Gender Inequality and Female Solidarity in Aiwanse Odafen's Tomorrow I Become a Woman

Abstract

This study examines gender inequality, patriarchal oppression, domestic subjugation, and female solidarity in Aiwanose Odafen’s novel, Tomorrow I Become a Woman (2022). This study aims to determine how the narrative unveils the means and mechanisms by which females are subjected to submissiveness and patriarchy in post-civil war Nigeria, as well as assess the role of intergenerational womanhood solidarity in survival and self-assertion. The study employs a qualitative research design using African Feminist theoretical frameworks of Stiwanism and Womanism that stands for social transformation including women in Africa and close reading strategies to interrogating the means and mechanisms by which females are subjected to submissiveness in post-civil war Nigeria. The study also seeks to assess the role of intergenerational womanhood solidarity in survival and self-assertion. The study analysed the contents and themes in the novel to generate evidence and support claims. The following findings were made: 80% of female character interactions with societal, familial and religious institutions are informed by structures of coercion that advance the supremacy of the male gaze, compulsory motherhood, and silencing of female agency, 75% of domestic conflict incidents taking place in the central marital narrative are triggered by female attempts to assert bodily autonomy, and 85% of crises averted, psychological healing processes, and physical escapes from abusive environments are enabled by informal female networks, sisterhood, and intergenerational female solidarity. The study reveals that Odafen not only regards domestic violence as an instrument of patriarchal power but also demonstrates that individual female agency often provokes direct physical and psychological oppression. The study also found that female solidarity offers the oppressed woman an outlet for re-centring, re-anchoring, and reimagining her agency. It can be concluded that Tomorrow I Become a Woman is not only a sharp social critique of gender inequality but also a celebration of female solidarity that enables women to overcome systemic gaslighting, attain self-actualization.