Empowerment in The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

Abstract

This study focuses on women’s empowerment reflected in The Girl with the Louding Voice novel by Abi Daré. Using a descriptive-analytical research method, this study applies Collins’ Matrix of Domination and Self-Definition theories to analyze how the female characters are oppressed and empower themselves to resist it. The finding of this study shows that within four domains of power, namely structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal, the female characters experience intersecting oppressions of age, gender, and social class. Values, ideas, and practices of patriarchal culture within Nigerian society such as son-preference oppressed Adunni and other female characters to obtain equal rights and opportunities. They lost their rights to school, forced to marry in adolescence, and pressured to give birth to a son. Women must be quiet and obedient to men as respect. Women’s achievement is seen as meaningless if they are not married. Not only between men and women but oppression also occurred within women’s relationships. However, the relationships of women who experienced the same thing motivated Adunni to resist the oppression and devaluation upon herself. Adunni and other female characters built their self-definition through self-valuation and respect, self-reliance and independence, and personal empowerment as a resistance. Adunni’s empowered mind maintains her struggle to achieve freedom, thus she able to empower others. The female characters show to mutually empowering through their free mind despite the limitations.