From the horse’s own mouth: Gender perception in some Akan and Ewe proverbs

Issues about women have engaged the attention of many scholars over the years, especially in recent times. These issues span much of marginalization of women in national affairs, male dominance over women, sexual harassment and recently in Ghana domestic violence against women and children among others. Most of these have been analysed from various dimensions. The sociologists, the psychologists and the humanists have all touched on an aspect nor other of womanhood however trite it may seem. This paper is a contribution to the discussion on women. It invites the reader to look at the issue of women in two ethnic communities in Ghana - Akan and Ewe from the literary point of view, specifically from the proverbs that these communities have themselves formulated and been using about women. One cannot deny the fact that creative writers, both males andfemales have portrayed women from a point of view that has close relations with societal determinants. The sexuality of the Ghanaian woman in general and those in the two communities studied has been expressed in their proverbs. The analysis of the proverbs has some relations with the findings of some researchers concerning the old perceptions about the woman as a weakling who depends on the male for sustenance and her total wellbeing.