Gender Ambiguity and Identity Politics in Efo Kodgo Mawugbe’s In the Chest of a Woman

The disguised heroine is a common plot element employed by playwrights to construct pleasurable homoerotic situations between women. Cross dressing shields the characters from the kind of hostility directed at homoerotics in nonfictions because the attraction can be excused as error rather than intent. The representation of homoerotic attraction in Efo Kodgo Mawugbe’s play, In the Chest of a Woman, is seen in the Owusu—Ekyaa affair, along with the erotic scenes involving the female servants. The theme of homoerotic attraction between these female characters does not function as an uncomplicated promotion of a modern category of sexual orientation, but it rather serves as a means of dramatising the socially constructed basis of a sexuality that is determined by gender identity. With the deployment of queer theory as the analytical framework for this work, the paper examines some aspects of the social issues raised in Mawugbe’s play in context. This study finds out that the focus of this play is on the cross-dressed Owusu and the emotions she arouses than previously had been acknowledged.

Keywords: Homoerotic Queer Transvestism Cross Dressing Gender Identity Sexuality

Author

• Akaenyi, Nkiruka Jacinta Department of Performing Arts, Faculty of Arts,
  Akwa Ibom State University, Nigeria