Rethinking Women’s Empowerment in Cameroon in the Drama of Anne Tanyi-Tang

Abstract

The concept of women’s empowerment cannot be dissociated from that of women’s disempowerment since the two function as mutually reinforcing processes. This article argues that the drama of Anglophone Cameroonian playwright, Anne Tanyi-Tang, collapses the binary between empowerment and disempowerment, as opposed to dominant thinking which posits the two as mutually exclusive. Her plays project women characters who exhibit visible signs of self-empowerment in certain spheres of life but are simultaneously disempowered in other areas. The two plays analysed in this article, “Arrah” and “My Bundle of Joy”, centre on women who are empowered in their education and work, but disempowered in their marriages. As reformist feminist texts, the plays project women who seek to reform gender relationships within the limits allowed them by patriarchy. Their agency under the circumstances is instructive.

Opsomming

Die konsep van die bemagtiging van vroue kan nie van die ontmagtiging van vroue geskei word nie, omdat die twee as onderling wederkerige prosesse funksioneer. Hierdie artikel voer aan dat die dramas van die Engelstalige Kameroense dramaturg, Anne Tanyi-Tang, die binêre verband tussen bemagtiging en ontmagtiging ophef, in teenstelling met die heersende opvattings waarvolgens bemagtiging en ontmagtiging as onderling uitsluitend geponeer word. Tanyi-Tang se toneelstukke beeld vroue-karakters uit wat sigbare tekens van selfbemagtiging in sekere sfere van hulle lewens toon, maar terselfdertyd op ander gebiede ontmagtig is. Die twee toneelstukke wat in hierdie artikel ontleed word, “Arrah” en “My Bundle of Joy”, fokus op vroue wat in hulle opvoeding en werk bemagtig is, maar in hulle huwelike ontmagtig is. As reformisties-feministiese tekste beeld die toneelstukke vroue uit wat probeer om gender-verhoudings te hervorm binne die perke wat deur patriargale magstrukture daargestel word. Hulle agentskap binne hierdie omstandighede is insiggewend.