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Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives
Humour represents an ideal site for understanding how everyday social dynamics influence ideology and the social structure (Sue & Golash-Boza, 2013:4). This research is an examination of how gender is expressed in Shona humour. Particular emphasis is paid to how women are presented in Shona humorous...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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African Languages and Literatures
2017
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| _version_ | 1867613163766153216 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Masowa, Angeline |
| author2 | Nyamende, Abner |
| author_browse | Masowa, Angeline Nyamende, Abner |
| author_facet | Nyamende, Abner Masowa, Angeline |
| author_sort | Masowa, Angeline |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Humour represents an ideal site for understanding how everyday social dynamics influence ideology and the social structure (Sue & Golash-Boza, 2013:4). This research is an examination of how gender is expressed in Shona humour. Particular emphasis is paid to how women are presented in Shona humorous narratives. Though 'what a person does in a jest is usually not accorded the same weight of responsibility as what he does seriously, humour provides a means to test the openness, accessibility, and riskiness of sensitive issues' (Lang & Lee, 2010:47). This study examines how women in particular, are reflected in Shona humour. Humour provides a 'safe' climate for expressing 'system-justifying' beliefs, (Ford et al. 2013), and this study is an exploration of the Shona beliefs about women and the reinforcement of gender norms as expressed in Shona humour. The study derives impetus from the fact that while images of women have been studied in literary and lexicographic works in Shona in particular, aspects of humour and how it presents women remain largely under-studied, as humour studies as a discipline, despite its long history the world over, is still at its infancy in Zimbabwe. From a corpus of jokes that were circulated on the social media, particularly Facebook and WhatsApp, the study examines how women are presented in Shona humour. The research made use of the Superiority Theory of humour, Incongruity and Feminism to argue that Shona humour expresses oppressive and unjust gender relations. While the humorous Shona narratives demonstrate a complex portrayal of women, generally, Shona humour expresses, ratifies and reinforces repressive norms and restrictive stereotypes about women. Women are presented as immoral, malicious and intellectually, socially and emotionally inferior to men. The study therefore argues that humour facilitates the process of promoting gender stereotypes as well as fostering gender discrimination in Shona. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/25340 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:31:47.142Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publishDateRange | 2017 |
| publishDateSort | 2017 |
| publisher | African Languages and Literatures |
| publisherStr | African Languages and Literatures |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/25340 Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives Masowa, Angeline Nyamende, Abner Mberi, Nhira Edgar African Languages and Literatures Humour represents an ideal site for understanding how everyday social dynamics influence ideology and the social structure (Sue & Golash-Boza, 2013:4). This research is an examination of how gender is expressed in Shona humour. Particular emphasis is paid to how women are presented in Shona humorous narratives. Though 'what a person does in a jest is usually not accorded the same weight of responsibility as what he does seriously, humour provides a means to test the openness, accessibility, and riskiness of sensitive issues' (Lang & Lee, 2010:47). This study examines how women in particular, are reflected in Shona humour. Humour provides a 'safe' climate for expressing 'system-justifying' beliefs, (Ford et al. 2013), and this study is an exploration of the Shona beliefs about women and the reinforcement of gender norms as expressed in Shona humour. The study derives impetus from the fact that while images of women have been studied in literary and lexicographic works in Shona in particular, aspects of humour and how it presents women remain largely under-studied, as humour studies as a discipline, despite its long history the world over, is still at its infancy in Zimbabwe. From a corpus of jokes that were circulated on the social media, particularly Facebook and WhatsApp, the study examines how women are presented in Shona humour. The research made use of the Superiority Theory of humour, Incongruity and Feminism to argue that Shona humour expresses oppressive and unjust gender relations. While the humorous Shona narratives demonstrate a complex portrayal of women, generally, Shona humour expresses, ratifies and reinforces repressive norms and restrictive stereotypes about women. Women are presented as immoral, malicious and intellectually, socially and emotionally inferior to men. The study therefore argues that humour facilitates the process of promoting gender stereotypes as well as fostering gender discrimination in Shona. 2017-09-23T06:24:07Z 2017-09-23T06:24:07Z 2017 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25340 eng application/pdf African Languages and Literatures Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | African Languages and Literatures Masowa, Angeline Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives |
| title_full | Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives |
| title_fullStr | Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives |
| title_full_unstemmed | Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives |
| title_short | Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives |
| title_sort | gender and humour complexities of women s image politics in shona humourous narratives |
| topic | African Languages and Literatures |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25340 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT masowaangeline genderandhumourcomplexitiesofwomensimagepoliticsinshonahumourousnarratives |