Proverb Usage and the Silencing of Women’s Voices: An Exploration of Swahili and Arabic Proverbs

Abstract

This paper set out to answer three research questions being: how does the depiction of women as ignorant people in need of guidance inscribe the silencing of women’s voices? The second one being in what ways does the depiction of women as objects of pleasure inscribe the silencing of the voices of women? As well as what inscription of the silencing of women’s voices does the depiction of women as passive objects potent? This study adopted a Feminist Literary Theory also known as Feminist Literary Criticism as advanced and expounded by Napikoski (2017) which is based on two tenets being; the postulation that foregrounds identification with female characters and the re-evaluation and counter-reading of the hushed functions of proverbs in the world in which they are utilized. Silence as used in this paper entails the unsaid, the unspeakable, the repressed, the erased and the unheard. The culture of silence is evident in the depiction of women in Swahili and Arabic proverbs which implicitly or explicitly demand that women are only seen and not heard. Silence is also exhibited in the Swahili and Arabic proverbs’ depictions which either support or seem to condone the meting out of punishment to girls/women as a means of education, discipline or simply for fun. Similarly, silence is echoed in the depiction of women in Swahili and Arabic proverbs which demand of women to obey their husbands without question and not to complain while facing punishment or difficult situations, but rather suffer quietly.