Watermarks "Does This Make Me Look Feminist?": On Reading The Joys of Motherhood and Ill-fitting Theoretical Views by Heather Glover

Upon my first reading of Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood, I immediately rejoiced--in this novel, I had finally encountered an account of a female protagonist in colonial and postcolonial African life. In my hands rested a work that gave names and voices to the silent, forgotten mothers and co-wives of novels by male African writers such as Chinua Achebe. Emecheta, I felt, provided a much-needed glimpse into the world of the African woman, a world harsher than that of the African male because woman is doubly marginalized. As a female in Africa, the opposite of male, woman suffers sexual oppression; as an African, the opposite of white in an ever-colonized nation, the African woman also suffers racial oppression. Nnu Ego, Emecheta's protagonist, became at once for me the poster female of Africa, a representative of all subjugated African women, and her story alerted me to all the wrongs committed against African women, wrongs that could only be righted through feminist discourse.

As with many surface readings I have performed as a student of literature, however, my perspective on The Joys of Motherhood began to evolve. First, I realized and accepted Nnu Ego's failure to react against oppressive forces in order to bring about change for herself and the daughters of Africa; I consoled myself, reasoning that the novel still deserves the feminist label because it calls attention to the plight of the African woman and because its author and protagonist are female. Rereading the novel, however, also triggered the silencing of my initial response. I focused on such passages as the dying wish of Ona, Nnu Ego's mother, who implored Agbadi, Nnu Ego's father, to allow their daughter "to have a life of her own, a husband if she wants one" (28); such a request failed to resound with the progressive timbre of my ownfeminist ideology. Yet what ultimately resulted in my desire not to claim the novel as a feminist text was something said not by a fictional character, but by Emecheta herself as she sat among other authors at the Second African Writers Conference in 1986:

In many cases polygamy can be liberating to the woman, rather than inhibiting her, especially if she is educated. The husband has no reason for stopping her from attending international conferences like this one, from going back to University and updating her career or even getting another degree. Polygamy encourages her to value herself as a person and look outside her family for friends. It gives her freedom from having to worry about her husband most of the time... . (178)

No feminist, I angrily concluded, could ever support polygamy, a practice in which women are regarded in terms of property value and in which men use their female property as they deem fit. Emecheta's own text did not even provide me with a positive depiction of polygamy; for instance, readers learn of Agbadi that he "was no different from many men. He himself might take wives and neglect them for years, apart from seeing that they each received their one yam a day; he could bring his mistress to sleep with him right in his courtyard while his wives pined and bit their nails for a word from him" (36). Thus, convinced that The Joys of Motherhood failed to meet the standards of a feminist text, I abandoned my original position; I felt that Emecheta, a fellow black woman, had failed me.

But in being so quick to link myself with Emecheta because of our shared gender and ancestral connection to Africa, I came to realize that I had missed one very key difference between us: I am Western, African-American; she is Nigerian, non-Western and unhyphenated. Like it or not, I am a child of the West, yet I feel marginalized by American society because I am black and female, a dual minority, I have enjoyed a life of privilege compared to women of the Third World, and I believe in some Western notions, including monogamous marriage. I also come from a subculture, black culture, which values community over individualism, a culture that will emblematize my personal achievements because I "represent the race." Consequently, I approached Emecheta's text in search of a woman's voice in accordance with my own, forgetting that not only does biology and race affect womanhood, but nationality, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status as well.

If I continually occupy a fixed position as African-American feminist, even if I simultaneously search for and discover kinship with an author, then I will never completely regard any non-Western text as feminist, for so much of non-Western literature simply does not conform to my Western feminist ideals. As literary critic Salome C. Nnoromele contends, "[E]ven with the best intentions, misreading almost always occurs because the prejudice the reader inevitably brings to the text often hinders rather than enables understanding" (182). I must be willing, then, to emerge from my theoretical shell and engage in what Nnoromele calls "crosscultural reading," a process that enables readers to ask what prejudices inform and motivate interpretive meanings" (182). Having realized this, I returned to The Joys of Motherhood, this time prepared to negotiate with the text from within the cultural fissure between it and myself and to allow the questioning of my position as reader while I questioned Emecheta's Africa. In acknowledging the prejudices that fed my interpretation of the novel as nonfeminist, I found that I erroneously believed in a universal feminist position that I tried to impose upon Emecheta and her work, that what is right for myself as a feminist is not and does not have to be right for her. Hence, Emecheta does not fit comfortably into my feminist space because she has created one of her own, one that accounts for her nationality and cultural ideals.

