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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Femininity in African Cosmology: Paradoxes and Ambiguities
Author:Onunwa, Udobata R.
Year:1992
Periodical:Journal of Asian and African Studies (Tokyo)
Issue:44
Pages:131-143
Language:English
Geographic terms:Nigeria
Africa
Subjects:Igbo
women
Cultural Roles
Religion and Witchcraft
Abstract:The Igbo of southeastern Nigeria are known for their open status system and their pragmatic and egalitarian social order. Theirs is an achievement-oriented society, in which women, like their male counterparts, are not docile. Yet women are often presented in myths and proverbs in a somewhat ambivalent and paradoxical manner, implying most of the time that they are at best some sort of second class person to be tolerated, managed or endured as an 'inevitable and necessary evil'. The author explores the paradoxes and ambiguities in the way the Igbo conceptualize women in their myths, legends and proverbs, and argues that the ambivalent conception of feminity in Igbo society is an obstacle to socioeconomic development and must be expunged from Igbo cosmological ideas in the contemporary milieu. Bibliogr., ref.
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