Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet: Women in Proverbs from Around the World
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Author | Mineke Schipper |
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ISBN | 9789386702883 |
Published Language | English |
Publication Year | 2017 |
Publisher | Speaking Tiger |
Binding | Paperback with flaps |
Pages | 456 |
Ships By | 2-3 days |
Description
The Sena tribe in Malawi and Mozambique have a proverb: ‘Never marry a wife with bigger feet than your own.’ The Chinese have an astonishingly similar message. And in Telugu, too, prospective husbands are warned away from women with long feet.
In cultures all over the globe, sex and gender issues have been expressed in proverbs?the world’s smallest literary genre. This irresistible book provides revealing insights into the female condition across centuries and continents. The hundreds of proverbs complied here also perpetuate contrasting views of men and women?men are inexorable tyrants, as well as insecure, fearful beings or easily seduced lovers while women are lamentable victims, and yet extremely powerful. These contradictions are exposed directly and surreptitiously in the examples collated here, speaking to all of us.
Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet collates the experiences of women through proverbs from 245 languages, both culturally and physically?women’s bodies as a whole, and each body part; their beautification, ageing and death. The vivid and earthy proverbs also reflect the phases of life?from girl to bride, to wife or co-wife, from mother to mother-in-law, widow and grandmother; the joys and sorrows of love, sex and childbearing; women’s work, their talents, and their power. They delineate the feminine ideal and vilify her fear-inducing counterpart?the talented, intelligent, powerful, defiant or occult woman.
Mineke Schipper’s stylish critical anthology is an entertaining rough guide showing us how far both sexes have progressed, through the timeless yet ever-evolving nature of cultural sayings and proverbs from every corner of the world.
Mineke Schipper is Emeritus Professor of Intercultural Literary Studies at the University of Leiden. She taught at the Universit? Libre du Congo and has held visiting professorships in Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso and China She has a Royal Order of Knighthood for building intercultural bridges nationally and internationally, inside and outside the academy' from The Netherlands. She continues her scholarly work at the Leiden University Centre for the Artsin Society (LUCAS).She is the author of several academic books, essays and novels, including Naked or Covered: A History of Dressing and Undressing Around the World (2017) and Imagining Insiders: Africa and the Question of Belonging (1999). Her internationally acclaimed Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet: Women in Proverbs from Around the World was also nominated in the Eureka Furore category: best female achievement.
Additional information
Author | |
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ISBN | |
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Publication Year | |
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Binding | |
Pages | 456 |
Ships By | 2-3 days |