@article{Nkeiruka Lemoha_2019, title={Patterns of Femininity in Nawal El Saadawi’s The Novel and Love in the Kingdom of Oil}, volume={7}, url={http://ujh.unilag.edu.ng/article/view/512}, abstractNote={<p>This paper examines the representations of femininity in Nawal El Saadawi’s The Novel<br>and Love in the Kingdom of Oil. It identifies three personality models exhibited by<br>female character portrayal patterns of femininity. The patterns, which the study terms<br>normative, contemporary and agglomerate patterns of femininity, reoccur in the texts<br>revealing contradictions embedded in women’s struggle against obnoxious cultural<br>elements that are detrimental to their subjective consciousness as humans. The paper<br>argues that Nawal El Saadawi, an Arab feminist and a creative dissident, creates<br>feminine types that contradict established feminine norms, thereby redefining and<br>reconstructing Arab Femininity, incorporating inherent feminine traits that are aberrant<br>to the established traditional norms. She presents Arab femininity from the point of view<br>of the culture controlled/subjugation femininity, depicting the state of Arab traditional<br>femininity and from the point of view of re-conceptualized and restructured Arab<br>femininity that contradicts and challenges the normative or culture construct femininity.<br>In doing so, she creates female protagonists who challenge the status quo, by rejecting<br>the cultural and religious prescribed characteristics and attributes for Arab women. El<br>Saadawi thereby offers a heroic perspective to femininity using female characters who<br>oppose the status quo by taking up professions regarded as masculine, refusing<br>submission, chastity, wifehood, and motherhood. These acts are regarded as a misnomer<br>and a challenge to the traditional status quo and to the authority of men. El Saadawi<br>therefore contemporizes Arab femininity thereby inaugurating the new Arab woman.</p&gt;}, number={1}, journal={Unilag Journal of Humanities}, author={Nkeiruka Lemoha, Ositadinma}, year={2019}, month={Dec.}, pages={1-16} }