In the opening passage of The Girl with the Louding Voice, the teenager narrator, Adunni, learns that her father is forcing her to marry a much older man, Morufu, in exchange for food and rent money. Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that child marriage and other forms of gendered oppression—such as sexual objectification, violence, and lack of access to education—are pervasive problems for Nigerian women and girls, particularly those like Adunni who grow up in rural communities. And while widespread misogyny and inequality cause some female characters to tear down other women in an effort to empower themselves, there are a select few—like Mama, Khadija, and Ms. Tia—who encourage Adunni and facilitate her education. Although breaking entirely free from oppression isn’t always possible, other women’s support allows Adunni to resist the limitations that society places on her and eventually escape her situation. As such, the novel suggests that one of the most powerful ways for women and girls to endure (and even escape) gendered violence and inequality is to support one another and collectively reject the people and institutions that oppress them.
Adunni’s experience as a child bride illustrates the oppression and objectification that many Nigerian women and girls face. Adunni’s dream is to get an education and to become a teacher. But because she’s female, she is forced to quit school, and her opportunities are limited to marriage and motherhood. In contrast, Adunni’s two brothers are allowed to hold jobs outside the home. When the family falls on hard times, Papa sells Adunni off to Morufu, essentially treating Adunni like a commodity rather than a person with her own interests and desires. In exchange for Adunni, Morufu will pay Papa Adunni’s owo-ori, or “bride-price,” which quite literally places a monetary value on Adunni’s worth. Once Adunni is married, Morufu further objectifies her by raping her and affirming that her only purpose is to bear him a son. After the initial rape, Morufu proudly proclaims that Adunni is “now complete woman,” which establishes that Adunni’s worth is predicated on her ability to please Morufu sexually and to become pregnant and bear male children. In fact, the reason that Morufu marries Adunni in the first place is because his first two wives, Labake and Khadija, were unable to bear sons. These forms of oppression and objectification are socially accepted and common in Adunni’s community and Nigeria in general. This is evidenced by the way male characters condone these practices; by other female characters’ similar experiences and acceptance of those experiences; and by some of the “Nigeria Facts” that precede chapters in the latter half of the book, which make it clear that practices like child marriage are still relatively common in Nigeria.
Some female characters respond to oppression and objectification by competing or taking advantage of other women, though this fails to improve their status and only perpetuates the cycle of oppression. For instance, Labake harasses Adunni in a futile attempt to gain the upper hand in a situation where they’re both powerless. When they first meet, Labake calls Adunni an ashewo, or “husband snatcher.” Labake expresses her jealousy at being replaced by a much younger girl by mentally and physically abusing Adunni. Labake’s cruelty positions Adunni as the enemy, when in reality, Adunni and Labake are both victims of a culture that allows men like Morufu to marry multiple wives and treat them poorly. Later, Big Madam takes advantage of Adunni—and before this, Rebecca—rather than treating them fairly. Big Madam accepts both girls as indentured servants, exploiting their labor, overworking them, and belittling and beating them when they fail to meet her high standards. She also doesn’t defend them from Big Daddy’s predatory behavior, which seems to indicate that she resents the young girls for getting her husband’s attention and wants to feel more powerful and in control in the face of Big Daddy’s disrespect and cruelty. Like Labake, Big Madam misguidedly positions Adunni and Rebecca as her enemies when, in fact, all three women are victims of a society that condones Big Daddy’s predatory behavior and sense of entitlement. Ultimately, Big Madam’s resentment doesn’t improve her standing with her husband and results in more pain and suffering for all of the women in the house.
