Women empowerment in Nigerian drama: a contextual study of Irene Salami-Agunloye’s heroines

Abstract

Discourse on women empowerment in Nigeria has been on-going for decades now, and it will continue to be topical as long as issues of female subjugation, subordination, marginalization and oppression in the Nigerian society persist. And as long as there are still voices speaking up for the empowerment of the female gender, as long as concerted efforts are being made towards the realization of that course, the discourse will continue to be on the front burner of gender developmental discourse. The dramatic space like other realms of the Nigerian society has invested a great deal of talent on female empowerment and positive female character portraiture in dramatic works. One such dramatist who is contributing immensely to the advocacy of women empowerment in Nigeria through her dramatic pieces and other female gender oriented works is Irene Isoken Orosanye Salami-Agunloye. This essay is aimed at situating her female characters and their individual challenges in the present day Nigerian society and it reveals how Salami-Agunloye recreates and empowers her female characters to stand up to and address issues in a closed society that is dominated by the convictions, doctrines and ideologies of the male gender.

Keywords: gender, women empowerment, drama, Salami-Agunloye, African feminism