Through the Looking Glass: Images of African Women in Men's Literature

The impact of social change on the growth in perception has gender implications but it also transcends gender lines. Whereas most female writers embody some aspects of feminine consciousness, others are not emphatically interested in projecting strong female awareness and viewpoint. It has been acknowledged that most early African literary luminaries are men who logically presented a world of male heroism. This trend continues and some male writers on the continent still maintain this attitude. However, there are some exceptions to this trend and the existence of male writers who are sympathetic to the women's cause is central to some of the issues raised by womanists. Some men have shown understanding and sincerity in the need to portray female characters as active heroines making meaningful contributions to their societies. Others have created a central space for women, making them visible but not necessarily revealing their strength clearly. Such writers have presented women ambiguously. From Elech Amadi's pathetic portrait of Ihuoma in "The concubine," to more realistic works by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Sembene Ousmane, Ola Rotimi, Ayi Kwei Amah, Driss Chraibi, and Femi Osofisan, one identifies male writers who are consistent in their positive attitudes to women while others are rather ambivalent in depicting women.

Ngugu Wa Thiong'o stands out as a writer who is fully aware of the invincible role of mythic women like Mumbi as well as historic women leaders. From Ngugi's early works to his more revolutionary later works, he has been consistent in fictionalizing strong African women. He is also persistent in acknowledging the woman's strength, political inspiration and spirituality. His depiction of women in his fiction reveals the indispensability of women as opposed to their irrelevance in socio-political situations. From his early trilogy to more recent works, women are treated with respectability whether as individuals or as a group. From the mythic Mumbi to the collective women amazons in the "Petals of Blood," Ngugi's objectification of women's experiences runs through his fiction. Women are not passive objects but active dynamic centres of consciousness and action. Indeed, the climax is revealed in portraits such as Wariinga, who is pitted against male cruelty, oppression, and suppression.

The works of Sembene Ousmane in English translation corroborate the position that some male writers reveal greater fidelity in elevating the positive attributes of the African woman. Ousmane's females are true to life and he does not fail to focus on the social strictures and structures that delimit women's role in his society where Islam and tradition combine to force women into the "sociopolitial harem." He further depicts women who struggle as individuals to reject docility, as seen in his short story, "Her Three Days." However the crux of Ousmane's concern for women is the collective role as demonstrated by women in "God's Bits of Wood." From the young Ad'jibid'ji to the blind Maimouna, women play diverse active roles just like in the historic strike action that shook the entire francophone West Africa.

The height of women's active participation was their collective role as they joined the men in the revolt and march to Dakar. But Ousmane does not just present mass women's movement as one can see individual growth in consciousness in several of the female characters to prove that the ultimate march is not a mob action. Ramatoulaye rejects both class and male oppression, by initiating her own solution to the problems of starvation and survival. The climax is seen when she kills the well-fed ram, Vendredi. Her reason shows her new awareness that the women can no longer leave bread-winning helplessly in the hands of the striking men:

"... We were all too hungry for it to go on. The men know it too, but, they go away in the morning and don't come back until the night has come and they do not see." (Ousmane, 1970: 69)

This symbolic shift in role points to other areas in which women rise to action when the men are incapacitated. The attack on the hungry women by the police reveals that the myth of women's docility is over, as reality confronts the uniformed men. The women spontaneously take up sand-filled bottles. Like the self-sacrificing Ramatoulaye, the women show new strength in resisting authoritarian oppression. Mama Sofi, Bineta, and Houdia M'Baye led the attack, and the rest of the women followed, seizing upon anything that could be used as a weapon(75).

The women's battle and confrontation with the police precedes men's action. It is a brief fight but the women become mobilized, never again to retreat into passivity:

"The battle between the women and the police in the courtyard of N'Diayene was of short duration. Overcome by sheer weight of numbers, the police beat a hasty retreat, and after they had gone the crowd that had gathered in the compound also begin to disperse. Some of the women, however, formed into little groups and began patrolling the streets of the neighborhood, armed with bottles filled with sand." (109)

Women such as Mame Sofi become formidable threats to armed policemen using bottles and flaming sheaves. The grande finale of the women's active revolt is the march of the women from Thies to Dakar. Ousmane has gone further than many writers in the power of empathy and identification with the women's dilemma and in fictionalizing the dynamic role of women, not only fighting on behalf of their gender, but going further than the striking men to reject racial oppression and class deprivation.

Ambiguity in Women's Images

Men's attitude to women is not always clearly defined, as we see in the ambiguous female characters of Wole Soyinka's novels. Considering the background of this giant of African creativity, one would expect formidable women heroines that reflect the high level of consciousness of Abeokuta women, including Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and Soyinka's own mother and several relatives. His various biographies show the strength of these women. Several of his plays also represent the strong points of African women's position, particularly in traditional societies. The central female protagonists of "The Lion and the Jewel," "Death and the King's Horseman," and "Madman and Specialists" are illustrations of this. But the women in his novel are ambiguously treated.