Gender and Empowerment: A Feminist Study of Begum Rokeya’s Sultana’s Dream and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

This paper presents a comparative feminist reading of two landmark texts: Sultana’s Dream (1905) by Begum Rokeya (Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain) and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) by Maya Angelou. By situating Rokeya’s feminist utopia and Angelou’s autobiographical narrative of race, gender and self-actualisation within a broader discourse of gender and empowerment, the study demonstrates how both authors challenge patriarchal norms and envision women’s agency in distinct historical, social and cultural contexts. Rokeya imagines a radical inversion of gender roles in a colonial Bengal context; Angelou chronicles the lived struggles and triumphs of a Black woman in mid-twentieth-century America. Through textual analysis, feminist theoretical frameworks and intersectional lenses, this study traces how empowerment is constructed, resisted and realised in each text. The paper identifies convergences and divergences in the authors’ feminist vision, culminating in a research gap concerning the cross-cultural dynamics of empowerment and the role of utopian fiction compared with autobiography in feminist literary studies. The findings illuminate how women’s empowerment is not only about individual transformation but also about structural and imaginative re-visioning of gendered worlds.

gender empowerment, feminist utopia, autobiography, Begum Rokeya

1. Bibliomed. (2020). Black feminism in Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences, 5(2), 1–8. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

2. English Journal. (2024). Exploring cyborg feminism in Sultana’s Dream: Disrupting patriarchal gender power structure. English Journal, 6(2), 67–86. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

3. Hossain, R. (2020). A gender-based study of Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. Global Language Review, 5(2), 76–88. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

4. Joy, M. (2017, November 17). A brief analysis of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Meritta Joy Blog. https://merittajoy.blogspot.com/2017/11/abrief-analysis-of-maya-angelous-i.html [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

5. Lady Science. (2019, July 31). Feminist visions of science and utopia in Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream. Lady Science. https://www.ladyscience.com/features/feministvisions-science-fiction-utopia-rokeya-hossain/ [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

6. LitCharts. (n.d.). Sex, gender and sexuality theme in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. LitCharts. https://www.litcharts.com/lit/iknow-why-the-caged-bird-sings/themes/sexgender-and-sexuality [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

7. Mohanty, C. T. (2003). Feminism without borders: Decolonising theory, practising solidarity. Duke University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

8. Moniruzzaman, M. (2014). A feminist critical evaluation of how Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s language of protest deplored patriarchy and social anachronism in the British Bengal. Journal of Arts & Humanities, 3(8), 12–23. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

9. Narayan, U. (1997). Dislocating cultures: Identities, traditions and third-world feminism. Routledge. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

10. Sharma, D. (2017, October 4). Sultana’s Dream and its conception of a feminist utopia. Feminism in India. https://feminisminindia.com/2017/10/04/sultanas-dream-feminist-utopia/ [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

11. Spivak, G. C. (1990). The postcolonial critic: Interviews, strategies, dialogues. Routledge. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

12. Susilowati, R. (2019). Criticizing feminism portrayed in Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings through minority feminist criticism. International Journal of Education & Literature Studies, 7(2), 45–53. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

13. Teme, M., et al. (2022). Breaking the silence of caged birds: Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. TEME – Journal of Education, 37(3), 919–935. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

14. Zakaria, R. (2023, May). Sultana’s Dream and the issue with feminist utopias. The Daily Star. https://www.thedailystar.net/daily-star-books/news/sultanas-dream-and-the-issuefeminist-utopias-3488016 [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

• Culture: The (In) Human Engagement with Nature
• Identity Crisis in Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book: A Critical Interpretation
• Metaphor in Pop-Up Swahili Sayings: Is it a New Meaning or a New Idea?
• Racial Identity and Ecological Belonging in Toni Morrison’s Beloved: A Study through Social Identity Theory and Eco-Race Theory
• The Role of Non-Human Agency in Contemporary Literature: A Posthumanist Analysis