Abstract
Mohanty is a prominent contemporary postcolonial feminist who demands women’s solidarity based on the common context of struggle against the hierarchical powers- colonialism, capitalism, racism and patriarchy. This study seeks to examine traces of colonialism, capitalism, racism and solidarity in Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood according to Mohanty’s postcolonial feminist theory.
Introduction
Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood narrates the story of a traditional woman, Nnu Ego, who knows her identity and its completion in having many children especially the boy one. Suffering from poverty, she knows herself rich, for she has three sons. It seems to her that she would have, according to Ibuza tradition, a comfortable old age due to her sons’ help. Having detailed Nnu Ego’s painful life in Lagos, a colonized city, the novel ends with her tragic death alone. Yet, far from being devoted to her children exposing her joys of motherhood, Nnu Ego dies, at the end of the story, a lonely death “with no child to hold her hand and no friend to talk to her. She had never really made many friends, so busy had she been building up her joys as a mother” (Emecheta, 2011,p. 224).
Through depicting the oppression and suffering Nnu Ego experiences in Lagos, Emecheta, indeed, highlights the effects of capital politics and colonial patriarchal regimes in Third World women’s marginalization and domination. In this regard, it seems that Emecheta’s novel is a practical instance of Mohanty’s theoretical ideology.
Are Women as a Homogeneous Group?
As the story of invisibility and marginalization of women who have no voice, Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood, aims at rewriting an integral part of history which has been dismissed. Indeed, Emecheta seeks to speak for Ibuza women being multiply marginalized and oppressed by a colonial and indigenous patriarchal society. Mohanty (2003) stresses that it is necessary for Third World women to speak for themselves, to rewrite their history and to produce knowledge about themselves. She suggests that the important question is: who is speaking for Third World women and from what geographical location they are doing so? (p. 52). Hence, Emecheta, as a Nigerian woman, is the best person to rewrite the story of marginalization and suffering of Nigerian women and her novel is an essential source of knowledge about them.
In the novel, female figures are multiply victimized by oppressive forces of race, gender and class, though one cannot refer to them as a homogeneous group. In Mohanty’s argument, Western feminists in their problematic discussions of Third World women, ignoring the diversity among women, consider all the native women as a homogeneous group. However, women have different identity, history, struggle and everyday lives. In fact, “women are not as a singular monolithic subject. Even when they share the same culture, they are still different”. (Emecheta, 2011, p. 17)
That’s why she asserts that Third World women should rewrite their history based on women’s specific location and struggle and everyday lives. In this regard, Emecheta carefully delineates the diversity among native female figures through their resistance against the patriarchal oppression and domination. Western feminism does not mean "radical feminism based on which men are considered as women’s greatest enemy"(Alaei and Barfi 2014: 15). For instance Ona is a proud woman with a male power. Adaku, a representation of independent women, struggles for her independence and freedom. Nnu Ego, a traditional woman, accepts the superiority of man and she always tries to be a good daughter for her father, a good wife for her husband and a good mother for her children.
Adankwo is the representation of those women who have accepted their fate. Internalizing the patriarchal values and norms, she herself cooperates in the oppression of Nnu Ego and Adaku. Hence, regarding women as a category of analysis or, in other words, as a homogeneous group, as Mohanty (2003) suggests, “results in an assumption of women as an always already constructed group, one that has been labeled powerless, exploited, sexually harassed, and so on” (p. 23).
Colonial Policies and Women’s Recolonization
The Joys of Motherhood unfolds events in Nigeria during the period of time that it was invaded and colonized by British imperialism “in 1930 and moving forward to the time of independence from colonial rule” (Killam, 2004, p. 42). Killam (2004) asserts that until late 18century contact between Europe and Africa was limited to slave trade. But since 1780, a new interest appeared. They sought a market to offer their goods and to develop their religion in Africa. Through developing the theory of social Darwinism, this idea was formed by Europeans that they were superior. Therefore, they were responsible to give Africans identity, civilization, religion and rule. That was the way they justified colonial expansion in Africa. As a result, African formal colonization began from 1885 (p. 48).
Western countries establish themselves as the legitimate rulers of the orient, in other words, they believe that they have the power to build their empire. They are increasingly of the opinion that Third World people are in capable of self-government. Consequently, they have the right both to make rules for them and to control them and to bring about changes in their lives as well (Mohanty,2003, p. 71). The European invasion and colonization of Africa in the nineteenth century had anenormous impact on Nigerian history because it brought about a series of social, cultural, economic and political changes in Nigeria.
