Unlocking the portals of the political culture : marginalized feminist voices of color and fictional women leaders

Abstract

This dissertation first seek to analyze and evaluate various arguments that have been put forward by Contemporary Feminist thinkers on critical feminist cultural, gender, identity and race theory. These scholarly discussions encompassing Women's Writers and Postcolonialism, Contemporary Feminism, Identity and Resistance are dealt within the first section of the study. It presents these feminist discussions on the significance of the writer's presence and voice of resistance,historical examples of resistance to hegemonic female subordination by women of color, and their various revolutionary acts and their significant forms of leadership. The crucial contexts in which these feminist discussions and forms of resistance occur are the Communities of Color in Africa and the Caribbean. Hence, this study examines the strategies of resistance to the oppressive established socio-political structures that were used by revolutionary fictional heroines of color in works by Ryhaan Shah, Silent Life (2005), Maryse Condé , Heremakhonon (2000), and Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Devil on the Cross (1982), with theoretical applications of the Contemporary Feminist arguments involving women's resistance to oppression. Similarly, it traces various methods of survival, attempt to recreate, gendered norms used by revolutionary real-life heroines and freedom fighters in the respective societies. Equally important, it identifies creative ways in which the real life and fictional heroines mirror each other and manage to circumvent societal boundaries, move beyond cultural gender subordination, assert themselves educationally and politically, and make unprecedented and marked difference in their own lives, and in those of the common woman and man. Particular emphasis is placed on the complexities and gender, race, and class, how these complexities intersect and serve to marginalize women of color in Caribbean and African Society within the political milieu of Patriarchal Hegemonic Society. The theoretical framework centers chiefly on Contemporary Caribbean Feminist Criticism which highlights a vision of sisterhood and feminist political solidarity as a forward moving force for women of color, against hegemonic oppression. Likewise, it leans towards Freirian Pedagogy, which is pedagogical analysis of the libertatory process for oppressed peoples as presented by Paulo Freire. Finally, this study proposes that if women of color were to use their creativity, assert self-hood and assume leadership positions, it could help to lessen the incidence of female subordination.

This dissertation first seek to analyze and evaluate various arguments that have been put forward by Contemporary Feminist thinkers on critical feminist cultural, gender, identity and race theory. These scholarly discussions encompassing Women's Writers and Postcolonialism, Contemporary Feminism, Identity and Resistance are dealt within the first section of the study. It presents these feminist discussions on the significance of the writer's presence and voice of resistance,historical examples of resistance to hegemonic female subordination by women of color, and their various revolutionary acts and their significant forms of leadership. The crucial contexts in which these feminist discussions and forms of resistance occur are the Communities of Color in Africa and the Caribbean. Hence, this study examines the strategies of resistance to the oppressive established socio-political structures that were used by revolutionary fictional heroines of color in works by Ryhaan Shah, Silent Life (2005), Maryse Condé , Heremakhonon (2000), and Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Devil on the Cross (1982), with theoretical applications of the Contemporary Feminist arguments involving women's resistance to oppression. Similarly, it traces various methods of survival, attempt to recreate, gendered norms used by revolutionary real-life heroines and freedom fighters in the respective societies. Equally important, it identifies creative ways in which the real life and fictional heroines mirror each other and manage to circumvent societal boundaries, move beyond cultural gender subordination, assert themselves educationally and politically, and make unprecedented and marked difference in their own lives, and in those of the common woman and man. Particular emphasis is placed on the complexities and gender, race, and class, how these complexities intersect and serve to marginalize women of color in Caribbean and African Society within the political milieu of Patriarchal Hegemonic Society. The theoretical framework centers chiefly on Contemporary Caribbean Feminist Criticism which highlights a vision of sisterhood and feminist political solidarity as a forward moving force for women of color, against hegemonic oppression. Likewise, it leans towards Freirian Pedagogy, which is pedagogical analysis of the libertatory process for oppressed peoples as presented by Paulo Freire. Finally, this study proposes that if women of color were to use their creativity, assert self-hood and assume leadership positions, it could help to lessen the incidence of female subordination.