Aidam, Nina and Ren, Michele Masculine Anxieties and Patriarchal Pressure: Male Vulnerability in Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s Stay with Me and Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives. 2026. Radford University, Thesis. Radford University Scholars' Repository.
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Abstract
This thesis examines how patriarchal constructions of masculinity shape male identity and psychological experience in contemporary Nigerian fiction. While African feminist scholarship has extensively analyzed the impact of patriarchy on women, this study shifts attention to the ways in which the same system produces anxiety, repression, and instability in men whose identities are tied to expectations of sexual potency, emotional control, and reproductive authority. Drawing on Raewyn Connell’s theory of masculinity alongside African cultural studies on fertility and gender, the thesis offers a comparative analysis of Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s Stay with Me and Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives. Through close textual analysis, the study demonstrates that masculinity in both novels operates as a fragile performance sustained through secrecy, silence, and control. In Stay with Me, Akin’s impotence generates a crisis of identity that leads to deception, emotional repression, and violence as he attempts to maintain the appearance of masculine authority. In The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, Baba Segi’s patriarchal power depends on the illusion of fertility, which is sustained by the silence of his wives and collapses upon the revelation of his sterility. In both texts, reproductive expectations function as central markers of masculine legitimacy, and their disruption exposes the instability of patriarchal identity. The thesis argues that patriarchal masculinity relies on collective silence that protects male reputation while transferring the visible consequences of reproductive failure onto women. However, this concealment produces significant psychological costs for men, including anxiety, isolation, and emotional disintegration. By foregrounding male vulnerability, the study contributes to African literary criticism by positioning masculinity as a site of tension and instability rather than a fixed position of dominance. It also calls for further interdisciplinary and comparative research on masculinity, mental health, and reproductive stigma in African contexts. Keywords: African literature, masculinity, patriarchy, performance, reproductive anxiety, vulnerability
| Item Type: | Thesis |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PE English P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania |
| Divisions: | Radford University > College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences > School of Writing, Language, and Literature |
| Date Deposited: | 24 May 2026 15:25 |
| URI: | http://wagner.radford.edu/id/eprint/1344 |
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