GENDER SECURITY AND THE CRISIS OF BEING: THE FICTIVE REPRESENTATION OF FEMALE HELPLESSNESS AND EMPOWERMENT IN NIGERIAN AND TAIWANESE PROSE FICTIONS

Abstract

This study explores the impact of security on the productivity of women in society, most especially the attendant crisis that (in)security brews in their sense of worth and selfhood in general. “Gender security” in this study specifically refers to female security as the focus of the study is on women. Nevertheless, female security also problematizes male security given its affective capacity: men are usually emotionally charged anytime the security of their wives, mothers, daughters and sisters is breached or threatened. However, our specific aim in this study is to examine how security implicates the perceptivity and productivity of women in Nigeria and Taiwan, and the way the prose fictions of the two countries reflect or refract this concept. The “crisis of being” in the title refers to the assaultive impact of gender (in) security on women’s selfhood, perception of self-worth and identity. The phrase also foregrounds how adequate security measures, especially their pursuit and active implementation, serve to buoy female confidence and engender unhindered creativity and full actualisation of women’s potential in all sectors of society. In other words, a woman’s sense of security directly affects her valuation of her identity and self-worth which in turn has implications on her productivity to the society. Thus, a woman without any crisis of identity, self-worth or being is likely to be more productive than her counterpart with a crisis of identity, uncertain of her self-worth in her society. This postulation will be given greater clarification in the ensuing analysis