Constructions of Nigerian Women in Popular Literatures by Men

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Periodical article

Title:	Constructions of Nigerian Women in Popular Literatures by Men
Author:	Newell, Stephanie
Year:	1996
Periodical:	African Languages and Cultures
Volume:	9
Issue:	2
Pages:	169-188
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Nigeria
Subjects:	images women novels Women's Issues Literature, Mass Media and the Press literature
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/1771757
Abstract:	This article first addresses the question of what is 'popular' about popular literatures in contemporary Nigeria. Then it turns to the image of women in Nigerian popular literatures written by men since the early 1960s. A review of a number of well-known popular novels shows an internally complex but dominant masculine ideology that can be located in these literatures. Popular fiction by men endorses standard negative feminine stereotypes by 'plotting against' the female body, confining it to a narrow band of oversexed representations; simultaneously, it expresses anxieties about these same sexual roles, as heroines are shown to escape their creators' moral condemnations, successfully mediating the narrow range of femininities available to them in the fictional cities. The article also shows that urban Nigerian protagonists are far more ambivalent, despairing and self-destructive than the stock of popular heroic figures in Euro-American literature. Bibliogr., notes, ref.