Reverse Chauvinism: Women in M. Ba's So Long a Letter and O. Sembene's XALA

Abstract:

Away from the dominant readings of these works, I trace and argue that Mariam Ba’s So Long a Letter and Ousmane Sembene’s XALA (1975) are reversing chauvinism. Male characters are represented as inherently sexual beasts which results in polygamy. Polygamy is represented as an outcome of men’s weakness and incapability to control their genitals. Chauvinism is immensely furthered because even the National Bourgeoisie, Mawdo Fall and El Hadji mainly, are slaves to their sexual desires. They use tradition to reinforce polygamy while living a Francophone lifestyle. Women, on the other hand, are depicted as strong and powerful; they can speak against polygamy because they have control over their sexuality. Rama and Aissatou seem to be in both works the very incarnation of the independent strong woman who can move beyond polygamy. I reason that in both works a reverse chauvinism takes place: through essentializing men as overtly sexual, they are liberating the woman from the stereotypes and, simultaneously, responding to the colonial discourses of patriarchy reproduced via the National Bourgeoisie.

EASIJ.COM 

Accepted 1 December 2019

Published 9 December 2019

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3569771

Keywords: Women, Chauvinism, Bourgeoisie, colonialism, post-colonialism, Feminism,