WITH REFERENCE TO TESS ONWUEME “MISSING FACE”DO A CRITIQUE OF THE GENDER ISSUES AS RAISED IN THE PLAY TEXT.

INTRODUCTION

Genderism, an apt neologism for gender equilibrium in literary discourse and creativity is a sequel to feminism following the emergence of gender studies in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Since 1975 – declared by the United Nations as the international women’s year, there has been an uprising in the global ferment of female activism which through all fields of human endeavour, from the art of politics to the politics of arts. Feminism was initially founded on the shifty grounds of a superfluous doctrine tagged women’s liberation before being firmly anchored on the ideology of women empowerment and self – determination in all spheres of life.

Harold smith (1990: 1-4), feminism as an ideology attempts to improve the status of women. So this research work talks of feminism, the level at which this struggle has been imbibed into our culture and the areas untouched. We look forward to explore feminism as in the African content using most of less on women’s plays as a minor into the society.

Feminism has over the years foregrounded a system of ideas and theories that pay particular attention to women's rights especially as these affect their place in culture and society. As an umbrella ideological concept, it designates the point of view that women's rights and opportunities have been circumscribed by social systems specifically designed to benefit men to the disadvantage of women. It operates on the belief that the negative impact of patriarchal values and practices on the lives of women is a major reason for most of the injustices suffered by this group of individuals. Hence, Lisa Tuttle sees feminism as "... the advocacy of women's rights based on a belief in the equality of the sexes". She further describes a feminist as "...one who is aware of and seeking to end women's subjugation in any way and for any reason". Simply put, feminism advocates the empowerment of women through the enthronement of their fundamental human rights. It is the agitation for parity between men and women in economic, political and social spheres of life, in the belief that women have been persistently discriminated against by virtue of their gender. This type of discrimination is assumed to have continued to inhibit their sense of wellbeing and confidence in their personal potentials.

All through the years and for several millennia, from the Stone Age to the modern age – the struggle for dominance and superiority between the two known (exes female and the male gender) has never abated. Patriarchy – adjudged and described by feminists as the conscious minimization and subjugation of the women folks, deploying ideologies, cultural and metaphysic and ever religion of all kinds form western Christianity, Islamism, Buddhism and African traditionalism have spoken with one voice in favour of a male dominated world.

Ever since, especially through the emergence of democracy, the struggle by women to negotiate their vice into mainstream of participation in cultural, economical social and vocational and even political aspect of the society has been a permanent feature in the world’s development.

As such, feminine dislocation has become a discourse in our current past-colonial society. This arose out of the tension and challenges in the nineties that characterized feminist works in many parts of the world. It had its origin in experimental theatre groups and various women’s movements of the sixties and seventies and even through the eighties.

These issues concerning women have generated arguments amongst the critics with shares minds to investigate as forte (1996:19) observed that “the structure of realism and narrative structures which are implicated in religious to patriarchal ideology”

Apart from numerous theses and dissertations on her works, renowned scholars, writers and teachers have continued to express Onwueme’s seminal contributions to the development of global knowledge on the experiences and conditions of black women and the poor working-class in contemporary postcolonial African/World Literature and Culture.