Feminism and Deity Personification in Yorùbá Proverbs
Feminism and Deity Personification in Yorùbá Proverbs

Summary/Abstract: In Yoruba social context, male is seen as comptroller and central in gender status because of the cultural perception that makes male hegemony a priority. If Yoruba people by chance through their tradition could encroach the social order of the family structure by maintaining the biological dominance of male ahead of female, then it means that women have no say. In the oratory aspect of this tradition however, the construct of women acceptability in terms of their sacred features undermine the biological concept of male dominance. his is the area where Olïpoኇư n (2011) itemised the role of female goddesses in Yorubaž religion as more of important discussion and that balancing their role with that of male, particularly in the aspect of religion, will improve the cultural variables and etiuette of the Yoruba people. his paper however intends to look at this balancing through orîbž oral proverbs, which personified women symbolically from the angle of deity specific. he paper argues that Yorubaž epistemology through proverbs is a means of deconstructing the usual male hegemony in Yorubaž tradition, and further concludes that ascribing dominance to male echelons is a reflection of social inequality because “what a man can do, a woman can do better”. The paper will use semiotic analysis to portray the significant aspect of feminism in the proverbial sayings of the Yoruba people.

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