Gender Perception in Turkish Proverbs and Idioms – The Effect of Turkish Proverbs and Idioms on “Sexist/Gendered” Roles

Abstract

One of the most important aspects in reviewing the gender and sexism perception in a society is through the language which reflects the cultural structure of said society, which is one of the most important values of a society. The best way of analyzing a society’s cultural structure is through investigating, understanding and correctly deciphering its language. Proverbs and idioms, the
most powerful tools to convey meaning a language has, present the subconscious of the dominant culture and thereby form a small universe of societal view on gender. The primary goal of this article, is to reveal and discuss the gender roles expectations of the social and cultural structure from females and males within the context of feminity and masculinity in worthy of the gender(!)
by investigating the discourse of formulaic expressions. As a result of the intensive literature review carried out in line with this purpose, when the obtained Turkish proverbs and idoms that are based on gender roles are investigated, it is seen that at the social level, females are mostly addressed but unfortunately, they are usually attached negative connotations and in fact, even the responsibility for some negative male behavior is attributed to females.