In the novel, Emecheta carefully depicts the way in which the colonial discourse brings about changes such as religious ones in Lagos through the institutions: “the workers are determined to be off only half a day in the week and that is on Sundays in order to attend the church. The marriage should be done in the church, otherwise; it is regarded as an illegal marriage. When Nnu Ego is pregnant for the first time, Nnaif become worry that he may lose his job because they didn’t marry in the church. Moreover, Nnu Ego, in the court, is told to swear by the holy Bible not by herchi”. (Emecheta, 2011, p. 217) Hence, Emecheta highlights how carefully West develops its culture and rules through the institutions.
She, indeed, echoes how women are subject to multiple oppressions by the intersection of oppressive forces of race, gender and class. Emecheta, in this regard, attempts to speak for the disenfranchised African women who are subjugated by the colonial patriarchal society. Due to their own contradictory sex, race, class and cast positioning, Third World women and women of color are subject to domination and exploitation (Mohanty, 2003, p. 64).
Through disclosing the abusive behaviors with which the colonial patriarchal society has oppressed and silenced the female figures in Lagos, Emecheta criticizes the effects the colonial patriarchal discourse has on the native patriarchy. In this regard, Loomba (2007) mentions: Colonialism intensified patriarchal oppression, often because native men increasingly disenfranchises and excluded from the public sphere, became more tyrannical at home. (p. 64)Being disempowered and humiliated by British master, Nnaif, as a washer man, “takes out his frustration on Nnu Ego” (Killam, 2004, p. 44). His master calls him “baboon” while laughing and repeating the word. Such a treatment echoes the extent to which West regards the “oriental other” (Morton, 2003, p. 87), as an inferior creature which reflects the stability and fulfillment oft hem. The British master treats Nnaif in a way that he “is denuded of any cultural or historical being” (p. 86). Here, Emecheta (2011) attempts to question Western humanism: Nnaif didn’t realize that Dr. Meer’s laughter was inspired by that type of wickedness that reduces any man, white or black, intelligent or not, to a new low; lower than the beast of animals, for animals at least respected each other’s feeling, each other’s dignity. (p. 42).
Capitalist Policies and Women Exploitation
Mohanty (2003) is on the opinion that the development of capitalism in the industrial countries followed by the racial “sexual politics of global capitalist domination and exploitation” (p.168) leads to a demand for cheap workers for its goal: more profit, accumulation and exploitation (p.169).This strategy is central to the development of capitalism. In this regard, the concept of “unskilled” work was a definition of work –for immigrant-which was given by racial capitalism. In her story, Emecheta questions such capitalist policy which leads to the immigration of many villagers, with no profession, to Lagos- a colonized city- to find job: It was difficult for man with no qualification to find work in the early 1940. In growing numbers they were leaving their village homes to look for jobs in Lagos, and this phenomenon was robbing many areas of their most able-bodied men. (Emecheta, 2011, p. 141)
Black Women Solidarity: The Common Context of Struggle
Mohanty’s other important concept, women’s solidarity, can be traced in Emecheta’s novel, The Joys of Motherhood. While considering that African women’s lives are colonized and exploited by different factors such as capitalism, colonialism and indigenous patriarchy, Emecheta echoes the sign of African women’s solidarity based on “the common interests, historical location, and social identity” (Mohanty, 2003, p. 12).
Mohanty believes that Third World women’s solidarity or unity is based on the common context of struggle against power structures and the hierarchical discourses of racism, nationalism, imperialism, capitalism and patriarchy which determine a political oppositional alliance among them. In describing the term “women of color”, Mohanty (2003) concludes that “this term designates a political consistency, not a biological or even sociological one” (p. 49). So, for he “unity of action” and “blackness” explore the common context of struggle among people of color and Third World women.
In Emecheta’s novel, Ibuza women have the monthly meeting in Lagos which marks the constructed solidarity among them. They help each other in order to both make life easier for themselves and have a life of their own. This statement is documented in the following extract. Whilst Nnu Ego suffers from poverty, other Ibuza women taught her how to start her own businesss that she would not have only one outfit to wear.