I first approached The Joys of Motherhood reading through the lenses of a preestablished feminist theory, and I deemed the text feminist because it was written by and about a woman--this, my first fault, accounts for much of the prejudice that burdened my surface reading. In her essay, "The Female Writer and Her Commitment," Molara Ogundipe-Leslie notes that many feminists, in delegating the tasks of telling the woman's experience and describing reality from a woman's point of view, inadvertently raise the questions "What is a woman?" and "What is being a woman and what is the nature of womanhood?" (5). These are questions I neglected to answer in my assumption that my concept of woman and Emecheta's concept of woman are synonymous despite our societal and cultural differences. Because of these differences, because each woman's experience is unique and dependent upon more than a mere chromosomal pattern, I cannot assign the same responsibilities to Emecheta that I would to a female writer with my cultural background.

Ogundipe-Leslie adds to the responsibilities that feminists give to the female writer, arguing that the African female writer must be committed to her craft "as a Third World person" (10); this commitment includes amending the image of the conceptual African woman by confronting and dismantling female stereotypes commonly found in African and European literature (6). One such stereotype is that of the virtuous African mother, the fertile, "dearly loved and loving mother" who sacrifices herself for her children (Schipper 40). Nnu Ego fits this mold perfectly--her only goal in life is to become the mother of many children, preferably sons, and once she achieves motherhood she spends many days enduring tedious labor and starvation so that her children live as comfortably as possible.

Not until my attempt to place The Joys of Motherhood in its sociohistoric context did I learn that Nnu Ego is a stereotypical character. What I considered a representation of the African woman is, in fact, the product of Western discourse, of a theoretical stance concerned simply with classifying the female species of a primitive people (Okeke 49). Many precolonial Nigerian women were not only wives and mothers, but community leaders, traders, and farmers who formed political organizations and advisory committees that offered them "considerable latitude in making decisions on matters which directly affected their lives" (Okeke 49-50). While my efforts to understand the society and times about which Emecheta writes were a pivotal step towards a crosscultural reading, gaining the knowledge that Nnu Ego embodies stereotypical Western views led me to question the author's allegiance with feminist literature and theory. Why would Emecheta offer as her heroine a woman who conforms to the concepts of Western ideology? Does her text condone the appropriation of the African female image by the dominant ideology?

Initially, I accused Emecheta of promoting, for African women, the role that Western society assigns all women--that of the subordinate, politically silenced, and devoted wife and mother; this accounted for why Ona, an aggressive, demanding character, would beg that her lover allow Nnu Ego to have "a life of her own, a husband if she wants one. Allow her to be a woman" (28). I inferred from these lines that, because Ona was kept by her father and prohibited from marrying Agbadi, she lamented on her deathbed that she was not a woman because she was not a wife and because, in death, she ceased in being a mother.

Yet there exists another possible reading of Emecheta's text, another conclusion about why Ona selected these as her last words. In my interpretation of Ona's final request, I devoted no attention to the conditional clause "if she wants one." The key word in this phrase is if--Ona never assumes that her daughter will definitely desire a husband. What she asks of Agbadi, then, is not to make sure that Nnu Ego is married, but to give Nnu Ego what Ona was denied--the right to make decisions about her own life, including whether or not she should have a husband. Being a woman, according to Ona, means maintaining independence and possessing the ability to reason.

However, despite her mother's plea, Nnu Ego fails to obtain a life of her own, for she commits herself wholly to the welfare of her children and to being an exemplary wife to Nnaife, a man for whom she does not care. She becomes everything the West desires in a woman: submissive, nurturing, and devoted to the care and operation of her household. Thus far, I have referred to Nnu Ego as Emecheta's protagonist and as her heroine, yet these terms are not interchangeable. Indeed, as the main character of the text, the persona whose consciousness is the medium through which readers view places and events, Nnu Ego is a "protagonist," but she is not a "heroine," a woman to be admired or emulated, for she fails. No "happily ever after" ends this novel; abandoned by her husband and the male children for whom she worked in order to fund their education, Nnu Ego meets a miserable, lonely end:

She used to go to the sandy square called Otinkpu, near where she lived, and tell people there that her son was in "Emelika," and that she had another one also in the land of the white men--she could never manage the name Canada. After such wandering on one night, Nnu Ego lay down by the roadside, thinking that she had arrived home. She died quietly there, with no child to hold her hand and no friend to talk to her. She had never really made many friends, so busy had she been building up her joys as a mother. (224)

Within many traditional African communities exists a network of women that work together to sustain a sense of female kinship, a support system in which women aid one another in village life and provide each other with friendship and sisterhood (Okeke 51). This kinship can also occur in polygamous unions, as Emecheta suggested at the Second African Writers Conference: co-wives assist one another in child-rearing, household duties, and tending to their shared husband. Nnu Ego's native Ibuza is no exception--when she appears to be infertile during her first marriage, her junior wife, already a mother, "[does] not keep her son to herself but allow[s] Nnu Ego as the senior wife to share in looking after him" (33). She also has several opportunities to make friends in Lagos among the many women who call to her as she tends to her laundry (48). In a world where female solidarity is strongly advocated, Nnu Ego rejects any potential friend, allowing no one to block her pursuit of motherhood. Instead of appreciating the efforts of her junior wife, for example, Nnu Ego, overcome with jealousy, actually considers abducting the woman's son, and she begs the infant to "either be her child or send her some of his friends from the other world" (34). Her actions result in her expulsion from her husband's compound; still, she does not learn to accept the friendship and assistance of other women. Nnu Ego does not deem kinship with other women necessary, for she is so convinced that her sons will reward her for her Westernized devotion by returning from the university to care for her in her old age.

