist approach regarding body politics allows Ezi’s agency to be re-established.…”

“…Against this background, third-generation women writers have been acclaimed for the configuration of a rapidly expanding corpus of novels featuring third-generation female characters interrogating their identity and gaining control of their destiny in a multiplicity of contexts where the tropes of body and sexual exploration frequently feature (Adekoya, 2014: 336; Eze, 2015: 313; Nwokeabia, 2014: 366; Okuyade, 2009: 253; Zabus, 2008: 93). The Nigerian literary canon has been broadened and influenced not only by critically acclaimed authors from the diaspora such as Chimamanda Adichie, Sefi Atta, Helen Oyeyemi, and Chika Unigwe, but also by Nigerian residents such as Unoma Azuah, Akachi Ezeigbo, Promise Okekwe, Ayòbámi Adébáyò, and Yejide Kilanko, whose pluralistic feminist approaches complement their diasporic counterparts’ work.…”

Chimamanda Adichie, Mia Couto e o combate às expectativas de género

“…Para esta académica, é necessário um olhar decolonial sobre conceitos como "género", que resulta de uma construção cultural ocidental que não existia na sociedade Yorùbá antes do domínio colonial britânico no seu país: "...não havia mulheres -definidas no sentido estrito de género" 15 (OYĚWÙMÍ, 1997, p. xiii), já que a sociedade se organizava em função da senioridade. Por esta razão, discussões em torno do feminismo são vistas por alguns com desconfiança, a ponto de o filósofo e estudioso literário nigeriano Chielozona Eze (2015) avançar que "para muitos africanos, o feminismo é uma palavra maldita, e em países como a Nigéria (...) uma negação absoluta da africanidade" 16 (p. 312).…”