I was interested by the child narrator of Ama Ata Aidoo’s “The Girl Who Can”. Through the eyes of a seven-year-old girl, the culture and ideas of three generations of women living in Ghana are illuminated. The authority of the household, Nana seems to determine what can be said aloud and what must be kept to oneself. Maami, Nana’s daughter does not share her mother’s authority but provides a silent resistance and alternative to her mother’s notions of gender and achievement. Adjoa, the narrator, is still testing the boundaries of what can be said and what cannot be voiced, but she, like her mother proves through action an alternative to Nana’s narrow-minded thinking.
After having read a little about the Yoruba tradition and the importance of children, I am curious if similar traditions exist in Ghana. Certainly the author privileges the position of the child but the grandmother disregards the child’s wisdom either with the admonition to never say such a thing again or with uncontrollable laughter. Neither reaction attaches any importance to what exactly Adjoa says. While I cannot personally related to Adjoa or her mother I do see a similar dynamic within my own extended family. My grandmother possesses rather decided opinions on many topics but her grown children do not always agree with her perspective. They have learned, though, that it is extremely difficult to change their mother’s opinions and thus resort to action rather than speech to prove their own points. Given this connection between Adjoa’s family and my own, it appears that generational divides are a universal phenomena.
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I like Erin's observation that "generational divides" are somewhat universal. In our class discussion of the text, some students thought that the grandmother's criticism of her granddaughter was more generational than cultural, and I think Erin's comment supports this notion as well. In my own opinion, I would also have to go ahead and say that I think that the grandmother's criticism and gender-biased notions have a little more to do with generation than culture. Despite the fact that some African cultures are more oppresive towards women than in most Western cultures, the twentieth century bore witness to millions of women throughout the world becoming increasingly equal with their male counterparts. However, the struggle for women to be equal with men continues to this day. Thus, it only makes sense that elder women in society would be more prone to the backward ways of an older, more male dominated society. We see that the mother in the story is not as critical towards her daughter. Additionally, besides the generatonal differences being something universal, I think this story can also be used as a universal story for the women's struggle to achieve equality with men. The biases and criticisms illustrated in the story are something women all over the world (especially women from older generations) can relate to because I do not believe these observations are culturally exclusive biases.
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