On sex discrimination in Persian proverbs

Abstract

Proverbs are important part of a language and carrier of a culture. They reflect people's perspective and society systems. The discrimination and derogation against women in societies can be reflected in proverbs because they impact the social concepts greatly. By studying proverbs, the deep-rooted gender biased ideology in a society is observable. Persian is not a gender language, but studying 12,000 Persian proverbs through this research shows there are elements of oppression in some proverbs of this language which relate to women and violate the rights and dignity of them. 179 proverbs out of 12,000 ones include discrimination against both sexes. 84% of them include elements of semantic derogation against females and 16% include sex discrimination against males. Semantic derogation in Persian language shows women dominantly as: "evil and capricious", "The root of disasters" and "inferior and worthless" beings and men dominantly as "avaricious" absolutist and "cruel." © 2013 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.