DRAMA AS A TOOL FOR ADDRESSING GENDER INEQUALITY IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

Gender inequality has eaten deep, destroying human and socio-cultural harmony in Nigeria. Discussions on this issue have taken over almost every media in the system especially drama. This research is an analysis of the cultural, religious and societal practices that are discriminatory and oppressive of the female gender. The study is based on qualitative research design and the methodology is content analysis. It gathers its data from Tess Onwueme’s The Broken Calabash which introduces us to one of the lesser practiced tradition of the Igbo culture, the Idegbe practice amongst others and the library. Findings show that men are preferred to women in key positions of leadership in Nigeria because the culture prioritizes men. Women are seen as help-meet; so relegated to common decorated sex slaves. The study concludes that nature has placed the woman beside the man and has given equal potential for individual development, therefore, culture, religion and society should have a change of attitude towards them. When a woman is empowered, she willingly cares for her home and her community because it is in her nature to preserve; therefore women emancipation should be encouraged in Nigerian culture, through drama and playwriting among females and upcoming female writers.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 General Introduction

The most beautiful thing God has ever created and identifies His image with is human being. In His wisdom, He allows human beings to be man and woman for His glory and harmony at all times. The attempt to separate this unique pair always set a discord and chaos that make for subject matter in the art works of our time, especially drama which has become the most viable tool for social reformation. In this order, drama has an effect in remaking the society. “It affects the making of different choices which leads to experiencing different consequences.” (Nwangya. 50).

In dramas of recent days, gender discourses are implied in different ways. However, human history has always recorded constant tussle between man and woman in different interests of live. It is often argued that male domination has characterized the gender relations of human societies. Even at the beginning of the 20th Century, men and women were generally viewed as occupying sharply different roles in society: a woman’s place was

in the home as wife and mother; the man’s place was in the public sphere. Men had legal powers over the lives of theft wives and children, even powers to beat them, own them and disown them at will a clear fall out with nature herself.

This ancient enigma has formed a strong discursive premise in dramatic works even in Nigeria. Tess Osonye Onwueme is one of the prolific Nigerian dramatists writing today. She has thrilled Nigerians with her fascinating dramatic narratives. Her in-depth grasp of the Igbo culture makes her an admirable frontier in discussing issues bothering womanhood in both Igbo society and Nigeria generally. Onwueme is a Nigerian-born scholar in America. As a native of Delta State, she identifies as a part of the Igbo people. Many of her plays concentrate on Igbo women and their encounters with the conflict between Igbo culturalpractices and Igbo women who have received an education in Nigerian schools based on the western education model in particular. She pays attention to the modern Nigerian woman’s struggle for acceptance in a conventional Igbo home. According to her, “we live in a society where women have it very hard. Their lives are manipulated by others” (p.1 5).

She applies this statement to women, whether Western or “Third World”; such plunge place the playwright firmly within the feminist and womanist sphere of discourse.