This thesis argues that restricted access to formal education and wage employment offers Nigerian women limited prospect of social mobility. Nigerian women's lives, in particular, are shaped by both traditionally ingrained gender inequalities as well as new forms of subjugation attributed to Western influence. In their struggle to gain social status through education and formal employment, Nigerian women have to grapple with patriarchal continuities and contradictions of the present social arrangement.
This study looks at how the latter shapes the options and outcomes of formal training for women from the Igbo ethnic group. The main focus is on university educated women and the study undertakes a critical analysis of their experiences in three crucial sites: the family, formal education and wage employment. The analysis of the respondents' lives clearly reveals patriarchal continuities--in the school system, the family and the labour market. But we also see contradictions in the definitions of their roles, the specific requirements attached to them, and the rewards accruing from their efforts. Some of the vivid contradictions can be seen in the conflicting traditional and modern expectations, widening career options and rigid domestic roles, malestream work structures, work practices and policies unresponsive to domestic demands; and an autonomous source of income undermined by the conjugal division of financial responsibilities and rewards.
As their stories show, the respondents are fighting the system, but only with the limited means available to them. Of course, they do not always succeed. Some of their strategies successfully challenge patriarchal authority, while others actually reinforce their oppression. These patriarchal continuities and contradictions have to be considered in assessing the potential of formal education for Igbo and Nigerian women. It is evident that their struggle to establish a niche in the contemporary society does not stop at the door of higher education. Women must grapple with various facets of a fundamentally subordinate status at home and at work. In addition, the impact of social, economic and political change on the value of formal education should also be considered, particularly their differential impacts on men and women. Nigerian women's representation in higher education, wage employment and in the government, amounts to a gross under-utilization of half of the population. Their social location as presently constituted not only keeps this state of affairs in place, but also curtails the range of influence available to the minority who enter the privileged ranks. For Nigerian women to contribute to nation building, they must be provided not only with the educational opportunities, but also with the freedom of equal participation with men.
