Interrogating Misconceptions of Feminism in Tracy Chima Utoh’s Our Wives Have Gone Mad Again and Stella‘Dia Oyedepo’s The Rebellion of the Bumpy-chested

Abstract

This essay examines the attitudes and actions of the female characters in Tracy Utoh‟s Our Wives Have Gone Mad Again and Stella „Dia Oyedepo‟s The Rebellion of the Bumpy-chested. It establishes that these women are deployed as parodies of male chauvinism and misinterpretations of feminism. Thus, the female characters enact extreme and violent chauvinistic male attitudes. Ironically, the irrational and militant acts of the women depicted by the playwrights are the same attitudes that men have always been criticized for and women have always protested against in feminism(s). The essay demonstrates that while the two plays confirm the reality of the women‟s subjection and the need for feminism; however, the plays also emphasize the ironies embedded in irrational application of feminist concepts. It illustrates that Utoh and Oyedepo deploy a reverse of male chauvinism, codified as radical feminism, to warn their readers about the dangers of extreme attitudes. The essay concludes the farcical irrationality of the women in these plays diminishes the reality of the woman‟s oppression, detracts from and trivializes the seriousness of feminist ideals and enables negative misconceptions about feminism. It also highlights an interesting message skillfully underlying both plays; that “Feminism is for Every Body” because human nature is essentially the same in men and women in positions of power and without the restraints of deeply inscribed cultural constructs.