Images of women in Ticklish sensation, Tongue of the dumb and Cowerie of hope with the perspective of sex role sterotypes
Date
2012-03-06
Authors
Muyendekwa, Limbali
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Abstract
This research describes or analyses the images of women in male literary works of Ticklish Sensation, Tongue of the Dumb and Cowrie of Hope with the perspective of sex role stereotypes. This is researched from a feminist and psychoanalytic perspective. Other secondary materials have been used to authenticate this research other than primary books in question.
The first section looks at literature review concerning other researchers in different fields but concerning gender issues while this research looked at gender issues concerning images of women in Ticklish Sensation, Tongue of the Dumb and Cowrie of Hope. The issue is finding the source of sex role stereotypes in male written works and this is attributed to the fact that God made man first subjecting a woman to a subordinate position; a position that relegates her due to socially constructed traits that are distinct from those of man. From written literature or history of literature and place in history when the text was produced, the level of social awareness of both society in which he writes, is what influences the written literature or literature affecting society and propagating norms, values and attitudes of the society hence mostly African authors write under the influence of patriarchal societies which inculcate sex role stereotypes.
This research has used literature review by different researchers dealing with gender issues in society; however, this research's main concern was researching portrayal of women in male literary works. The next section views the theories of feminist and psychoanalytic theory and how they have affected the male literary works to challenge the authority of men as women have been muted and it is doubtless by virtue of this mutism that men have been able to speak and write as they do, they will enter history subdued and alienated. It is history that, logically speaking, women's speech should disrupt, and literature is seen as a process of psychological exploration aimed at uncovering repressed sentiments and verbalizing what had been unacceptable and
repudiated biasness is seen in male authors and is expressed in language though some authors have worked to uplift the image of women like Sinyangwe who is a contemporary writer unlike Gideon Phiri and Dominic Mulaisho. This is seen in the preceding chapters looking at themes, sex role/gender roles, sex rule stereotypes, fragmentation/description of body parts of characters, development of characters where sex role stereotypes play a role in influencing male writers who write without knowing that, they are unfairly treating female characters in their literary works due to the patriarchal system male writers under discussion come from. The outcome is seen in male characters who take the roles that highlight strengths or the potential they stand for, while women are in periphery as appendages or subordinates to men due to sex role stereotypes which are attributed to patriarchal dominance. All these are analysed with their implications for language planning and recommendations which is the focus of the last section while the research focused on the images of women in the three male literary works. The research investigated whether the text gave same opportunities to both female and male characters and also analyses if the male and female characters spoke with the same voice or not. The research also assessed the language used in the text to determine if this language was biased towards one sex or other.
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Keywords
Sex Roles in Literature