The Gendered Spaces of Boko Haram and the African Woman's Resistance Against Sexual Terrorism

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article examines the gendered subjectivity of the Nigerian woman in the militarized space of Boko Haram. Through the use of rape and other forms of physical and emotional abuse, Boko Haram militants have transformed abducted women into weapons in war. Referring to the traumatic experiences of the female protagonists in Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree (2018) and Patience Ibrahim's A Gift from Darkness (2016), this article demonstrates how the female body becomes a battleground for settling masculinist quarrels. Using a feminist postcolonial and womanist conceptual framework, this article explores the Nigerian woman's survival wisdom in terrorism and her quest for self-healing and agency within the militarized masculinist space of Boko Haram. It is observed that African women's resilience and rebellion against sexual terrorism and masculinist violence is a womanist tendency.