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Revisiting bell hooks’ Theorization of ‘Gender Violence’ in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus

The lived experience of two women – no matter how similar they are, be it simply by virtue of being born a woman, or sharing a similar skin colour, racial affiliation, nationality, class, religion, sexual orientation – can never be the same. Gloria Jean Watkins, better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an author and social activist who theorized on the singular nature of the black woman’s travails. Across her extensive critical oeuvre there is a recurrent emphasis on the onslaughts of patriarchal hegemony that routinely victimize black women. Her theories on gender violence among black couples have now come to address diverse manifestations of sexism that widens the racial divide. hooks pointed out that gender violence is a reflection of deeply embedded African cultural ideologies and practices that are premised on women playing second fiddles to their men. In this paper I have attempted to read Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus in the light of hooks’ theories on gender violence to highlight the socio-cultural as well as political framings of gender within the black community.