Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T11:35:46.457Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

In Quest of Social Justice: 58 Politics & Women’s Participation in Irene Isoken Salami’s More Than Dancing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2023

Ernest N. Emenyonu
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Flint
Get access

Summary

Nona Odaro, presidential candidate of United People’s Liberation Party (UPLP) in Irene Salami’s 2003 play More than Dancing (MTD) summarizes the problem the author tackles in this play. She states:

The political playing field is uneven and not conducive to women’s participation. Women who enter politics find the political, cultural and social environment often unfriendly and even hostile to them. The low level of women’s representation in the decision making arm of the government is a violation of their fundamental democratic rights and as such of their basic human rights…. (87)

The play opens with Madam Bisi Adigun, women’s leader UPLP, angry and protesting that women are dancing to entertain party members at a convention. In agitation, she stops the dancing women, ‘Enough of the dancing! Enough is enough!! Year in, year out, primaries come and party elections go, all we do is dance. Is dancing all we can do? Is that all we are meant for?’ (1). She calls their attention to the fact that the party hierarchy is dominated by men, safeguarded by men and that all the worthwhile positions – chairman, vice chairman, treasurer, secretary, financial secretary, welfare officers, members of the board of trustees, public relations officers and so on are occupied by men. The only things women do in political parties are dance, feed the men and vote for them for pathetic rewards such as bags of rice, salt and clothes. Mabel Evwierhoma, critic and literary writer, confirms the situation Salami portrays:

Erstwhile political parties are structured in such a way that women were seen and heard when dancing troupes were needed to entertain party faithful or they were to be fed. At other times, oblivion welcomed them in the women’s wing where they had no influence over the goings on in the party mainstream’ (34).

Contextual and in-text evidence illustrate a long-standing history of gender-based inequality in politics and public governance. Thus, Salami resourcefully employs historification – the use of material drawn from history and periods in the past – to show that the norm of excluding women and marginalizing them in political processes is an area of social injustice which women have battled for generations.

Type
Chapter
Information
Politics and Social Justice
African Literature Today 32
, pp. 58 - 76
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×