Women’s Solidarity: A Panacea to Men’s Injustice in Women Novelists of Francophone African Narratives

Abstract

Most societies are male dominated and male centred and as such characteristically see man as the superior sex. This outlook accounts for the sex-based injuries and injustices meted out for women in most patriarchal settings. The male by tradition, religion and physical strength usually has an advantage over the female. In the face of the perceived insecurity and injustice, women are still finding ways to thwart the seemingly maltreatment. Quite a number of women’s advocates have recommended education and economic empowerment as panacea to male hegemony. However, the recommendation appears not to be too effective for the interconnections of patriarchy, traditional gravities, harmful cultural baggage and intra-gender divides have continued to threaten women’s survival. Therefore, contemporary feminists and their search for female bonding are concerned with women interrogating their own positions of privilege and power in reference to cross-pollination of meaningful interaction with others across race, class, age ability and sexuality in other to wedge the lacuna and the divides among them so that men will not continue to use them as axe-men in hewing down their species. This effort therefore, highlights women’s solidarity as a first-aid panacea to male perceived injustice. The paper commences with the definition of Solidarity. It went further to examine Womanism as African-American and African women’s version of the global literary movement known as “feminism”. The article equally analyzes the works of Aminata Maïga La Voie du Salut Suivi de le Miroir de la Vie and Fatou Keïta’s rebelle being francophone African women novelists within the womanist’s framework. Finally, recommendations and conclusion on women liberation from men’s injustice were proffered. The novels under focus were content analyzed focusing on texts, contexts, characterizations and the use of language among others. Our theoretical framework is Womanism.