Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives

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dc.contributor.advisorNyamende, Abneren_ZA
dc.contributor.advisorMberi, Nhira Edgaren_ZA
dc.contributor.authorMasowa, Angelineen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2017-09-23T06:24:07Z
dc.date.available2017-09-23T06:24:07Z
dc.date.issued2017en_ZA
dc.description.abstractHumour 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.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationMasowa, A. (2017). <i>Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,African Languages and Literatures. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25340en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationMasowa, Angeline. <i>"Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,African Languages and Literatures, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25340en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationMasowa, A. 2017. Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Masowa, Angeline AB - 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. DA - 2017 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2017 T1 - Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives TI - Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25340 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/25340
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationMasowa A. Gender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narratives. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,African Languages and Literatures, 2017 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25340en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentAfrican Languages and Literaturesen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherAfrican Languages and Literaturesen_ZA
dc.titleGender and humour; Complexities of women's image politics in Shona humourous narrativesen_ZA
dc.typeDoctoral Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoral
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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