Cocktail ladies

Cocktail ladies

Nigerian literature (English)

Women

This pamphlet is compiled from broadcasts made by Nkwoh over the Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation network. According to the introduction written by V. C. J. Mbah, these broadcasts, a combination of an editorial and a talk show, were deemed fairly controversial. Nkwoh's positions on these issues, however, were considered to be well informed.

Each chapter is a separate broadcast and the pamphlet's title comes from the second chapter about "cocktail ladies." This broadcast discusses a group of women known as cocktail ladies, a class that Nkwoh purports to be career women who have abandoned the idea of marriage and live off of sugar daddies and big men. Nkwoh describes them as " human parasites, lazy drones, and good for nothings," (pg.19). Deceived by feminism and the promises of a fleeting beauty,these women "infest" every walk of life they now occupy, (pg.22). Nkwoh points to feminism as the main culprit, for it misleads "cocktail ladies" into thinking that women can and want to do everything that men do, (pg.18). As a result, these women have become "birds of passage or changelings to every big man,"according to the author, (pg.21). 

In pursuing their "radical" lifestyle, cocktail ladies contract diseases, lose husbands, serious boyfriends and jobs, and fail to play their true and proper role in society as dutiful assistants. Nkwoh explains, "Women are made to help and not to nag, sap or impoverish men. They should not be a burden, nor nuisance, nor articles of commerce. There is still plenty of time for our women to think twice," (pg.24). However, he continues "they should now face the facts around them and consider their life past, now and to come [...] Nobody can ever cheat nature . . . I am advising those of them that are youthful enough and still marriageable to go now and marry," (pg.26). Other chapters include broadcasts about night marauders, hypocrites "in our midst," road accidents and superstitions. Originally presented in a series of talks called "Facing the facts around us" that were broadcast over the Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation.

Nkwoh, Marius

Nsukka, Nigeria ; Enugu ; Onitsha : M.U.E. Nkwoh

[1961]

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English

Onitsha market literature

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