A Gendered Study of Folk Poetry

Abstract

Gender-based moral laws and value systems create diversity in the social community. The concept of gender has been identified based on the biological difference between the genders as well as the social conditions that belong to both sides of society. Although there is a biological difference here, Anne Oakley, a Western anthropologist, is of the opinion that gender is not a biological term but a term with a psychological and cultural meaning. Society has ascribed gender roles to these two parties as they have gendered heteronormative behaviours. Ancient folk poetry reveals that different social roles and social conditions between men and women have been recreated since ancient times. The family corporation depicted in folk poetry presents gender roles and physical and mental interrelationships with the concepts of kinship and marriage. The purpose of this study is to examine how the performance of gender roles in contemporary rural society is depicted in folk poetry. This research is related to the problem of how the concept of equality between the genders is depicted in relation to the gendered character as prevalent at the time socially as depicted in folk poetry. Primary data collection was conducted through library reference and via the Internet. Data analysis was done under the qualitative data analysis method with folklore and gender theory as the primary theoretical aspect of this research. The study of the family was limited to the study of folk poetry based on the concepts of kinship and marriage and it was concluded that the activities of different gender characters are depicted in the folk poems. Family work in the common residence, economic cooperation, sexual reproduction, and education could be identified from the selected folk poetry.