Gender
Issues in African Literature examines the ways in which some
protagonists of African fictions are made to counter and challenge
intertwined Western discourses on gender, employment, sexuality, and
health. Here the conflict between Tradition and Modernity is argues from
the favourite premise of male supremacist ideology showing how women
have 'unlearned' these false concepts to build a sustained feminist
movement and (re)learn the value of sisterhood. There is a bold attempt
to reread Achebe as a consistent in urging women to fight the seemingly
oppressive structures that have traditionally discriminated against
them, and to disregard their diversity and embrace their unity. A
chapter of Feminist Re-writing disagrees with the attempt to equate
theory with political activism and presents Feminist literature as more
than a verbal assertion that points to Feminist aesthetics and politics.
The use of the trauma theory and testimony literature to explore
traumatisation of female characters and its impact for Zimbabwean civil
society is a useful addition to these gender studies in African
literature.