Gender Power Contestations: Man the Ogre, the Weaker Sex; Images of Men in Kikuyu Oral Narratives

APA Citation: Waita, N. (2021). Gender Power Contestations: Man the Ogre, the Weaker Sex; Images of Men in Kikuyu Oral Narratives. Ngano: The Journal of Eastern African Oral Literature, 2, 112-121.

Abstract

This paper explores the representation of the male in the oral narratives of the Kikuyu

people of Central Kenya. The paper analyses a sample of seven folktales recorded from

female artists from Kirinyaga County. The folktales were recorded in the original

Kikuyu dialect and translated into English for analysis. The narratives were analysed

using a gender studies approach where gender representations are the central category

of analysis. In the analysis, man, the male character emerges as a negative persona,

represented by the negative binary. The male is embellished in the image of the ogre or

a villain archetype in the narrative. The male character is depicted as potential violator

of girls and as a glutton who would annihilate the society through his uncontrolled

greed. Symbolically, the male can only be controlled by the older woman or the

younger male who has been apprenticed by the older woman. The paper concludes that

the narratives have an overwhelming feminine focus that foregrounds female power in

the traditional contestation of gender power. This focus has developed over the years as

women’s reaction to patriarchal power and male dominance. Women being the main

storytellers in this community have used the folktale as an instrument of exercising

female power.