The Violation of Men’s Rights in Selected Northern Sotho Texts

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the violation of men’s rights in selected Northern Sotho texts. The study is guided by a qualitative approach. The approach involves collecting and analysing non-numerical data to understand concepts, opinions, or experiences. In this study, purposive sampling was employed. The researcher deliberately chooses whom to include in the study based on their ability to provide the necessary data. Data are collected using content and document analysis from sampled texts. Like other analytical methods in qualitative research methods, document analysis requires that data be examined and interpreted in order to elicit meaning. Thematic analysis was also used as the method of systematically identifying, organising, and offering insight into patterns of meaning (themes) across the dataset. New Historicism is advocated in this study; this theory seeks to find the meaning of a text by considering it within the context of the prevailing ideas and social assumptions of the historical era in which the text is produced. The rise of New Historicism is predicated upon the Poststructuralist tenet that appealed to New Historicism was the assumption that history was always ‘narrated’ and therefore the first sense of the events of the past are unreasonable and cannot be defended successfully. As a theory emerging as a reaction to old Historicism which viewed the text ‘as an autonomous entity’ (Ryan, 1999: 128), The study finds out that men also become victims of abuse, and the violation of their rights is just as criminal as the violation of the rights of their female counterparts. This study also inspires harmony and peaceful coexistence among consumers of its content. It is recommended that more studies of similar kinds should be undertaken to influence humanity to desist from violating the rights of other human beings.