Women Through Anti-Proverbs

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

   PDF

2. Part I

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Women in American Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 3-24

   3. Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 25-57

3. Part II

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 59-59

      PDF

   2. A Woman’s Nature as Represented in Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 61-80

   3. “Give a Girl Enough Rope and She’ll Ring the Wedding Bell”: The Nature of Young Women, Girls, Daughters and Brides as Represented in Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 81-93

   4. “Spinsters Live Longer Than Married Women Because Where There’s Hope There’s Life”: Spinsters as Represented in Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 95-103

   5. “Behind Every Man Who Lives Within His Income Is a Wife Who Doesn’t”: The Figure of Wife as Portrayed in Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 105-118

   6. “Many a Widow Finds It Easy to Marry Again Because Dead Men Tell No Tales”: Widows as Revealed Through Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 119-123

   7. “On the Matrimonial Sea, the Hand That Rocks the Cradle Very Seldom Rocks the Boat”: Mothers as Revealed Through Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 125-134

   8. “When the Mother-In-Law Comes in at the Door, Love Flies Out of the Window”: The Mother-in-Law as Reflected in Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 135-140

   9. “You Know a Bad Beginning Makes a Good Endin’,” as the Old Woman Said: Generic Old Women as Represented in Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 141-146

4. Part III

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 147-147

      PDF

   2. “The Breasts on the Other Side of the Fence Look Greener”: Women’s Sexuality as Revealed Through Anglo-American Anti-Proverbs

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 149-170

   3. “Never Send a Boy to Do a Man’s Job–Send a Woman”: Female Professions and Occupations

      • Anna T. Litovkina

      Pages 171-191

5. Back Matter

   Pages 193-211

   PDF

This book examines stereotypical traits of women as they are reflected in Anglo-American anti-proverbs, also known as proverb transformations, deliberate proverb innovations, alterations, parodies, variations, wisecracks, fractured proverbs, and proverb mutations. Through these sayings and witticisms the author delineates the image of women that these anti-proverbs reflect, her qualities, attributes and behavior. The book begins with an analysis of how women’s role in the family, their sexuality and traditional occupations are presented in proverbs, and presents an overview of the genre of the anti-proverb. The author then analyses how this image of women is transformed in anti-proverbs, sometimes subverting, but often reinforcing the sexist bias of the original. This engaging work will appeal to students and scholars of humour studies, paremiology, gender studies, cultural studies, folklore and sociolinguistics alike.

• female stereotypes
• proverbs
• humour
• paremiology
• folklore
• Phraseology
• satire
• irony
• parody
• jokes
• fractured proverbs
• proverb mutations
• proverb transformations
• folklore
• anti-proverbs
• gender roles

“An elegant study of the nexus between social ethos, proverbs and humorous resistance, Anna T. Litovkina’s collection of modern Anglo-American anti-proverbs about women and gender roles shows how humour captures shifts in social power structures over time. It lays out a valuable road map for future studies in other cultures and illustrates the power of humorous challenge and inversion to subvert the proverbial wisdom of the ages.”(Jessica Milner Davis, University of Sydney, Australia)

"A must read on the representation of women in popular culture by a leading scholar in anti-proverbs." (Salvatore Attardo, Texas A&M University-Commerce, USA)

“Proverbially speaking, Anna T. Litovkina has broken the mold, has crashed through the glass ceiling, and has thought outside the box of traditional proverb collections of women with her collection and study of anti-proverbs about women. As such, it is an important book about stereotypical views of women couched in proverbial language.” (From the ‘Foreword’ by Wolfgang Mieder, University of Vermont, USA)

“The study by Anna T. Litovkina is a unique resource for both humour and proverb scholars. It brings a wealth of examples of anti-proverbs about women rigorously grouped into categories that correspond to the diversity of Anglo-American cultural experience – not so much different as a whole from that of many other cultures, but still unique in its sheer variety and specificity. Reading the book – and there is no necessity to start from the beginning, just browse and get involved – one cannot but admire the creativity of the language and the people who so wonderfully turn it around. Besides, each anti-proverb is so much fun on its own, although many will be familiar to the reader. Still I am certain there is no other place you can find all of them together. And you will be all the better for the experience.”  (Władysław Chłopicki, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland)

 

• Department of English Language and Literature, J. Selye University, Komárno, Slovakia

  Anna T. Litovkina

Anna T. Litovkina is Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, János Selye University, Slovakia. She is the author of numerous articles and fifteen books on proverbs, including Old Proverbs Never Die, They Just Diversify: A Collection of Anti-Proverbs (with Wolfgang Mieder, 2006), and “Do You Serve Lawyers and Politicians Here?”: Stereotyped Lawyers and Politicians in Anglo-American Jokes and Anti-Proverbs (2016). 

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