The Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong is said to have said that a Chinese person has three mountains on his back. The first is colonial oppression, the second is the oppression of tradition and the third is one's own backwardness. The woman, however, has a fourth mountain on her shoulders: men. Nigerian feminist critic Molara Ogundipe argues in her essay “African Women, Culture and Other Development” that an African woman has two other mountains weighing on her back: her color and herself. An examination of postcolonial and anticolonial African literature can illuminate how these six mountains interact to oppress African women. The novels Nervous Condition by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga, Xala by Senegalese author Sembène Ousmane, and The Madonna of Excelsior by South African author Zakes Mda each describe the struggles of African women facing these six forms of oppression. The novels provide examples of how African women are negatively affected by indigenous traditions and colonial laws in ways that African men manage to escape, which may explain some of the problems with creating a national culture discussed by Frantz Fanon in his theoretical work The Wretched of the Earth. The novels suggest that both white and black men not only directly oppress black women with law and tradition, but make women feel as if they are a burden to men as well. The texts also show that the sixth mountain, “herself,” is formed by the combined weight of the other five mountains, particularly as women come to see themselves not only as inferior to men but as a burden to them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Sembène Ousmane's novel Xala is set in Senegal shortly after it gained independence and focuses on El Hadji, a prominent politician and businessman, and the families of his multiple wives. The novel shows double standards in how tradition influences men and women: men often choose to follow traditions they find useful while ignoring those they consider inconvenient, while women are significantly more burdened by tradition. This is especially evident in the case of polygamy. El Hadji invokes his African tradition in defense of having multiple wives and having control over them. “His honor as an African according to ancient tradition was being questioned… Had the country lost its men of yesterday? Those brave men whose blood flowed in his veins?" Ousmane writes when El Hadji feels that his masculinity is threatened by the suggestion that he must consult his first two wives before taking a third (Ousmane 7-9). His wives do not they are completely disempowered, as they can choose divorce. However, women recognize that their value in society largely depends on having a husband. As El Hadji's first wife, Adja Awa Astou, tells her eldest daughter Rama: “Do you think I should get divorced? Where would I go at my age? Where could I find another husband?” (12) The only alternative she proposes is to remarry, suggesting that in Senegalese society there are few options for women, so even with the legal freedoms they enjoy, such as divorce, it is often more advantageous for them to conform to traditional structures. of power. The mother says to his second wife Oumi N'Doye: “But why divorce him? Without the help of a man, a woman is forced to resort to prostitution to live and raise her children,” further emphasizing. the idea that for Senegalese women the freedom to divorce is in vain (34). However, despite El Hadji defending his freedom to take more wives by invoking thesense of African tradition, ignores other traditions with which it does not agree. When Yay Bineta, a relative of his new third wife, suggests that he participate in a fertility ritual before consummating his marriage, he refuses, saying that he will not "fool himself with this sleight of hand", showing that he does not believe in the effectiveness or importance of this tradition (18). “He was sufficiently Westernized to have no faith in this superstition,” Ousmane writes, proving that El Hadji is a hypocrite; he may be “Westernized” enough not to believe in a fertility ritual, but he is not too Westernized to stop believing in his right to polygamy (18). This suggests that El Hadji does not care as deeply about following African traditions as he claims, but instead invokes them as an excuse to continue following the traditions he wants, such as polygamy. Indeed, El Hadji agrees with African traditions insofar as they allow him to maintain his power, particularly his power over women. The women of Xala, unfortunately, are not able to shake off the mountain of tradition as easily as the men. Yay Bineta, a relative of his third wife, for example, is trapped by another “superstition,” while El Hadj can afford to ignore things he considers superstitious. “Yay ​​Bineta has always been haunted by bad luck,” writes Ousmane. “She had had two husbands, both now in their graves. Traditionalists believed that it must have had its fill of deaths: a third victim. So no man would marry her for fear of being this victim,” which is problematic for her in a society where women seem to have few options other than marriage (30). This suggests that Senegalese society as a whole is not “Westernized enough” to forget some traditions that burden women, but only those that burden men. Ousmane states that Yay Bineta lives in “a society where very few women surpass this kind of reputation” (30). Here too, instead of saying "in which few people surpass this type of reputation", he chooses to underline the inability of women to escape tradition, implying that men, even the less "Westernized" ones, are not so trapped by traditions and superstition. This suggests that El Hadji is not a special case due to his status as a wealthy intellectual politician and businessman, but that he is the rule. The men in Tsitsi Dangarembga's novel Nervous Condition