| dc.description.abstract | This study examined gender complementarity in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood (1977) and Sembene Ousmane’s God’s Bits of Wood (1960). Previous studies on gender focus on women's oppression by men, women's empowerment, gender equality, and women's liberation. Gender complementarity has not been exhaustively investigated, particularly how men and women complement each other in class struggle. This study fills this gap by examining how the oppressed men and women work together in class struggle in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood and Sembene Ousmane’s God’s Bits of Wood. The study investigated how Ngugi and Ousmane focus on the notion of "power with others," that is, men with women, by looking at how they presented oppressed men and women working together to liberate themselves from oppression. The research investigated how the mutual working relationship between men and women triggers their success in the class struggle in the texts under study. The objectives of the study were to evaluate gender complementarity's enhancement of class struggle and to examine gender
complementarity as a solution to gender conflict in Sembene Ousmane’s God’s Bits of Wood and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood. The novels under study were selected because they possess content rich in gender complementarity. The data for the study was collected from the novels under study. Textual analysis was done using theoretical frameworks of Marxism and Womanism. Marxism theory was used in data analysis because the thematic content of the texts under study was based on class
struggle. Womanism theory was used because it advocates for men and women working together, which was in line with the texts under study, because the authors present men and women who are working together to liberate themselves and the society. The research employed a qualitative research design to interpret and describe data collected from the novels. The qualitative approach was used because the data from the texts under study were non-numeric. The texts were selected through purposive sampling. Data was collected by closely reading the texts and identifying the instances that were related to the objectives of the study. The data collected from the texts was analysed in relation to the study's objectives and the selected literary theories. The conceptualization of gender complementarity brought about a new reading of literary texts, examining how men and women worked together in class struggle to liberate themselves. The study is significant because, apart from unveiling gender complementarity, it argues that such an approach can offer an insight to investigate gender issues at multiple dimensions, apart from that of women as victims of oppression by men. The study's outcomes can change the perspective of reading literary texts on the relation of men and women from the notion of "power over others" that is men over women to "power with others" that is men with women. The study found that Ngugi and Sembene in the novels under study present united men and women in the struggle to liberate themselves from discrimination, marginaliztion, injustuices and abuse of power. It was also found that the gender complementarity resolves gender in the novels under study. The study concluded that gender complementarity not only enhances gender haromy but also triggers class struggle | en_US |
