Implications of the Portrayal of Women in Shona Proverbs for Gender Sensitive Teaching and Learning of ChiShona

Abstract

It has become quite common among educationists interested in gender issues in education to examine gender insensitivity in relation to equity, inequality, access by focusing on attitudes of teachers and school administrators, assessing the biased nature of the curriculum and teaching and learning materials. This article examines proverbs about women in order to find out the kind of ideas they express about women at both the philosophical and literal meanings of the proverbs. It also explores the proverbial thinking about the status, and attitudes about women and how this may impact on the education of both boys and girls in terms of gender.  The article is based on content analysis of 12 purposively sampled proverbs. This is triangulated with information about the meanings and implications of the proverbs from individual and focus group interviews with purposively sampled 10 lecturers  who either teach  ChiShona students who take this subject as their main or have majored in the ChiShona at some level or are of Shona culture origin, 5 student teachers who take ChiShona as their main subject  and 5 ChiShona bridging course students at Mkoba Teachers’ College, Gweru, Zimbabwe. Data was collected through open ended and semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis. Overall, the article is based on qualitative methods of data collection and interpretation. The findings are that while at the philosophical level the proverbs may appear gender neutral; the literal understanding connected with the use of women in the construction of the proverbs are ambivalent in terms gender biased; sources of male wealth, food items, instruments, witches, gossipers, short-sighted and irrational, dispensable, talkative, house wives, pillars in survival and sustenance of families, blessings, adventurous and determined to achieve goals, caring, indispensable, secretive.  These findings are significant as an initial step in thinking about a gender sensitive teaching of Shona proverbs in ChiShona language teaching.