Women’s Contributions to Declining Masculinities in the Urban Fiction of Meja Mwangi
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Date
2023-09
Authors
Lpariyan, Lengerded
Mwangi, Macharia
Chetambe, Mark
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
EANSO
Abstract
This work focuses on the role women play in the declining masculinities as it
emerges in Meja Mwangi’s The Cockroach Dance (1979) and Rafiki Man
Guitar (2013). The increased empowerment of women over the years has
continued to affect shifting gender roles, a situation that has come to pose a
big threat to hegemonic masculinities, especially in the postcolonial urban
setting. In its quest to empower women and achieve gender equality, feminism
has played the role of subverting expressions of masculinity in a number of
ways. The conditions of the postcolonial city have adversely subjected men to
a foray of social, economic, and political challenges, creating a reversal in
which the traditional perceptions of manhood have been repudiated. In a
number of situations, the female counterparts have come to occupy the
dominant position. Using theories of gender in relation to the dynamics of the
postcolonial urban culture, this study is an exploration of Meja Mwangi’s
representation of the circumstances that have contributed to declining
masculinities in his two novels above.
Description
Article
Keywords
Hegemonic Masculinities, Urban Women, Postcolonial, Urban Novel, Gender Roles
Citation
Lpariyan, L., Mwangi, M. & Chetambe, M.(2023). Women’s Contributions to Declining Masculinities in the Urban Fiction of Meja MwangiEast African Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, 6(2), 139-147. https://doi.org/10.37284/eajass.6.2.1464