Royal Patriarchy and Intra-Gender Conspiracy in Africa's Age of Globalization
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Date
2020-03
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African Study Monographs
Abstract
ABSTRACT The author examines the traumatic fate of the African woman in the patriarchal
African royal oligarchy and the conspiracy of women against themselves within this realm, in
the play Jakadiya by Ahmed Yerima (2017). The disposition of women in the royal establish
ment is oppressive. This paper is anchored on the principle of Thomas Carlyles’s The Great
Man Theory, and Molara Ogundipe-Leslie’s Stiwanism, an African variant of the feminist
ideology which advocates women’s social inclusion in Africa. In Jakadiya, Yerima portrays and
laments the objectification of women by the royal patriarchy. The main protagonists are two
slave consorts, who are only to satisfy the sexual urge of the monarch, but not allowed any
aspirations in life. In Jakadiya, Yerima relates the utter injustice that the patriarchal system in
Africa commits against women aided, however, by women against fellow women. The drama
tist suggests that Africa cannot progress in the age of globalization with feminine dehumaniza
tion and exclusion.
Key Words: Drama; Patriarchy; Monarchy; Africa; Feminism