Theses (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-92). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2007. / Title from title page screen, viewed on July 16, 2008. Dissertation Committee: Cynthia A. Huff (chair), Ronald L. Strickland, Paula Ressler. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 270-282) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / This study will examine the position of traditional African women as explored in the fictions, The Joys of Motherhood (Buchi Emecheta) and So Long a Letter (Mariama Bâ). It will probe into the depiction of a traditional African woman in the selected texts under thematic issues which will assist us in understanding how Emacheta and Ba perceive issues that directly impact the lives of women, even today. The issues include patriarchy, marriage, motherhood and childbearing, sex and gender, objectification of women, and the role of the chief wife. Both Emecheta and Bâ use communal voices that blend cultural incidents with fiction to demonstrate the subordinate role played by women in traditional African societies that are characterised by patriarchal practices and suppression of women. Both Emecheta and Bȃ demonstrate cultural and religious stereotypes towards African women. This study will apply the African womanism lens as a theoretical framework to underpin it. The study will attempt to reveal that, from the selected texts, contemporary African women writers oppose the injustice inflicted upon them through marriage or gender (sex) stereotypes. The selected fictions help the audience understand the plight of some African women.

This study aimed to explore how gender is constructed, negotiated and enacted in the customary practice of lobolo. Lobolo, sometimes incorrectly referred to as bridewealth or dowry is a practice that centres around the transference of wealth from the groom or a groom’s family to the bride’s family towards the formalisation of marriage. Framed within an African-centred feminist approach I analyse, through narrative discursive analysis, how 27 men and women ages 27 -71, from Johannesburg and Cape Town account for gender and power dynamics in their narratives of participating in lobolo. The African-centred feminist approach I employ critically engages with historical as well as present-day reproductions of patriarchy, capitalism, heteronormativity and other mechanisms of exclusion that are perpetuated through the cultural practice of lobolo. I show how masculinities and femininities are constituted, negotiated and disputed in the narratives of men and women who have participated in lobolo. By employing an African-centered feminist approach I show how gendered dynamics within the practice are shaped by historical and contemporary social, political and economic factors which enable and constrain the exercise of power in various ways. By exploring lobolo through an African-centered feminist narrative approach I demonstrate how the process is more than simply a transference of wealth but rather a complex practice that is used as an apparatus to exercise and expand power in the different stages of the lobolo process. Within this African-centered feminist approach, I argue that lobolo functions to legitimise particular gender positions that can be adopted through marriage; but it can also be used to challenge and contest these roles. The findings of this study suggested that the different stages and process of lobolo reflect a gendered script, which determines the position that men and women are able to adopt, and that this script sets the parameters for the ways in which these roles may be enacted. I find also that the meanings and descriptions of lobolo are embedded within, and reproduce gendered identities but that these identities are not fixed but rather are constantly renegotiated. I conclude that lobolo is not only a custom for formalising marriages but also a tool used by men and women to perform a range of sometimes contradictory functions, including at times establishing and strengthening hegemonic masculinities and femininities but at other times challenging and dismantling these. / Psychology / Ph. D. (Psychology)