Gender Stereotypes and The Dynamics of Women Evaluation: A Study of Igbo Anthroponymic Systems

The essentialist belief or perception that females are less valuable or are not worth as much as males and practices that mandate this behavior portray age-long and ideological underpinnings that drive gender discrimination. The aim of this article is to examine how unwritten rules of society and constrained expectations about women influence some derogatory names given to female children and their cultural reconstructions over time given a positive life outcome. The study adopts Ernestine Friedel’s Social theory of gender and the Status Characteristic theory to challenge the perception that women are less valuable and explore ways in which normative expectations, male dominance and economic realities affect the values assigned to women in each culture. This is critical social research that investigated the semantic contents of some derogatory female Igbo names and their cultural reconstructions as changes in social context raised the cultural worth of those females in their life trajectories. It employed the ethnographic method of study with narratives, participant observation and informal interview methodology for collection of qualitative data. The paper analyses the gender-based values, ideologies and norms that mandate women devaluation and other relationships that have placed women in a subordinate status. It offers an emic understanding of a process of change that transforms negative attitudes toward women indicated by the new names given to them. The study recommends a cultural reorientation as a means to ‘break the bias’ and end all forms of discrimination against girls.