Gender relations and realities: Xitsonga idioms as armaments of masculine hegemony

Abstract

Idioms that outstrip the veil of primordial history have played a vigorous starring role in the use and abuse of power by ‘masters’ of the social universe. That language is a powerful weapon to direct and command both deserved and undeserved respect has never been won better outside the phallocentric diplomatic usage of this linguistic flavour. The paper epitomises the Vatsonga ethnic group’s gender treatment cosmology by setting a clear-cut juxtaposition between the male and female power share and relations. It unveils and places the social destiny of an ever sought after ‘Xitsonga good woman’ by depicting “a web of social symbols, normative concepts, institutional structures and internalised self-images which through a process of social construction (or so assumed) define masculine and feminine roles” (Frankson 2000) in the context of top-heavy gender intercourse. It stresses the ethnic and traditionally intrinsic advocacy for an axiomatic acceptance of norms and regulations far beyond inquisitions and rationality. That idioms favour man and suppress women forms the pivot upon which the paper is set to gyrate.

Keywords: feminism, culture, gender-stereotyping, language, female, male