WOMEN DEPICTION AND TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES IN BIBLICAL AND SELECT CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES IN JOS

Abstract

Gender roles are defined based on different expectations that people have of others based on their sex, societalvalues and beliefs about gender, which give cues about what sort of behaviour is appropriate for what sex. Extant literature show stereotypical gender roles in politics and diverse professional circles that mostly indicate women as subservient and dependent on men and men as chauvinists. What remains uncertain is the level with which Christian communities understand and interpret biblical gender roles and appropriate them. This study investigates select Christian sects in Jos to determine the depiction and assigning of gender roles within their communities and ascertain how societal and biblical values and beliefs determine how the female gender is particularly perceived and treated in the communities. A quasi-experimental and survey approach is adopted using interviews, questionnaires and observations amongst the clergy and laity of diverse Christian sects to elicit information on gender roles in Christian communities and the data subjected to critical discourse analysis from the Discourse Historical Approach of Ruth Wodak. The study offers profound insight into how women roles are constructed and deconstructed in religious hierarchy on the basis of sameness and the construction of differences and exclusion.