CHAPTER ONE:INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

          Gender is a concept used in social sciences analysis to look at roles and activities of men and women. The focus of gender issues is not on biological differences between men and women but rather on their experiences as member of the society. A common assumption is that gender issues is the issue affecting women, it focuses mainly on the relationship between men and women to the social, political and economic structure of the society. Gender is also the wide set of characteristic that are seen to distinguish between male and female entities, extending from one’s biological sex to other in humans, one’s social role or gender identity. Also gender revealed, when relationships between men and women their roles, privileges, statuses and positions are identified and analyzed.

          Therefore, gender issues is like a too in understanding and for learning more about the activities of men and women in society and the problems and opportunities that each face in doing those activities. This position of male dominated society is supported by femiojo-Ade (1998) when he established that:

African Literature is a male created, male oriented chauvinistic art. Nigeria is regarded as male and this is a fact that thrust in   myriad ways at the Nigerian women.

          Another fact that Literature is phallic, dominated as it were by male writers, publishers, critics, and so on who deal almost exclusively with male characters and male concerns naturally aimed at a predominant male audience. The African women realized that the prejudice, discrimination and male chauvinism contribute greatly to the problem of women oppression in the society. Therefore, women take interest in the life style and activities of the society so that they will be recognized. Kaplan (1995) who distinguished three strategies adopted by female thinkers, says;

Women are basically different from men and can be advanced their own (superior) capacity by radically separatively from the dominant culture.

          According to kate Bornstein, gender can have ambiguity and fluidity, there are two contrasting ideas regarding the definition of gender and the intersection of both of them is defined as below:

          The World Health Organization defines gender as the result of socially constructed ideas about the behavior, actions, and roles  a particular sex performs. The beliefs, values and attitude take up and exhibited by them is the agreeable norms of the society and the personal opinion of the person which is not taken into the primary consideration of assignment of gender and imposition of gender roles as per the assigned gender. Intersections and crossing of the prescribed boundaries have no place in the arena of the social construct of the term “gender”. The assignment of gender involves taking into account the physiological and biological attributes assigned by nature followed by the imposition of the socially constructed conduct. The social labels of being classified into one or the other sex is obligatory to the medical stamp on the birth certificate. The cultural traits typically coupled to a particular sex finalize the assignment of gender and the biological differences which play a role in classifying either sex which is interchangeable with the definition of gender within the social context.

          In this context, the socially constructed rules are at cross road with the assignment of a particular gender to a person. Gender ambiguity deals with having the freedom to choose, manipulate and create a personal niche within any defined socially constructed code of conduct which gender fluidity is outlawing all the rules of cultural gender assignment. It does not accept the prevalence of two rigidly defined genders “Female and Male” and believes in freedom to choose any kind of gender with no rules, no defined boundaries and no fulfilling of expectations associated with any particular gender. 

          In addition, according to kwazulu (2001); gender issues are revealed when the relationship between women and men, their roles, privileges, status and positions, are identified and analyzed. These issues arise where inequalities are shown to exist between people purely on the basis of their being female or male. It also refers to the social roles allocated respectively to women and men in particular societies and at a particular time such roles and the differences between them are conditioned by a variety of political, economical, ideological and cultural factors, and are characterized in most societies by unequal power relations. Gender is distinguished from sex, which is biological determined.

          Butter (1990) says there is slight different between gender and sex, though some people interchange it, he says.

Gender is not something we are born with

and not something we have born as

a male or female to perform,

while sex means either male or female.                   

          In other worlds, gendered performances are available to everyone but with them come constraints on who can perform which personae with impunity and this is when gender and sex come together not that they are the same.

          Further more Mary Ebun M. (1998) defined gender as the biological role of given sexuality to male and female. In some African societies, gender transcends the boundaries of sexuality.   

In conclusion, gender does not simply unfold from the individual biology as said earlier in this chapter but from an individual predisposition to be a particular kind of person. It is not even an individual property. Gender is a social arrangement of individuals been assigned to certain roles order as male or female.

1.2     PURPOSE OF STUDY

The main purpose of this study is to examine the reason for women oppression and discrimination in our society and thus encourage the liberation of all women. This study will be subjected to Akachi and Alkali’s Ideology on gender issues that is enhancement of gender education especially women and women empowerment in the society.

1.3     JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY

          It is quite obvious that the society is being biased; women were relegated to ground while men gained upper hands in the society. The issue of gender biased and discrimination were rampant in our society to the extent that the role of women in the society were jeopardized, this is what prompt the researcher to research in to the issue, so that women can be empowered and gained their full liberation so that the society will be an equitable one and our society and economic nature of the society will be developed. The researcher emulated the idea of Akachi and Alkali in the study because both authors see society as patriarchal.

1.4    SCOPE OF STUDY

This study will be limited on the social injustice done to women in our society and how women can be empowered through education and other means. So that society will be turned into an equitable one.

1.5    METHODOLOGY

          Feminist perspectives or theories vary just as there are different analysis by feminists about causes of gender problem. However, it must be stated categorically here that the most frequently cited feminism perspectives or theories are the liberal  Marxism and radical feminism. The approach adopted in this research is Marxism  or feminism theory. Which concord will the ideology that men were treating women unjustly i.e the women are being exploited by men and which is the genesis of women’s problem being relegated in the society. The works of two feminist writers AkachiAdimora’sTrafficked and Zaynab Alkali’s The Virtuous Woman will be used as our data.

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