Abstract: This research work examined Feminism in Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen and Flora Nwapa’s Efuru. The study showed that feminism is an ideology that provided a platform for equality between men and women in the society. It is also a political movement towards the eradication of cultural and men’s infliction to the women. As feminist writers, Emecheta and Nwapa portray these cultural issues affecting their fellow women in African society like; domestic violence, gender discrimination, oppression, subjugation, sexual abuse, humiliation and patriarchal domination by their male counterparts. As feminist writers, their writings exposed these issues, for the betterment of the society and unity.
Feminism in Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen and Flora Nwapa’s Efuru
From the findings, the researcher recommends that feminism as a socio-political movement that geared towards the recognition of the potentials of women as human beings, the women should be given equal opportunities with their male counterpart in various areas of human activities and eradicate the issue of patriarchal domination by the men because from creation time, down to the message in the Holy Bible, husbands should love their wives and treat them with care, while the same source admonished women to submit to their husbands in all manners.
1.1 Background to the Study
Feminist ideology is found on the need to develop a female edition of creativity to cause awareness on the plight of woman as they are oppressed, deprived, subjugated, discriminated and victimized by their male counterpart and customs and traditional practices.
Consequently, the above forms the background to this research work. In addition, Joseph Adebayo defines feminism as “a worldwide ideological and political movement that aimed at changing the existing power relation between man and woman in the society” (161).
From this definition above, one would observe that feminism is concerned with inequality, with emphasis led on female gender to develop herself esteem. Therefore, it is clear that feminism is not only a movement against female exploitation, subjugation and discrimination, but it is also a movement for understanding, equality between men and women in the society. For instance, female writer like Elainc Showalter in her article entitled A literature of their own: outlines a literary history of woman writers and promote both the feminist critique and gynocritic. Showalter is occupied with investigating and interrogating the images projected by the female folks in society. She also writes to expose the male’s prejudices and biases.
Feminism in Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen and Flora Nwapa’s Efuru
On the other hand, African female writers use literature as a gateway of agitating for the rights of their fellow women. In the same vein, this female writers exposed the fact that women should no longer be seen as a object to decorate the house but rather a major or contributors to the building of the society and nations as a whole. On this light, Raji Michael posits thus:
Feminism is concerned with contemporary agitation by women both social, economic, political and cultural equality with the male counterparts in the society (59). The above definition has shown that African feminist writers write on the cultural issues affecting the female folks in our contemporary society.
