Constructions of traditional womanhood in Botswana myths and popular culture

Abstract

Mythic-historical narratives, oral legends, popular culture, and traditionalmarriage rituals offer African traditional forms of performance that shedlight on the nature of sexual politics in Africa as well as practices ofblack female expression and popular resistance. These performanceforms contribute to the circulation of negative constructions of blackAfrican women. This article sets up a genealogy of the image that beginswith oral narratives and continues through portrayals of actual women.It examines misogynistic and stereotypical depictions of women in theBotswana collective cultural imaginary and in transnational forms ofrepresentation.