Images of women in Kenyan oral narratives

Kenyan feminists, like feminists in other parts of the world, claim that oral narratives depict women as weak, careless, vain and lacking in intelligence. The present paper challenges this contention. First and foremost, our aim is to show, using folktales from different Kenyan communities, that girls and women are depicted positively in traditional oral narratives. A second aim is to demonstrate that those who maintain that girls and women are depicted negatively either deliberately misread and misinterpret folktales so as to advance their claims, or lack training in theoretical approaches to the interpretation of folkloristic material. Finally, it will be pointed out that those who strive to rewrite Kenyan folktales so as to make them gender sensitive fail to appreciate why folktales have existed for generations, any why they continue to exist and appeal to people of all ages, irrespective of the audience's sex, education or status in society.