Tradition as a Tool for Oppressing Women in Witi Ihimaera’s The Whale Rider Anonymous 10th Grade

In most patriarchal societies that are primarily governed by traditions such as the social order in which Witi Ihimaera’s The Whale Rider is set, most cultural practices and traditions are often used as a tool for suppressing women. The women in these societies not only live in the shadows of their male counterparts but often have to struggle in order to emerge as strong forces in the community—forces to reckon with, notably in the presence of such annihilating and dominating male presence. Witi Ihimaera has explicitly and indubitably brought out the concept of tradition and how it is used to ameliorate and advance the gender disparity between males and females in his novel The Whale Rider.

After Kahu’s birth, Koro Apirana is disappointed because the child is a girl and “has broken the male line of descent” (10) in their tribe. Koro decides that he will not have anything to do with the child since she is a girl. When Koro Apirana gets the news that the child is to be named after Kahutia Te Rangi, the great founder of the tribe, he vehemently opposes it as he feels that “naming a girl-child after the founder of the tribe was belittling Kahutia Te Rangi’s prestige” (14). Because Kahu was a man’s name and that of a great founder...