By contrast, other women’s support and encouragement allow Adunni to endure her situation and eventually escape the limitations her society places on her. Adunni’s first female role model is Mama, who encourages Adunni’s education and makes Papa promise not to marry her off (though he later breaks this promise). Remembering Mama’s encouragement is what helps Adunni persevere and respect herself, even as the people around her discourage and devalue her. In addition, Khadija is kind and protective of Adunni rather than trying to compete with her the way Labake does. Her support gives Adunni the strength to endure Morufu’s abuse and eventually escape him. Later on, Ms. Tia uses her own privilege to help Adunni become educated and get the Ocean Oil scholarship, which enables her to escape indentured servitude. Unlike many of the other rich women in Big Madam’s exclusive neighborhood who look down on lower-class people, Ms. Tia recognizes the importance of using her elevated social status to help Adunni escape an oppressive system and goes out of her way to help Adunni. She gives her English lessons, gives her a cell phone to use if things at Big Madam’s house become unmanageable, and acts as a friend she can turn to for support and emotional nourishment. Ms. Tia’s support helps Adunni pursue her education which, in turn, gives her the opportunity to realize her dream of becoming a teacher and give a voice to other girls whose voices might otherwise be silenced. Their relationship shows that when women help other women rise up in the face of systemic gender inequality, it’s possible to overcome that inequality and create a chain reaction of women supporting women.
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Gender Inequality and Solidarity Quotes in The Girl with the Louding Voice
I taste the salt of my tears at the memorying of it all, and when I go back to my mat and close my eyes, I see Mama as a rose flower. But this rose is no more having yellow and red and purple colors with shining leafs. This flower be the brown of a wet leaf that suffer a stamping from the dirty feets of a man that forget the promise he make to his dead wife.
“Adunni, you know how this is a good thing for your family. Think about how you been suffering since your mama[…]. I know it is not what you want. I know you like school, but think it well, Adunni. Think of how your family will be better because of it. Even if I beg your papa, you know he will not answer me. I swear, if I can find a man like Morufu to marry me, I will be too happy!”
“In this village, if you go to school, no one will be forcing you to marry any man. But if you didn’t go to school, they will marry you to any man once you are reaching fifteen years old. Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn’t open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come.”
That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school. I will finish my primary and secondary and university schooling and become teacher because I don’t just want to be having any kind voice…I want a louding voice.
“There is no money for food, talk less of thirty thousan’ for community rent. What will becoming teacher do for you? Nothing. Only stubborn head it will give you.”
Sometimes, I want to be just like Kayus, to have no fear of marrying a man, to not have any worry in this life. All Kayus ever worry about is what food to eat and where he can kick his football. He don’t ever worry about no marriage or bride-price money. He don’t even worry about schooling because I been the one teaching him school since all this time.
My wedding be like watching a movie inside the tee-vee. My eyes was watching myself as I was kneeling down in front of my father, as he was saying a prayer to be following me to my husband house, as my mouth was opening, my lips parting, my voice saying “Amen” to the prayers even though my mind was not understanding what is happening to me.
“Your dead mother and me, we are age-mates. God forbid for me to share my husband with my own child. God forbid that I am waiting for you to finish with my husband before I can enter his room. Ah, you will suffer in this house. Ask Khadija, she will tell you that I am a wicked woman. That my madness is not having cure.”
I cannot remember many of what happen to me last night, my head is full of a dark cloth, blocking every of the evil Morufu was doing[…].”
“When you begin to born your children, you will not be too sad again,” she say. “When I first marry Morufu, I didn’t want to born children. I was too afraid of having a baby so quick, afraid of falling sick from the load of it. So I take something, a medicine, to stop the pregnant from coming. But after two months, I say to myself, ‘Khadija, if you don’t born a baby, Morufu will send you back to your father’s house.’ So I stop the medicine and soon I born my first girl, Alafia. When I hold her in my hands for the first time, my heart was full of so much love. Now, my children make me laugh when I am not even thinking to laugh. Children are joy, Adunni. Real joy.”
She open her eyes, give me a sad smile. “I wish I am a man, but I am not, so I do the next thing I can do. I marry a man.”
