Depiction of Women in Swahili and Arabic Proverbs: the Implications of Proverbial Wisdom in Inscribing Femininity and Masculinity

Abstract

This study is an examination of the depiction of women in Swahili and Arabic proverbs that seeks to understand how and in what ways proverbs as realities of folklore specifically and orature generally, are implicated in the framing of feminine and masculine identities, inscribing positive and negative attributes on the basis of gender framing and ultimately demonstrate how proverbs generally enable the circulation of cultural values. The study is premised on selected tenets of the feminist literary theory so as to enable, on the one hand the achievement of the study objectives and on the other hand facilitate the exploration of the inscription of silence, subservience and marginality in the depiction of women in Swahili and Arabic proverbs; the investigation of the ways in which the Swahili and Arabic proverbs inscribe perceptions of femininity and masculinity as well as the determination of the cultural values that the depictions of women in Swahili and Arabic proverbs enable to circulate in the respective societies. This study is thus based on three tenets of the feminist literary theory namely: the postulation that foregrounds identification with female characters, the re-evaluation and counter-reading of the hushed functions of proverbs in the world in which they are utilized as well as mainstreaming the centrality of gender binary in gender discourses. These tenets are applied in the uncovering and analysis of the feminine attributes and nuances embedded in Swahili and Arabic proverbs thus enabling questioning whether Swahili and Arab societies have unquestioningly privileged one gender over the other. In order to fruitfully explore these study objectives, a detailed attempt was made to define paremiology and proverbs by providing varied definitions of these terminologies in terms of what they mean as well as what they entail structurally, thematically and functionally. The analyses of the selected Swahili and Arabic proverbs were undertaken variously so as to unravel the inscription of silence, subservience and marginality of women in the Swahili and Arab societies. An examination that entailed the de-codification of the metaphors, imageries, similes and the parallels that have been used in the formulation of the selected Swahili and Arabic proverbs that was geared towards the determination of the inscriptions of perceptions of femininity and masculinity as discerned both in the formulation and the use of those proverbs was undertaken. The analyses were further undertaken so as to determine the cultural values that Swahili and Arabic proverbs on women enable to circulate in these societies. Overall, this study concludes that the Swahili and Arabic proverbs subtly inscribe silence, subservience and marginality as feminine attributes; they circulate negative perceptions of femininity; they have a very strong patriarchal framing thus circulating positive perceptions and attributes of masculinity, consequently the cultural values circulated through proverb formulation and usage in Swahili and Arab societies are unequal and discriminatory.