Are We Not Rightful Citizens Also? Women in Oral Folklore as a Mobilising Force for Contemporary Gender Struggles in Southern Africa

Women have been the backbone of most oral deliveries in precolonial Zimbabwe, having been overshadowed by men in written literature. This is because the patriarchal society, which became deeply entrenched with the onslaught of colonialism, and through the establishment of various policies, disadvantaged women. However, a close analysis of the precolonial African society demonstrates that women apart from being some of the greatest storytellers have been the subject of numerous heroic folk stories. Rarely do people encounter male story tellers in traditional African society, Zimbabwe included. However, representation of women’s storytelling role has either been deliberately ignored owing to patriarchy or that the written mode is too dominated by male writers to the extent that women have failed to represent themselves fully. In other words, the material on women and about women in Southern Africa is severely gendered and needs to be reconstituted. Yet women’s stories can be a counter-narrative of widely held perspectives of female subordination in Africa and a counter-history of the misleading perspectives of the continent generated by the West. They remain a symbol of inspiration and a mobilising force for contemporary gender and afro-centred struggles. The memory and legacy of such women continue to influence contemporary Zimbabwean society with largely feminist scholars calling for the rewriting of women’s stories. Attempts have been made to stifle, distort and even erase stories of what appeared to be a primitive people in general and apparently, women’s stories have been the hardest hit. Male-centred discourses have underscored female subordination and voicelessness and frowned at female agency. This chapter reveals the role played by female voices in selected oral literature and folk stories; stories generated by women themselves as well as those propagated in recorded epics and legends. The chapter is informed by Africana Womanism and postcolonial literary theories. A critical literary analysis is done of the various spaces occupied by women in Zimbabwean society in a bid to reconstruct the woman and her story in Southern Africa.