- Title
- Gender stereotyping in traditional healing practices
- Creator
- Mayaba, Nothemba
- Description
- People residing in rural areas use traditional medicines as their primary health care. They consult traditional healers. Traditional healing is a gender-based practice, although both men and women engaged in this practice. In some communities there are more female traditional healers than male traditional healers, including Mhlontlo Local Municipality. The main aim of the study was to investigate gender stereotyping in traditional healing in Mhlontlo Local Municipality. This study also investigated the relationship between male and female traditional healers, challenges faced by female traditional healers, transfer of traditional knowledge by female traditional healers and traditional healers’ unions. Snowball sampling was used to identify and select 79 traditional healers from Mhlontlo Local Municipality. Data was gathered using a questionnaire. The majority of traditional healers in the study area were females. Most of them have primary education, some with secondary education, and others with no formal education, and few with tertiary school. Most traditional healers were between 46-60 years. Female traditional healers constitute 70% of the study. The majority of them see between 11 and 20 patients per month. Most of the traditional healers had an experience of 21-30 years in traditional healing. The study also revealed that female traditional healers experience challenges in traditional healing. Diviners and herbalists work together, this denotes a relationship between them. Female traditional healers also have a problem in transferring their knowledge and registering under traditional healers’ unions. In conclusion, the study found out that traditional healing is gender stereotyped. There are more diviners than herbalists, where most diviners are females and herbalists are males. There is no transfer of knowledge among diviners, as being a diviner is an ancestral calling.
- Date
- 2019
- Subject
- Gender identity -- Traditional healing -- Education Traditional medicines -- Primary health care Female traditional healers - - South Africa – Eastern
- Type
- Thesis, Masters, MSc
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/11260/1354
- Identifier
- vital:32262
- Format
- xii, 56 leaves, pdf
- Publisher
- Walter Sisulu University, Faculty of Natural Sciences
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Walter Sisulu University
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | Mayaba, N MSc 2019.pdf | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |