ABSTRACT
Appreciates and prefers women's culture and women's strength committed to the survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Female issues such as women's lifestyles, masculinity, motherhood, gender, poverty, and connections between the women's body, sexuality, and representation are explored in Julie Okoh's works. As many women writers' works expose female exploitation through physical, sexual, and economic rape, Okoh's Edewede reveals female circumcision as a form of sociocultural silence and an exploration of motherhood and loss. Edewede disregards what her society perceives as the importance of female circumcision, which they believe helps to preserve female purity, male social honour, and female dignity. Some of the reasons why communities practice female circumcision, apart from it being seen as a positive tradition, include for religious purposes, increased cleanliness, preservation of virginity, better marriage prospects, and enhancement of male sexual pleasure, among others.
