CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background of the Study

          The issue of feminism springs up from women’s consciousness of their situation in the society and various oppressive acts against them.

          In traditional Africa the woman is an object of constant scorn, degradation and physical torture. In the past, women did not exist as individuals with personalities to defend. They rather existed as mere docile and exotic accompaniments to the males. Throughout that period, women lacked a voice to articulate their dilemma and their point of view. They, thus, accepted their fate without resistance.

          In those days, these women, in addition to experiencing the same oppressive social condition as their male counterparts in a developing world, were subjected to extra repressive burdens arising from the socio-cultural structures of patriarchy and gender hierarchy. These years of subjugation have, however, produced in today’s women relentless questioning of the status quo. They protest against dehumanization, political enslavement and social oppression. They rationalize that the running of the African world is not the preserve for males and thus there should be absolute equality of both sexes in all spheres of life. Such a reaction is termed feminism, which is an ideology that urges, in simple term, recognition of the claims of women for equal rights with men.

          The term feminism usually refers to a historically recent European and American social movements founded to struggle for female equality. Feminism by this designation has become a global political project.

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