Subverting Patriarchal Pre-Eminence in the Memoirs of Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed and Phoebe Asiyo’s It Is Possible
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Various feminists contend that patriarchal power has persisted in violating their fundamental rights. Thus, as previously stated, this study examined how Maathai (2006) and Asiyo (2018) subverted the various forms of patriarchy in their respective autobiographical literary works, Unbowed and It Is Possible, respectively. Particularly for female authors, the autobiography subgenre gives the writer room to recount their life’s events from a more personal point of view. This study’s objective was to critically examine the subversion of patriarchy. The study was anchored on an eclectic theoretical framework that included elements of feminist literary theory (1996) as advanced by Simone de Beauvoir and Helene Cixous. This theory’s central claim is that women’s roles in patriarchal societies are unsustainable and biased, and that the power hierarchy of dominance can be subverted. This was coupled with Saint Augustine of Hippo’s (2014) Autobiography theory, which holds that the autobiographer is selective in what they choose to write and is based on the fundamental principles of subjectivity and objectivity. Due to their textual nature, the study employed a descriptive research design to read, analyse, and interpret data from the purposively sampled texts. This study established that women have been excluded from positions of authority, objectified, stereotyped, and disowned their property. Additionally, it was discovered that Maathai and Asiyo employed various elements of fiction to counteract marginalisation while recounting their real-life events from a close-up perspective. It can be concluded that research findings elevate women’s autobiographies as sophisticated academic accomplishments, produce endowments, and support gender standards in patriarchal societies.
Institution: Kaimosi Friends University
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7082256932
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