Abstract—This paper contends that the poetry by women in
Northern Nigeria addresses several forms of injustices that
mutually support one another. The poets confront multiple
forms of categories used to maintain the discriminatory
structure and institutions that give some people undue sociopolitical
and economic advantages over others. The discourse
affirms the inadequacy of gender or class lenses through which
the profundity of the examined poems can be scrutinized. A
proper study requires multidimensional and intersectional
study of the poems through several ways in which they expose
multiple layers of oppression that intersect and mutually
inform and strengthen one another. This study portrays the
commitment of these poets as marginalized writers from the
North. Through an intersectional prism, these poems project
how gender, class, ethnicity and regionality coalesce to build a
structure of injustice in a mutually supportive way. A
workable solution requires that these oppressive tendencies be
challenged in their wholeness and not individually as they
overlap and support one another; hence this study renders an
intersectional reading informed by post-structuralist frame.
Index Terms—Intersectionality, poetry, women in Northern
Nigeria, oppression.
The author is with Bayreuth International Graduate School of African
Studies (BIGSAS), University of Bayreuth, Germany (e-mail:
dikko.muhammad@umyu.edu.ng).
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Cite:Dikko Muhammad, "Beyond a Single Category: Intersections of Oppressions in Northern Nigerian Women Poetry," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 203-209, 2020.