Abstract:

African feminism theory rejects the assumption that African women are powerless and ill-equipped to fight against patriarchal oppression.  It contextualises gender ideology in Africa as a distinct complex phenomenon. Women in Nigeria have always engaged in activism and the pursuit of self-determination through various feminist platforms. One of the contemporary avenues for African women to challenge the status quo is social media. Thus, #StopKillingPHGirls and #ProtectPHWomen are protest movements formed in 2019 to challenge the killing of Port Harcourt women and girls by a serial killer. The #StopKillingPHGirls and #ProtectPHWomen in this paper demonstrated the efforts women make at navigating through patriarchal constructions through the formation of agencies as such efforts are rarely talked about and are missing in scholarship. The study is a qualitative analysis of how the #StopKillingPHGirls and the #ProtectPHGirls female protesters challenge the patriarchal justification of killing women whom society labelled as prostitutes in Nigerian hotels.  Based on the theoretical framework of African feminism, the paper analysed the protests for their dominant themes. The findings showed that the women challenged the stereotypical perception that every woman found in a hotel is a prostitute. Furthermore, it emphasised the communal nature of African women as the protesters insisted that females' lives mattered irrespective of social status. Overall, the findings showed the pragmatic kind of African feminism, as demonstrated through the protests that set the agenda that led to the arrest of the principal culprit. The paper recommended that Nigerian women should leverage more digital activism to set a schedule that can upturn stereotypical patriarchal narratives and also increase research about their resistance.