Description
WOMEN & PATRIARCHAL POWER
In the Selected Works of Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
By Dr. Albert Mugambi Rutere
A critical study that examines various strategies which women use to respond to patriarchy. Analyzing Ngugi’s Weep Not, Child, The River Between, A Grain of Wheat, Petals of Blood, Devil on the Cross, and Wizard of the Crow, it exposes the challenges and constraints which women face in deconstructing patriarchy. Dr. Albert Mugambi Rutere began his academic career as a College Tutor of English in Kenya. He has a Bachelor of Education (Honors) from Kenyatta University, Kenya. He attended the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, for his M.Sc. in Applied Linguistics on an Overseas Development Agency British Council Scholarship. He became a Tutorial Fellow at Kenyatta University and later a Lecturer at Egerton University, Kenya. He obtained his Ph.D. from Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, concentrating on African Literature and Women Studies. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at American University of Nigeria, Yola, Adamawa State.
Theories of feminists like Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Freidan, and writers such as Max Weber and Michel Foucault are employed to provide the paradigm for women’s struggle in the society. While appreciating women resistance, the study argues that success in the struggle against patriarchy will be possible if women take the initiative and empower themselves socially, politically, and economically. Some of the survival strategies proposed include good education, hard work, solidarity, pragmatic cooperation, tactical silence and subversion.