have similar views on traditional gender roles, especially the older narrator character Tambu. brother Nhamo and his uncle Babamukuru. Nhamo can go to school while Tambu has to mostly stay at home with her family. When Nhamo returns from school, he makes his sisters go to the bus station to carry his remaining luggage, although he is able to carry it all by himself. “He didn't need help,” the narrator says, “he just wanted to prove to us and to himself that he had the power, the authority to make us do things for him” (Dangarembga 10). This attitude informs Nhamo's interaction with Tambu; he only uses traditional roles as an excuse to support this attitude, but he doesn't really care about tradition. For example, when he asks Tambu to fetch his luggage and she asks him to take care of her younger sister while she is away, he says that "taking care of children [is] not a man's duty", implying to Tambu that this is instead a woman's duty. , therefore her responsibility, and that as a woman's duty it would be improper for her to do so (9). However, Nhamo shows that he cares very little about what his traditional duties as a man should be. As Tambu says, “helping in the fields or with thecattle or firewood, any job he willingly did before going on a mission became a bad joke” (7). After spending time in school, he is no longer willing to help his family with farm work, showing that he doesn't really care about fulfilling his "duty as a man". Just as El Hadji ignores traditions he doesn't like in favor of those that give him power over women, Nhamo reinforces the idea of ​​women's duties over men's as an excuse to make his sisters work harder while he he does less of it, making himself feel powerful. even ignoring his duties as a man. Tambu's uncle, Babamukuru, appears to have abandoned much of his African culture except, of course, his patriarchal culture. Position of power over his family and women. He, his wife Maiguru and their children spent five years studying in England, and when they return the children barely remember how to speak Shona, their native language. Babamukuru and Maiguru appear to be encouraging their children to emulate English culture and leave their Zimbabwean heritage behind. However, even though Maiguru is highly educated like her husband, she is still relegated to an inferior position compared to her Babamukuru and still has to serve him. This actually seems to be indicative of the general perception that the characters in the novel have of educated women. Tambu's father asks the narrator "Can you cook books and feed them to your husband?" when he expresses a desire to continue his education. “Stay at home with your mother,” he says. “Learn to cook and clean. Growing vegetables” (15). This is what their society sees as the role of women. Even though roles are expanding for both men and women to allow for new things like higher education, the same fundamental gender roles remain; the man is the dominant head of the family and the woman remains submissive. This is also the source of the third mountain of women, “backwardness”. It is cultivated by society by denying women the same educational opportunities as men. Even when she refuted her father's argument to herself, saying "Maiguru was educated and served Babamukuru's books for dinner?" Tambu again emphasizes Maiguru's ability to serve her husband, as the idea that the wife should serve her husband is so ingrained in her society (16). Babamukuru more directly exercises patriarchal control over his daughter Nyasha, which allows Tambu to realize how women are behaved. unjustly victimized in his society. When both Nyasha and her brother Chido return home late, Babamukuru turns all his anger against Nyasha, telling her that "no decent girl" would behave like her, saying that she is acting "like a whore", whereas before she only tells Chido “you children are doing no good,” which he says “cordially,” showing the different gender standards he holds his children to (114-6). Baamukuru starts beating Nyasha and in self-defense she hits him again. Her response to his action tells her opinion on gender roles in their society; “Babamukuru screamed and snorted that if Nyasha acted like a man, then…he would fight her like one” (117). By equating Nyasha's actions with "acting like a man", Baamukuru equates manliness with violence. Furthermore, it equates virility with the ability to resist, denying that this is a possible or permissible trait in women. He tells her "Not even your brother dares to challenge my authority", but this is largely because Chido has no reason to challenge his father's authority; it is not used unfairly against him as it is against Nyasha. Tambu interprets this as Babamukuru making Nyasha “a victim of her femininity,just as [she] had felt victimized at home… The victimization,” she says, “was universal. It did not depend on poverty, nor on lack of education, nor on tradition… Men took it with them everywhere” (118). Tambu recognizes appeals to “tradition” for what they are; not legitimate devotion to African tradition but excuses for powerful men to remain powerful. The tendency of the male characters in these novels to ignore certain African traditions except those that allow them to maintain their power over women highlights a connection between Molara Ogundipe's essay and Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, which offers a possible explanation of the which is why men can ignore traditions while still imposing them on women. Ogundipe argues that colonialism “brought out basic sexist tendencies in pre-capitalist Africa” by reorganizing society in ways that effectively erased any existing source of female empowerment (Ogundipe 109). Fanon, in his essay “On National Culture,” also writes about how colonial powers worked to restructure African societies and how this affected indigenous traditions and power structures. He