Analyzing male-female relationships in African literature enables a better understanding of how African writers view the gender roles including the application of religious aspects, marriage and identity, midwives and slave women, nationalism, and migration. In earlier works, the female gender was often perceived as “the Queen Mother.”
Many African writers portray women in traditional roles whereas articles written in the past few decades analyze male-female relationships with a more feminist approach. This paper will analyze articles by leading African writers concerning the representation of the male-female relationship.
In 1997, Jamaica Kincaid’s book entitled The Autobiography of My Mother opened the eyes of readers to the life of the protagonist and narrator, Xuela Claudette Potter Richardson.
This character is a woman whose willful hardness of heart wields a difficult, unsympathetic character through a disturbing tale of unequal male-female relationships.Gender roles are predominant in the author’s correlations of sexuality and power and a legacy of colonialism and racism.
The female role in Kincaid’s book is one that is hardened by life and by the negligence of the male counterpart (Xuela’s father). Nevertheless, Xuela’s mother is portrayed as a giver of unselfish love (she gave her life for her child –hence, she died during childbirth) while the father is a persona of indifference and casual cruelty of which the narrator later comes to associate with the ways of the British colonizers who taught her father about money and greed, power and domination.
In many African texts (Sofola 1998; Cooper 1995), the female gender is stereotyped as the fertile and nurturing Earth Mother to the lazy, debauched young beauty. This was the African woman’s identity -the mother, the caretaker; not the provider or independent woman known in today’s society.
Subsequently, the difference in the gender roles is a division of labor that exists between African men and women, whereby men were generally responsible for war and long-distance trade, helped clear land, hunted, and ran political affairs, while women took care of agriculture, household tasks such as supplying water and firewood, nearby gardening, and small-scale subsistence and neighborhood trading.
Although women did harbor the responsibility of physical labor in the home, their primary function was the work connected with reproduction.
Legal and government-assigned rights historically held that the inheritance of goods and power was unequal between men and women. Another common setting is that the female’s role as producer and reproducer.
While the male-female relationship depicted by African writers indicates bias on the part of the male toward the female, the African female gender is more respected than in other culture. African men -like other cultures- prefer to have sons over daughters, but the role of the female is needed.
Women are most often portrayed as the caretakers of the home (cooking, cleaning, and washing) and as providers of heirs. Unlike the power of the male gender, African women were categorized in terms of power by their production of children.
As each author’s work is reviewed, the predominant factor is the role of the male gender as the leader, as somewhat better than the female gender. It is not until the review of “Healing the Hurt” (2004) that a clear distinction between the male-female gender is recognized. In fact, the author explains the male gender as the preferred while adding that the white male is preferred overall all other races. Concerning this very stigma, the author writes:
…looking out at a diverse body of students who are more often than not eager to tell me that racism and sexism are no longer a problem, that differences do not really matter, that no one notices because “we are all just people.” …the next time we meet I ask them if they were able to die and be born again, which racialized body they would choose and why: a white male, a white female, a black male, or a black female.
No matter the make-up of the class … overwhelmingly folks want to come back as white and male. The reasons they give all confirm the race/sex hierarchy in our nation; they all simply believe they will have a better chance at success and at living long and well if they are white males. (Hooks 134)
Most African female writers portray the male-female relationship are unequal to the female, where as male writers portray the opposite (e.g. Hook’s writing; 2004). Hooks explains the view that “wise progressive black women have understood for some time now that the most genocidal threat to black life in America, and especially to black male life, is patriarchal thinking and practice.”
(Ibid) Hooks explains that “any distinction to be made between the status of black females and males…does not lie with a difference in the substantive nature of suffering or in the degree of life-threatening risk.” (135) An example of Hooks’ thinking is given:
…my father never wanted Mama to work, but she understood that to ensure the educational advancement of her children she needed to bring money in. She defied him to go out and work. Working helped her self-esteem. She moved positively forward and helped us all move forward, and Dad stayed stuck, pissed that she went out to work. (136)
Unlike Hooks’ peers, the inclusion of the male-female gender is an unrestrained account what life is really like for each gender, including the stereotypical influences of varied races. Kincaid (1996) writes on the female underdog while Hooks (2004) writes on reality.
While Conde’s writing in I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (1994) is based on the historical Salem Witch Trials, there is an aura of fiction to her text. Nevertheless, the inclusion of the male-female relationship, gender issues, and patriarchy is evident and supportive of reality in the writing of her peers. For example, Conde (1994) explains that Tituba is not allowed to have her own voice in the company of patriarchy (she must often unite with a male to have her voice). (153)
Similar to the African female in Kincaid’s text (1996), Tituba endures much abuse (she is slapped, beaten down, told what to think and do) (Ibid) at the hands of the male gender, primarily that of the white man. As Conde concludes her story, she quotes Tituba questioning one of her many lovers concerning having a voice of her own:
