To Be an African Working Woman
Levels of Feminist Consciousness in Ama Ata Aidoo's Changes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9250188 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nada Elia (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 136-147 |
| Publication date | 1999-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Research in African Literatures (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-5210 • E-ISSN: 1527-2044 |
| Publisher | Indiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2979/ral.1999.30.2.136 |
| OpenAlex | W1991995148 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 2 |
ith this disturbing scene of marital rape occurring the opening pages of her 1991 novel C h a n g e s , Ama Ata Aidoo introduces her reader to some of the major issues she takes on the work. Yet her pre f a t o ry confession, Aidoo apologizes for having written C h a n g e s , which she claims is about lovers Accra. Because sure l she explains, in our environment there are more important things to write about? And while the subtitle of Changes is simply A Love Story, such a description fails to adequately suggest the riches of this recent work by the Ghanaian writer. Other themes Aidoo discusses include working women's double shift, p o l y g y n y, the visibility of single women urban environments, education, and the lack of significant change contemporary women's circ u m- stances. An African feminist, Aidoo grounds her discussion of these issues fully the African context. Thus, whereas We s t e rn feminism tends to focus on working women chafing under the glass ceiling, Aidoo presents us with the more concrete reality of African women's limiting factors, an u n a d o rned portrayal of the complex web of frustration making up the e v e ryday lives of contemporary West African women. Among these exacer- bating factors are the traditional social expectations of women's roles as wives and mothers first, with an outside job only if necessary to support the f a m i l y. More o v e r, the traditional division of labor within the household allo- cates the bulk of the chores to women, thus placing extreme time con- straints on working women. Wife-beating, euphemistically re f e rred to as c o rrection, is still seen as a husband's right, to be exercised should a woman fail to perf o rm to expectations. 2 Most women work because a single income is insufficient to support their household. While their economic contribution to the household is often vital to the well-being of their fami- lies, few women are formally employed, and most work service industries
Collective unconscious · Context (archaeology) · Feminism · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · African history and culture studies · Gender Studies · History · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.17 |
| Citation span | 2003 - 2025 (23) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |