Nigeria Content Online

In line with this
year’s theme of the International Women’s Day, ‘Equal access to
education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work
for women’, we emphasise some core words: equal access, decent work,
and education.

We posit that in
relation to men, women are still way off the mark. There are many
reasons for this, but the ones we shall be looking at are patriarchy
and folklore.

Patriarchy is a
social system that has been in existence over the centuries. Through
the deliberate implementation of some factors, it ensures that members
of the opposite sex maintain conditioned behaviours toward one another.
While acknowledging that patriarchal expectations on men have, in some
cases, been harsh and unrealistic, studies have shown that this social
system has been harsher on women.

One of the major
tools used in conditioning men and women is folklore, especially
folktales, myths, and proverbs. Folklore is an integral part of
people’s consciousness and often assumes the appearance of a natural,
God-designed element of existence. This is why many women do not see
their position and status, in relation to men, as disempowering.

Though many people
tend to think that folklore is a literary form of the past, it is still
an integral part of daily living. Gendered proverbs, for example,
unconsciously influence the way we relate to the opposite sex, and to
members of the same sex. There are hardly any more “tales by
moonlight”, and cases of grandparents regaling children with folktales
are becoming extinct; but there are new ways of expressing proverbs:
through the print and electronic media especially.

Apart from giving
one an insight into human behaviour and psychology, proverbs also serve
as mirrors of the cultural values of communities. They are employed not
only to entertain, but most often to buttress a point, and to give an
argument the cloak of general acceptability.

The supposed,
albeit, fabricated truthfulness of proverbs, especially those about
gender relations, has gone a long way in further cementing the inferior
status linked with the female sex.

Many proverbs,
cutting across cultures, ridicule women, be they young or old. Apart
from folktales, proverbs have contributed immensely to the negative
traits attributed to women: envy, gossip, fickle-mindedness,
wickedness, greediness, and materialism. They also depict women as
sexually insatiable, selfish, and evil. Proverbs are thus used to
belittle and degrade women, especially those who are unwilling to
conform to the status quo.

In these
contemporary times, proverbs abound on the pages of novels, newspapers,
magazines; folktales are even rendered as songs, and proverbs punctuate
what we hear and read every day. Therefore, folklore occupies a central
place in our lives, and in the beliefs we enact unconsciously in our
relationships with others.

‘Owe l’esin oro’

The Yoruba, like
several other African peoples, use proverbs to drive home a point, to
show the credibility or the foolishness of a person or a situation, and
to issue warnings, among others. For the Yoruba who place much emphasis
on age and hierarchy, an old person is the symbol of wisdom, and is
expected to be a repository of proverbs which s/he should draw upon in
giving his/her speech a “sting” or some sharpness. A Yoruba proverb
captures it all:

Owe lesin oro

(Proverbs facilitate the understanding of one’s speech).

Yoruba women are
confronted with proverbs that cast them in ridiculous, foolish, and
negative lights. The Yoruba divination system, known as Ifa, has
contributed in a very major way to the “validation” of women’s negative
image and portrayal.

Even though it has
been observed, for example, that some verses of Ifa sometimes
contradict one another in terms of assertions made, the overall picture
one gets is the dismal image of women. From the Ifa divination system
is the proverb that says:

-Obinrin L’eke, obinrin l’odale (The woman is a gossip; the woman is a traitor).

Other Yoruba proverbs give a clearer picture: -E ma finu han f’obinrin

(Never confide in a woman)

-A benu mimu bi obe

(Her lips are as sharp as the knives)

-Eniyan ti ko gbon ni i bobiriin mule

Ijo obinrin bo mawo lo baje.

(Only a stupid man takes an oath with a woman; the day a woman knows the secrets of a cult, that cult is destroyed).

An Ijala poem usually chanted by hunters in honour of Ogun the god of iron, puts it this way:

-E ma je ka finu han f’obinrin; ibi ti oju re o to, enu re debe.

(We should desist from revealing our secrets to a woman; her mouth will speak more than her eyes can see).

The picture painted
above is that women are naturally inquisitive, not for the well-being
of all, but in order to destroy. So, men are warned to be on their
guard. Men should be conscious of what they tell women, as this could
lead to their downfall.

The curiosity of a
woman will make her employ all means to get a particular piece of
information from a man; once she possesses it, she uses it to effect a
negative act.

-B’obinrin ba gbon lagbon ju, penpe laso oko re mo.