They let her borrow five shillings from the women’s fund and advised her to buy tins of cigarettes and packets of matches (Emecheta, 2011, p. 52). This quotation, moreover, discloses the common context of struggle among black women who are colonized and re-colonized by power structures. This common context of struggle, as depicted, determines their “political oppositional alliance” (Mohanty, 2003, p. 49) and constitutes their commonality. When Nnu Ego and her friend Cordelia quarrel, they soon decide that it was not worth excommunicating each other. There was far more to be gained by communication: “if the tongue and the mouth quarrel, they invariably make it up because they have to stay in the same head” (Emecheta, 2011, p. 63). When the cognition of human beings’ limitations becomes a mirror to man’s survival and development, [they] will not lose confidence to the uncertain future (Aziz mohammadi and Kohzadi 2014: 653).
Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood and the Issue of Gender
Besides criticizing colonialism, capitalism and racism, The Joys of Motherhood points out the way in which women are silenced and oppressed by native patriarchy and, however, this oppression is not mediated by race and /or class. This is, by no means, in contrast with postcolonial feminist premise. Because the fundamental issue in the postcolonial feminist discourse is to consider the intersection of gender, class and race. The singular focus on gender and sexuality, as a source of women’s oppression, in terms of context, should be dismissed. "Black woman's sexuality is of tendescribed in metaphors of speechlessness, space, or vision, as a 'void' or empty space that is simultaneously ever-visible" (qtd in Collins 2000: 123; Barfi and Alaei 2015: 13). Mohanty (2003)emphasizes that the crucial analytic difference between the white, Western, middle-class feminism and the Third World feminism is the “contrast between a singular focus on gender as a basis for sexual rights and a focus on gender in relation to race and / or class as part of a border liberation struggle” (p. 54).
In this sense, there should be an intersection between gender and race or class in order to be discussed; otherwise, it should be dismissed. Accordingly, gender, race and class are considered as relational terms. Mohanty (2003) also asserts that “to defined feminism purely in gendered terms assumes that our consciousness of being “women” has nothing to do with race, class, nation, or sexuality, just with gender” (p. 55). Accordingly, the postcolonial feminist politics together with black feminism cannot define the feminist principle without regarding this mediatio. Unlike other black feminists who merely struggle to expose African women’s racial oppression within the colonial society or the effects of racism on Afro-American women, Emecheta attempts to highlight black women’s oppression within the patriarchal Igbo society as well. Besides criticizing racism and the economic, political and cultural effects of colonialism on the disempowered African women’s lives, she, in her novels, criticizes the way in which the patriarchal tradition views Igbo women and dominant them. She goes further to give voice to the subaltern
African women through her female characters.
Regarding Emecheta’s new critical view, Bazin (1985) asserts that “Emecheta’s heroin Nnu Ego in The Joys of Motherhood ventures into feminist consciousness, the awaking of self to the inequities in Igbo cultures, such as son preference, polygamy, rigid sex roles, and a glorification of motherhood, which all render women powerless” (p. 155). It is in this context that Parekh and Jagne(1988) believe that Emecheta is regarded as “feminist rather than womanist” (p. 155). Yet, Emecheta never calls herself a Western feminist. Instead, she calls herself a feminist with a small 'f': Being a woman, and African born, I see things through an African woman’s eyes. I chronicle the title happenings in the lives of the African women I know. I did not know that by doing so I was going to be called a feminist. But if I am now a feminist then I am an African feminist with a small f. (Katrak, 2006, p. 17)
Conclusion
The Joys of Motherhood, an extraordinary novel which unfolds the story of invisibility and marginalization of African women who have no voice, aims at reconstructing part of history which is dismissed. Buchi Emecheta, in her novel, manages to disclose women’s marginalization and oppression by both colonial and indigenous patriarchal regimes. Colonialism is obscurely demonstrated in The Joys of Motherhood. In the novel, native populations are obliged to make themselves compatible with those ideas and systems foreign to their own. Different factors such as foreign idealistic standards for education and conduct, Christianity, etc. endanger traditional culture. All levels of society including Nigerian families and individuals are severely affected by European idealistic standards. Nnu Ego has to search for a novel structure of joy while traditional culture attempts to continue in a world of Logos. Her Ego clearly stands for traditional thinking of her society. "Of course, this inclination to search for definite and find answers does not belong to mentality from the time humanity came into this world" (Mahmoudi et al., 2014: 635).Emecheta, indeed, echoes how women are subject to double oppression by the intersection of oppressive forces of race, gender and class. Moreover, she is going to highlight female sexual oppression, gender inequality and gender difference in Igbo patriarchy. She attempts to speak for the disempowered African women who have no voice of their own. Besides some writers such as Miriam Tlati and Ama Ata Aidoo, Emecheta, indeed, transcends the traditional way of representing black women.
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