Nnu Ego learns much too late the value of a friend as she searches for people with whom she can share her pride in her sons. Thus, stripped of her motherhood and void of friendship, she becomes an outcast in her African community and dies "with no child to hold her hand and no friend to talk to her." In Nnu Ego's downfall, Emecheta proves that Western ideology is not better than African ideals, and she celebrates the traditional African woman's values, namely her close connection to fellow tribeswomen. The role of Western mother is not presented by Emecheta as a model for women to look up to, but as a flawed, inevitably unsuccessful position for women to avoid.

Nnu Ego, however, fails at more than creating bonds and a sense of place in her community; in her personification of the Western conception of the female, she also fails her family. One of the myths of colonization is that it aids in the betterment of the subjugated society by compelling natives to shirk their primitive ways for the advantages of "civilization," that life for the native will improve if they simply replace their traditional beliefs with Western notions. Nnu Ego appropriates this myth, as Nnoromele points out:

In making herself totally dependent on her husband, Nnaife, for survival and happiness, [Nnu Ego] is playing by the old rules or perhaps by rules that never existed for Igbo women, because historically Igbo women, whether as subsistence farmers or traders, have always been expected to contribute significantly to the economic well-being of the family. (187)

Nnu Ego relies on Nnaife's income to support her family, thereby acting as a traditional Western wife who is expected to care for the children and the home while only the husband works. Yet her belief in this Western concept does nothing to improve her situation, for she and her family live in abject poverty, often wondering when they will eat again and how school tuition will be paid. Nnu Ego does eventually take on a job as a petty trader, but only because Nnaife proves unreliable and brings in little income, and she constantly reminds him that he is a failure as a husband and provider. Further, her work does little to supplement the family's wealth; considering Nnoromele's argument, Nnu Ego is as much of a disappointment in trying to provide for her family as she professes Nnaife to be.

Emecheta accepts the responsibilities that Ogundipe-Leslie states the African female writer has--the author tells the woman's experience though the woman's point of view, and she does so while recognizing her connection to the Third World and working to correct the stereotypes of Third World women, particularly African women. Western ideals, she proves, are not better than traditional ones; on the contrary, remaining true to the cultural norms of one's society ensures one's survival. Thus, in The Joys of Motherhood, Emecheta demonstrates that what works in the West does not work for everyone else, and she upholds the practices and values of traditional African females

As a reader who always considered herself socially conscious and open-minded, admitting to misreading a text, especially a female-authored text, proves a difficult task. Yet, in acknowledging my mistake and working to correct it, I discovered that there is more than one way to be a feminist and to support and celebrate other women. I do not have to agree with every feminist author or critic that I encounter--for instance, I will never be a proponent of polygamy--in order to be a feminist reader, but I must accept that different feminist readings will come from feminists of different colors, nationalities, and backgrounds. I also do not have to assume that establishing a common bond with another feminist entitles me to expect her to react to women and womanhood the same way I do. Just as I do not wish to represent my entire race in my every action, I should not expect a black woman, an African woman, or a woman of any other race to do the same. Emecheta may not have written her feminist text in the way I would have, and our positions as women may differ due to cultural dissimilarities; still, I now understand, as a black Western feminist, that The Joys of Motherhood is a feminist text--an African, non-Western feminist text--and I look forward to reading crossculturally other works by women writers not of my world.

Emecheta, Buchi. "Feminism With a Small 'f'!." Criticism and Ideology: The Second African Writers Conference, Stockholm, 1986. Ed. Kirsten Holst Petersen. Upsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1998. 173-202.

---. The Joys of Motherhood. New York: George Braziller, 1979.

Nnoromele, Salome C. "Representing the African Woman: Subjectivity and Self in The Joys of Motherhood." Critique 43.2 (2002): 178-190.

Ogundipe-Leslie, Molora. "The Female Writer and Her Commitment." Women in African Literature Today. Ed. Eldred Durosimi Jones. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1987. 5-14.

Okeke, Phil E. "Reconfiguring Tradition: Women's Rights and Social Status in Contemporary Nigeria." Africa Today 47.1 (2000): 49-63.

Schipper, Mineke. "Mother Africa on a Pedestal: The Male Heritage in African Literature and Criticism." Women in African Literature Today. Ed. Eldred Durosimi Jones. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1987. 35-53.