SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: Theatre And Film Studies

CONTRIBUTORS:

Dibia N. Kester
Nwosu Canice
Asigbo Alex

ABSTRACT:

Revolutionary dynamism motivated by the various stages of development that the society has undergone over time, has impacted on feminism in Nigeria. Hence, definition and re-definition of feminism continue to cast doubt on what actually constitutes an acceptable Nigerian feminist agenda. Therefore, the problem of this study is constant proliferation of feminist movements in Nigeria that weaken concrete definition and realisation of an acceptable Nigerian feminist agenda. The study aims at harnessing these discordant tunes of Nigerian feminist writers, irrespective of generational gaps among them with a view to determining what constitutes an acceptable Nigerian feminist agenda. Objectives include examining the goals of various feminist movements in Nigeria and assessing the suitability of their agenda for liberating the female folk from male domination with a view to determining what constitutes an acceptable Nigerian feminist agenda, using some selected Nigerian plays of early and contemporary feminist playwrights: Nwabueze’s The Dragon’s Funeral, Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, Clark’s The Wives’ Revolt, Ayakoroma’s Dance on His Grave, Salami’s More than Dancing and Ogbonna’s The Tamarisk: A Healing Shrub. Simple random sampling, case study and content analysis approaches of the qualitative research method are adopted by the researcher to achieve the research objective. The study is hinged on the theoretical premise of womanism, motherism and STIWANISM as offshoots of conservative feminism that supports gender equality rather than matriarchy. The study reveals that achievements of Nigerian feminist playwrights have been dwarfed by discordant tunes of radical and conservative feminist playwrights. This weakens a concrete definition and realization of an acceptable Nigerian feminist agenda. However, the study shows that conservative feminist writers have achieved a reasonable level of acceptance more than the radical feminist whose approach is separatist. Therefore, the researcher recommends that gender equality championed by conservative feminist playwrights should be the Nigerian feminist agenda.