I am leaving Ikati. This is what I been wanting all my life, to leave this place and see what the world outside is looking like, but not like this. Not with a bad name following me. Not like a person that the whole village is looking for because they think she have kill a woman. Not with one half of my heart with Kayus and the other half with Khadija. I hang my head down, feeling a thick, heavy cloth as it is covering me. The thick cloth of shame, of sorrow, of heart pain.
When she come out, she draw deep breath and her chest, wide like blackboard, is climbing up and down, up and down. It is as if this woman is using her nostrils to be collecting all the heating from the outside and making us to be catching cold. I am standing beside Mr. Kola, and his body is shaking like my own. Even the trees in the compound, the yellow, pink, blue flowers in the long flowerpot, all of them too are shaking.
Honest, honest, I never hear of a adult woman not wanting childrens in my life. In my village, all the adult womens are having childrens, and if the baby is not coming, maybe because of a sickness, then their husband will marry another woman on top of them and the adult woman will be caring for another woman’s baby so that she don’t feel any shame.
I didn’t tell Ms. Tia that I ever marry Morufu or about all the things he did to me in the room after he drink Fire-Cracker. I didn’t tell her about what happen to Khadija. I didn’t tell her because I have to keep it inside one box in my mind, lock the box, and throw the key inside river of my soul. Maybe one day, I will swim inside the river, find the key.
“She comes to ask if I am pregnant,” she say. “Can you imagine that? She has come every month in the last six months to say: ‘Where are my grandchildren? When will I carry my grandchildren and dance with them?’ Like I’ve hidden them in an attic somewhere. If she wants to dance, she should go to a bloody nightclub.”
How is Morufu and Big Daddy different from each other? One can speak good English, and the other doesn’t speak good English, but both of them have the same terrible sickness of the mind.
“God has given you all you need to be great, and it sits right there inside of you. […] Right inside your mind, in your heart. You believe, I know you do. You just need to hold on to that belief and never let go. When you get up every day, I want you to remind yourself that tomorrow will be better than today. That you are a person of value. That you are important. You must believe this, regardless of what happens with the scholarship. Okay?
I tear to pieces the paper, and throw it to the floor. Then I swim deep inside the river of my soul, find the key from where it is sitting, full of rust, at the bottom of the river, and open the lock. I kneel down beside my bed, close my eyes, turn myself into a cup, and pour the memory out of me.
Fifteen years ago, I was selling cheap materials from my boot, going from place to place, looking for customers. I wasn’t born into wealth. I have worked hard for my success. I fought for it. It wasn’t easy, especially because my husband, Chief, he didn’t have a job. If you want to be like me in business, Adunni, you will need to work very hard. Rise about whatever life throws at you. And never, ever give up on your dreams. Do you understand?”
“Why don’t you wait till we get to church so you can take the microphone and announce to the congregation that you gave your husband, the head of the family, the man in charge of your home, two hundred thousand naira for retreat, and that he spent the money? Useless woman.”
I step inside, see about five girls sitting on the floor, their head down. They all look the same age of me: fourteen, fifteen. All are wearing dirty dress of ankara or plain material with shoes like wet toilet paper, tearing everywhere. Hair is rough, or low-cut to the scalp. They smell of stinking sweat, of a body that needs serious washing, and they all look sad, lost, afraid. Like me. […] One of the girls look up then, hook her eyes on me. There is no kindness in her eyes. Nothing. Only fear. Cold fear. She say nothing, but with her eyes, she seem to be saying: You are me. I am you. Our madams are different, but they are the same.
But there are words in my head, many things I want to say. I want to tell Ms. Tia I am sorry I made her come here. I want to ask why the doctor didn’t come too. Why didn’t he come and get a beating like his wife? If it takes two people to make a baby, why only one person, the woman, is suffering when the baby is not coming? Is it because she is the one with breast and the stomach for being pregnant? Or because of what? I want to ask, to scream, why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than the men?
I leave the room, closing the door on the memory of the sad and the bitter and the happy of it all, knowing that even if everybody forgets about Rebecca, or about me, the wall in the room we shared will remind them that we were here. That we are human. Of value. Important.
