The Movement from Secret Acts of Defiance to Manifestation of Women's Empowerment

Abstract

Before the advent of L'écriture féminine and the feminist revolution, Chinese women formed a kinship through the secret language of Nu Shu. Cixous, Kristeva, and Irigaray concentrated on redefining themselves as asexual-neither male nor female. Chinese women in the nineteenth century used Nu Shu as a form of affinity and passive aggressive defiance of the androcentric society in which they lived. They embraced their femininity in the curves and strokes of the Nu Shu language. Condé and Schwarz-Bart searched to explore the themes of alienation as Martinicans living in a European French society and the search for an identity that typifies the quintessential Caribbean patriarchal culture. The evolution in consciousness of the female and how she sees herself as part of the diasporic dilemma confronting Caribbean society is marked by the almost limited early works by women authors. As women found their voices and led the way for other women, a natural empowerment ensued with new loyalties as generations transcended the effects of colonialism, indentureship, and slavery. Afro-Caribbean women became vocal and paved the way for East Indian writers to emerge and find their voices. Contemporary literature exemplifies these women's struggles toward empowerment and identification with the land of their birth. From confusion spawns a new position for women as they move toward self-expression and self-actualization with the appointment of the first Indo-Trinidadian female Prime Minister.