Reflecting on women's voices in the anti-gender-based violence discourse in Zimbabwean music

Zhou, S., Sande, N. and Landa, N. (2022) Reflecting on women's voices in the anti-gender-based violence discourse in Zimbabwean music. In: Chitando, E., Chirongoma, S. and Manyonganise, M. (eds.) Gendered Spaces, Religion and Migration in Zimbabwe: Implications for Economic Development. Routledge: London, pp. 98-112. ISBN 9781003317609 (doi: 10.4324/9781003317609-9)

Abstract

In an endeavor to advocate for an end to gender-based violence, it is important that we objectively reflect on progress in key indicators of social and economic development, where people, particularly women, are concerned. This chapter engages in a reflection of women’s contribution in the often-contested anti-gender-based violence (GBV) discourse through music in Zimbabwe. Music has been used as an instrument of protest and resistance on various platforms, including personal and political. This chapter employs a Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) theoretical lens to assess how, through music, women in Zimbabwe challenge violence against women. It takes an intimate and close-up analysis of a purposive sample of songs composed and performed by women musicians in response to gender-based violence in Zimbabwe. Our aim was to assess how women’s voices are deployed in the sampled songs for purposes of protest, as well as raising awareness amid growing incidences of gender-based violence. We argue that women’s voices present a unified narrative that contests the various micro-phenomena surrounding and contributing to the perpetuation of violence against women and girls. Findings indicate that gender-based violence seems to be woven into the fabric of postcolonial existence in Zimbabwe. Emerging patterns from the songs indicate layered meanings as women uniquely articulate the GBV phenomenon from an insider perspective. Consequently, women, through music, call on a universal God to execute divine intervention, save innocent victims, and exact revenge on perpetrators of violence against women. The narrative characteristic of the music, coupled with its religious ethos and Christian themes, gives women’s voices power, audience appeal, and agency in the subversion of the status quo. We further conclude that women’s voices, although sparse, are used not only as a protest against the brutality of toxic masculinities and treacherous patriarchy but also as a coping and resilience strategy to salve wounds, motivate women, and nurture a spirit of resistance for survival.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Sande, Dr Nomatter
• Authors: Zhou, S., Sande, N., and Landa, N.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Publisher: Routledge
• ISBN: 9781003317609