CONTEXTUALIZING FEMALE IDENTIFICATIONS AND THE POLITICS OF OTHERNESS IN SELECTED BLACK FEMALE WRITINGS

Abstract

The concept of identification has been a matter of committere in global realities through the ages. Identification makes for belonging and a sense of relevance. The phenomenon cuts across all cultures, and people aspire to be identified credibly as a means of attaining specific images and status in the family and society. Essentially, specific identifications generate inclusivity or exclusivity. Inclusivity is a desideratum, and is pursued. Exclusivity is what this paper describes as “otherness” a term that was coined by Simone de Beauvoir in her treatise, The Second Sex. In Literature, different authors have shown concern about how women are identified in proportion to their male counterparts. Using the qualitative research methodology, this study examines the portrayal of the female protagonists in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero and Flora Nwapa’s One is Enough to establish the concept of “otherness”, its repercussions on each of the women, and each woman’s efforts at dealing with that image to surmount it. The paper concludes that contemporary women must determine to evolve strategies that can facilitate their surmounting the exclusivity conundrum that society, through men, continually thrusts on them