Ama Ata Aidoo's collection of short stories: The Girl Who Can and Other Stories (1997) is a creative work that could be justifiably described as woman-centred in a progressive sense. In it she foregrounds female characters, women's needs and issues. The collection seems to have fulfilled Molara Ogundipe-Leslie's requirements for the African female writer to be committed ‘as a writer, as a woman and as a Third World person’ (1994). Aidoo herself has added commitment as an African nationalist to the list (ibid). A keen analysis of the stories reveals yet another criterion which includes the common concerns basic to all women’s movements worldwide: understanding patriarchal ideology and power, rejecting socially constructed dichotomies and dualism, demonstrating solidarity with women, and affirming women’s agency (Antrobus 2004).