Patriarchal Symbolic Order: The Syllables of Power As Accentuated in Waswahili Poetry‪.‬

Introduction For a long time gender relations have continued to draw both national and international debates because they involve social relationships between men and women. Hence, patriarchy has continued to offer us gender subject positions that are socially constructed that direct our thoughts and actions, and clearly portraying our femininity or masculinity. In this article, I will discuss how masculinity is depicted in works of poetry from the 19th century to the second half of the 20th-century. And as a consequence, masculinity is socially constructed and is usually created through a historical process that sustains gender practices controlled by a hegemonic symbolic order sanctioned by male ideologies.