Silence and Solitude: The Post-Colonial Situation of Women in Africa, According to Adichie and Amadiume Anonymous College

Both Male Daughters and Female Husbands by Ifi Amadiume and Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie discuss the situation of women in post-colonial Nigeria. Amadiume studies the woman’s function in Nnobi, a village in Southeastern Nigeria, and compares how the position of wives and daughters in Nigerian society has shifted between pre-colonial to post-colonial times. Through Purple Hibiscus , we are shown a fictional case study of the woman’s role in post-colonial Nigeria through two of the novel’s main characters: Beatrice and Kambili. In comparing the two texts, self-expression seems to be the key to power, wealth, and status for women in pre-colonial Nigeria, and its absence subjugates wives and daughters in post-colonial Nigeria. While women continue to accept these ideologies, they will never be able to reclaim and rewrite the colonial gender ideologies that constrict them. Using evidence from both of the aforementioned texts, this paper seeks to prove that speech and agency have played a vital role in the post-colonial creation and dissemination of patriarchal power relations and gender ideologies, at the detriment of women in Nigeria.

In Male Daughters and Female Husbands , Amadiume presents the argument that dual-sex...