Throwing Stones in Jest: Kasena Women's "Proverbial" Revolt

This paper looks at how Kasena women from Northern Ghana take advantage of a socially sanctioned medium, the "joking" relationship that exists between an individual and her spouse's siblings, to subvert and contradict Kasem proverbs in an effort to transcend the misogynist images and connotations of these proverbs as well as to critique patriarchal norms. In this socially approved context, the women seem to have embarked on a "proverbial revolt" that finds expression via methods that have not been practiced before. The women's disruptive strategies consist of subverting an existing proverb in a way that questions its "truth," or in employing a proverb that engages and critiques the logic of another proverb.