(A husband’s undersized clothes indicate his wife’s excessive cunning).

One cannot talk
about proverbs, poems or folktales that portray women in a negative
light without mentioning the theme of the supposed sexual laxity and
immorality of married women.

Perhaps, because of
the predominantly polygamous nature of traditional and modern Yoruba
society, and because of the high rate of divorce, men spin many
proverbs portraying women as having little control over their sexual
desires.

These proverbs show
men’s inherent fears about women and their sexuality. They also show
men’s fears about the possibility of their wives divorcing them, and of
their wives seducing or being seduced by other men.

Several verses from
the Ifa divination corpus attest to this. Proverbs about women’s sexual
immorality are brandished at women in a bid to control or curtail
imagined or real immoral tendencies. A wife in a polygamous setting who
is not sexually satisfied is thus reminded that:

-Oju kan ladaa ni

(A cutlass has only one sharp edge).

In other words, the
woman should be contented with only one husband/lover. This proverb is
not only issued to comfort the woman; it is also subtly used as a
warning to check whatever temptations she might have been nursing in
her mind.

The Yoruba also say:

-Gbogbo obinrin lo ngbese; eyi to ba se tire lase ju laraye n pe lasewo.

(All women are sexually voracious; but it is the one that does hers in excess is that is called a prostitute).

Yoruba folklore is
rich in its portrayal of its women as sexually insatiable. The picture
is essentially biased. The contrast is that the man is often painted as
blameless and innocent, someone who falls to the calculating ways of
the woman. This, of course, is contrary to the reality; Yoruba men
practice polygamy and keep a string of concubines outside the
matrimonial harem.

Therefore, these
proverbs are used as weapons to force women to accept particular
practices that are not of benefit to them, but to men. They are also
used to remind and warn men to be highly conscious of their “territory”
and authority whenever they are involved with women. The proverbs, no
doubt, constitute a major basis and cover for men’s own excesses and
infidelity in terms of sexual relations.

Yoruba women are
also portrayed as wicked, hard-hearted, insensitive and murderous.
Among men, the following proverbs are spun in an atmosphere of
camaraderie and scornful laughter:

-Obinrin bimo fun ni ko pe koma pa ni

(That a woman bears a man a child doesn’t stop her from killing him)

-Obinrin ko bimo fun ni, ko pe ko ma pa ni

(That a woman is yet to a man bear a child doesn’t stop her from killing him)

-Obinrin abi ale mefa won ko mo ara won

(A woman will have six lovers, yet they wouldn’t know one another)

-Okunrin ti ko ku, obinrin re ni ko ti i paa.

(If a man is not yet dead, it is because his woman is yet to kill him).

-Ito pe lenu o di warapa, egbo pe lese o di jakute; bi obinrin ba pe nile oko aje nii da

(When saliva stays
long in the mouth, it becomes epilepsy; when a sore stays long on the
leg, it becomes putrid. If a woman stays long in her husband’s house,
she becomes a witch).

Proverbs and sayings which ridicule the inquisitive nature of women make the following assumptions:

– women are naturally evil doers

– only women are inquisitive

– women are talkatives, and so, they talk more than men

– only women are gossips

– all women (excluding our mothers) cannot keep secrets.

But men gossip,
and some actually gossip more than women! Men are also inquisitive in
nature, and many of them, like some women, cannot keep secrets. The
absolute categorisation of women only is thus misleading as one finds
different characters amongst men and women.

These proverbs are
spiteful, a kind of personal vendetta against women’s power tussle with
men, and the freedom of choice they enjoy when it comes to outsmarting
their husbands whenever they wish to in terms of sexual relations, or
to divorce their husbands for other men.

Through these
proverbs, therefore, women’s image is badly dented, and the society
does not give them any space to express their reasons openly and
freely. The hypocritical stance of patriarchal society encourages men
to explore their sexual desires with the opposite sex. Men who keep
many girls/women are generally adjudged by society to be manly, randy,
and mature, but women who do same are seen to be committing a grievous
sin against God and nature.

However, for some
women, several negative assertions have been debunked over time as a
result of the attainment of some education, which sharpens their
critical spirits.

Yet, sometimes,
against their will, they have to act out some of these negative beliefs
about themselves in order to be accepted, and to be seen to be doing
the “right” thing.

Being part of a
paper, ‘Subliminal Texts: Women, Proverbs and Power’ delivered by
Anthonia Yakubu during an International Women’s Day seminar at the
University of Lagos on March 9.