Nigerian Women Mobilized and Gender History: a Historiographical Analysis
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Date
2023
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Journal of Behavioural Studies
Abstract
The theme, structure, ramifications and narratives of women and gender history in Nigeria are
indicators of progress in the historical field concerning women and gender since the 1980s. The
central task in this discourse is to understand the intellectual process that has determined the
trajectory of Gender history since the pioneering publication of Nina Mba's Nigerian Women
Mobilised in 1982. The sheer mass of material now available has been very impressive and must
be identified by their themes, focus and concerns. It is with this process that our concerns lay.
Over the last forty years, Nina Emma Mba's contributions to the History of women and gender
have enhanced our understanding of women's agency, activism, and participation in Nigeria's
political and social activities. Writing women into History had been made popular from the 1980s
to recover a neglected group – women – in historical works. Following Mba's heels, Bolanle Awe's
edited volume, Nigerian Women in Historical Perspective, catalogued great women in Nigeria's
History. While scholars of Women's History in Nigeria have published great works on women
agency, Feminists who established themselves in the intellectual firmament have over time shifted
the emphasis from Women's History to gender history. This shift emphasised the theme of the
oppression of women and how they responded to discrimination and subordination. This chapter
provides a critical assessment of historical writings of and on women and gender in Nigeria since
Nina Mba's seminal publication. It looks specifically at how Women's History has metamorphosed
over the years and the implications for historical scholarship.