NIGERIAN WOMEN MOBILIZED AND GENDER HISTORY: A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The theme, structure, ramifications and narratives of women and gender history in Nigeria are indicators of progress in the historical field concerning women and gender since the 1980s. The central task in this discourse is to understand the intellectual process that has determined the trajectory of Gender history since the pioneering publication of Nina Mba's Nigerian Women Mobilised in 1982. The sheer mass of material now available has been very impressive and must be identified by their themes, focus and concerns. It is with this process that our concerns lay. Over the last forty years, Nina Emma Mba's contributions to the History of women and gender have enhanced our understanding of women's agency, activism, and participation in Nigeria's political and social activities. Writing women into History had been made popular from the 1980s to recover a neglected group – women – in historical works. Following Mba's heels, Bolanle Awe's edited volume, Nigerian Women in Historical Perspective, catalogued great women in Nigeria's History. While scholars of Women's History in Nigeria have published great works on women agency, Feminists who established themselves in the intellectual firmament have over time shifted the emphasis from Women's History to gender history. This shift emphasised the theme of the oppression of women and how they responded to discrimination and subordination. This chapter provides a critical assessment of historical writings of and on women and gender in Nigeria since Nina Mba's seminal publication. It looks specifically at how Women's History has metamorphosed over the years and the implications for historical scholarship.