Abstract:
In the African cultural space, the mother is analogous to a maker and keeper of life. She exists primarily to ensure her own survival and is expected to be the perpetual nurturer of children and men. This expectation, which places her on a pedestal, creates a myriad of problems. African female writers, consciously in their texts, portray the African mother as a figure bedeviled by struggles ranging from domestic abuse, emotional detachment, economic hardship, and political limitations. Through a survey of African literary texts by female writers of Africa and West African feminisms, particularly motherism, this presentation examines the various angles of escape for mothers in Africa, including pursuing profitable careers, bonding with like-minded women, drawing strength and inspiration from the arts, and boldly sharing their stories. The presentation, therefore, asserts that the bane of the African mother’s progress is patriarchal systems that hem her in and pigeonhole her roles within domestic spaces. The perspective assumed here is that, as patriarchal restrictions pile troubles on the African mother, she, however, strategically negotiates her space within the patriarchal maze and charts roadmaps that signal escape into freedom and self-actualization.

Bio:
Philomena Ama Okyeso Yeboah (Mrs.), (Ph.D) is a Ghanaian educator, researcher and a poet whose specialty in the academic space chiefly sits on the shoulders of women and gender studies in African literature. She is an associate professor in English literature at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. Her scholarship largely examines women writing in African literature and strategies of escape for the subdued African woman. She is an educator with great enthusiasm for her work and for her students' development.

Philomena Yeboah is also a mother, a wife, and a local preacher at the Methodist Church.