The Gendered Ideologies of Naming Traditional Male Aphrodisiacs in Lesotho

Abstract

This article examines the naming practices employed for traditional male Sesotho aphrodisiacs with the aim of unveiling the ideologies reflected and promoted by these names. It draws on a combined analytic approach of socio-onomastics and Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (Feminist CDA). While a socio-onomastic analysis of traditional male Sesotho aphrodisiacs shows that naming is a discursive practice interwoven with the cultural beliefs of the Basotho, a Feminist CDA makes visible the disparaging beliefs often hidden in seemingly neutral discourses. Feminist CDA further reveals how gendered power relations are discursively reproduced by explicit and implicit meanings inherent in the names of traditional male Sesotho aphrodisiacs. This analysis thus shows how dominant gendered power relations are promoted; however, it also shows how, to some extent, these gendered power relations seem to be contested. Overall, this article argues that naming is a discursive practice that is used, on the one hand, to sustain and, on the other hand, to seemingly challenge patriarchal inequalities imposed by the cultural beliefs of Basotho society.