Patriarchy And Inequality In The 60's '

The women of Nervous Conditions live in a world still fraught with patriarchy and inequality. It was the way of life in the 60’s, in Rhodesia especially. Inequality was a cultural normality, a repression of the mind, body, and spirit from birth. For Tambu, a simple poor Rhodesian girl, this repression was only revealed to her through a series of events unforeseen and unimaginable to anyone. These events led to a women's education, another woman's fall, and a mother’s growth. And just like everything in that time and place, it all started with a man. More specifically his death.
“I was not sorry when my brother died” (Dangarembga 1). As callous as it may seem, the death of Tambu’s brother was the best thing that could have happened to her.
Her cousin Nyasha is distant ever since her return from Europe, a stranger in land she once called home. She no longer speaks Shona fluently, nor dances in the fashions custom to their fun. She is proper and quiet, unknown to Tambu, fighting a battle within her mind. Upon Tambu’s arrival to the mission, Nyasha remains cold and tough, keeping up the front she uses to defend herself against her attackers. Nyasha has many attackers, her classmates who would make fun of her for her education, calling her loose and white, jealous of her mind and ignorant to her heart: “‘She thinks she is white.’ They used to sneer… ‘She is proud’ announced others.’She is loose’ the most viscous condemned” (Dangarembga 94). The worst of her foes however is her father. A strict man with a proclivity for rules and traditions. Nyasha as a rebellious and forward thinking woman, can not give in to her father's backwards thinking and suffers dearly for it. Her father views her as a hor and a slut. Regarding her sexuality and behavior as unhealthy and bad for a ‘good Africans’ daughter. He care more about his status than his daughter and beats her viciously, both verbally and physically, on multiple occasions. Their relationship is an unending conflict that drives each other further into their own ideas and decisions, neither of them making progress in trying to understand and change the other. It all finally catches up to her though, the double consciousness of a
Raised in an earlier time, Maiguru is instilled with discipline and tradition. Conforming to the ways of Rhodesia, Maiguru is an obedient wife. Always caring for her husband, above kindness nearing slavery, speaking only when spoken too, and in general acting as the underclass, underfoot women she is told she is. It upsets her, the way her daughter acts. It makes her uncomfortable and questioning of her own position. But as Nysaha rebelliousness grows so does the force behind her oppression. Maiguru sees this and she starts to wonder why, and how, things came to be the way they are. Nyasha’s rebelliousness opens her up and allows her to view the world more as it is rather than how she's told it is. With oppression in view Maiguru begins to resent her situation and status in her family and household. She is unhappy with the mistreatment and unfairness that goes on between man and woman, husband and wife, father and daughter. It is because of this view and thanks to her daughter that Maiguru is able to break away, if only for a minute. “Maiguru had been away for only five days…” (Dangarembga 175). This break away leaves the reader with the question of does she lack the strength to stay gone or does she have the strength to come back for her daughter. Either way when she returns she is for the better, stronger in mind and spirit. Just in time to care for her daughter when her’s collapses. It is Nyasha’s