The Contemporary Cameroon Woman and The Politics of Leverage: An African Womanist Reading of Alobwed’ Epie’s Until I Sinned

This paper examines the politics of leverage, illustrating how the contemporary Cameroon woman navigates constraints to reshape and project her social identities in Alobwed’ Epie’s Until I Sinned. The paper aims to analyse how the modern Cameroon woman, conscious of her social and cultural realities, harnesses submission, loyalty, and generosity to assert autonomy, uplift herself, for the advancement of her family and community. In conventional narratives, the Cameroon woman is depicted as silenced, marginalised, and often persistently subjected to the intersecting pressures of colonial legacies and entrenched patriarchal norms. Contrary to these literary and visual representations, she emerges as assertive and complex by resisting the reductive labels of innocence, naivety and challenging the assumptions embedded in some penned and oral literatures. This paper also illuminates how the woman, engages in fervent denial to construct the church, while simultaneously leveraging her devotion to create opportunities for social and personal development. Despite patriarchal oppression, she transforms her position, and actively reconstructs the distorted identity imposed by social norms and circumstances. The study is articulated through the lens of Clenora Hudson Weem’s Africana Womanist theory. Through this framework, the study demonstrates how Epie’s protagonist, seeks emancipation and liberation, similar to other feminist analyses, but through a distinct approach. She adopts a non-confrontational strategy by aligning with men, exploring these alliances as mechanisms to achieve her objectives. Epie spots the resourcefulness of the Cameroon woman, irrespective of religion and demonstrates how she –who comprehends the politics of her environment – uses them as an asset. This paper argues that, notwithstanding the naive appearances, the contemporary Cameroon woman actively reshapes prevailing narratives, moving from passive recipients to active participants, with the aim of attaining fulfilment through leverage.