argues that the colonialists' goal was to “drive into the heads of the indigenous population that if the settler left, they would regress into barbarism, degradation, and bestiality” (149). The result of this is that when the colonial power is finally overthrown, even if the indigenous people feel the need to embrace their old repressed culture, the colonial manipulation still exists in their minds. Fanon states that “the intellectual is terrified of emptiness, meaninglessness and ferocity. Yet he feels he must escape this white culture” (157). In Ousmane's words, African people, particularly intellectuals such as El Hadji and Babamukuru, have become "sufficiently Westernized" thanks to settlers' efforts to undermine indigenous culture, but in the rebellion against the ousted settlers still feel the need to reject white culture. The novels suggest that this paradox is resolved through cultural double standards; men appeal to feelings of African culture, tradition and heritage to elevate themselves and to keep women down, and as a way to satisfy their need to reject white culture. Still affected by colonialism, however, they no longer seem to believe in many African traditions beyond those that are useful to them, allowing men to choose which traditions to follow while women are tied much more closely to tradition. So, in effect, African women are still oppressed by colonial manipulation of indigenous culture even after direct colonial rule has been removed from individual countries. These novels also show the ways in which women are made to feel as if they are a burden to men, another source that contributes to their problems with self-image, or the sixth mountain, “herself.” El Hadj constantly, albeit ironically on Ousmane's part, complains about having to go back and forth between his three homes and families. The oppressive quality of these complaints is clearest in Nervous Conditions. When Nhamo, Tambu's brother, dies, Babagukuru tells his father Jeremiah that "it is a pity that there is no male child to take up this task, to take up this task of raising the family from hunger and want", implying that Tambu is burdensome simply because she is not male, and therefore will not be able to contribute in any way she deems meaningful (56). Her father responds by saying that her "book skills are useless because it will ultimately benefit strangers", further implying that educating her would be another burdenuseless since it would only benefit her future husband, not her family (56). Even while beating Nyasha for staying out too late, Babamukuru asks “How can you dishonor me… I am respected in this mission. I can't have a daughter who acts like a whore” (116). Everything women do in novels is considered in terms of how it affects men, and everything that does not benefit men, even if it benefits women, is considered a burden on men, even if they are clearly already in a social position dominant. on women. This trend is most evident and most disturbing in Zakes Mda's novel Our Lady of Excelsior because the perception of black women as a burden to men comes not from other black men, but from white Afrikaner colonizers, dominant not only over women but over everyone the African natives. The novel also shows how the colonial legal system directly oppressed black women in ways that did not affect black men. The novel often shows white South African men frequently forcing black women to have sex, despite the country's "Immorality Act" prohibiting such relationships between whites and blacks. However, instead of condemning the men who not only initiated these relationships but forced the women into them, South Africa's legal system instead upholds the men's innocence while condemning the women. The Reverend François Bornman, a respected church leader in the community and one of the white men prosecuted under the Immorality Act, states that "the devil had sent black women to tempt him" and that "the devil had always used the black woman to tempt the Afrikaners” (Mda 85). Although he says it is his fault for not resisting this temptation, he still places most of the blame on black women novels, is an excuse adopted by men who refuse to admit that they have raped black women; another way to explain their superiority. In this way, white colonial oppressors also claim to be burdened by black women, further deteriorating their image. herself. All this oppression adds up to form the sixth mountain: “herself”. Black women in these novels are constantly portrayed as their own and each other's enemies. El Hadji's wives constantly argue and accuse each other of all sorts of immoral activities. They, as well as the women in the other novels, often call themselves "whores", harking back to the Afrikaner view of black women as demonic temptresses. Our Lady of Excelsior also directly addresses black women's issues with body image. Niki, one of the novel's central characters, tries to appear whiter by using a skin-lightening cream, even though this only damages her skin. The novels never mention men using such products, only women, implying that they did not face the same image problems. Niki's mixed-race daughter Popi, the daughter of one of the men tried under the Immorality Act, spends most of the novel insecure about her whiteness. features, hiding her light, straight hair in a headband, but at the end of the novel she finally comes to accept her differences and consider herself beautiful; “Lately Popi spent every morning looking in the mirror, admiring her blue eyes and brushing her long golden brown hair. He no longer hid it under huge turbans. She wondered why she had been ashamed of it all these years, why she had never noticed her beauty” (256). Mixed-race women had their own unique issues in South African society, so it's undoubtedly good that Mda portrays Popi as reaching a place where she can accept herself for what she, 1974.