The Fallacy of the “Metropolis” in Postcolonial Feminist Discourses: Reading Osonye Tess Onwueme’s Tell it to Women: An Epic Drama for Women

Abstract

This paper focuses on intra-gender representations and difference, using Osonye Tess Onwueme’s Tell it to Women: An Epic Drama for Women, the major concern being the controversies in universalising Western Oriented Feminist discourses in non-Western contexts. Among these are questions of patriarchy, oppression, mothering and universal sisterhood which tend to dominate metropolitan discourses, yet do not represent non-western Feminist ideologies and the other. Postcolonial Feminism is used to discuss these fallacies and the need for assertiveness of the other-Idu women in the stronghold of Eurocentric Feminism as espoused by Ruth and Daisy. Analyses show that it is fallacious not to consider, study and understand other contexts/people or supposed others before theorising about them and their needs. There is need to assert and preserve one’s identity in the face of Western impositions. Thus, the need for reorientation of the perception and consideration of modern intellectual women towards rural women is necessary. This is imperative because uncritically propagating western discourses in non-western spaces has remained unproductive and will for a long time be so.