THE PLACE OF THE GIRL-CHILD IN A PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY: A STUDY OF EVWIERHOMA'S SELECTED POEMS

Much importance is placed on the sex of a male child in African culture while the female is a subordinate. Africa is a patriarchal society in which identity reflects the importance of sex. Poems tell stories in peculiar ways and even explore life issues. This paper discusses the place of the girl-child in a patriarchal society and issues affecting women as portrayed by Mabel Evwierhoma in her selected poems from two different collections titled Out of Hiding: Poems and A Song as I am and Other Poems. This paper reveals that the thematic concerns treated by the poet in relation to women and the girl-child are interrelated issues an average indigene of Niger Delta area faces. Analytical and interpretative methods are adopted in the discourse. Feminist Literary Theory has been adopted as the relevant theoretical lens for this paper due to its focus on such thematic concerns as the Girl-Child; Patriarchal Challenges and African Women's Experiences Among the discoveries in this paper are an existence of undemocratic economy in Nigeria and a yawning for justice and equity in constraining circumstances that affect the girl-child and women precisely. As part of the findings in this paper is the fact that the patriarchal nature of African society enhances the feminist struggle for equity, peaceful co-existence and sustainable development. The contribution of this paper is that poems consist of diverse perspectives ranging from historical to contemporary issues in the society and solutions for sustenance and development that readers and critics should analyse, interpret and adopt so as to integrate females properly in the societies of the world to eradicate the oppression of women and girls.