"Na Men Dey Cheat but Na Women Dey Fear DNA Test": The Meme-ification of Misogyny and the Semiotic Construction of Gender Stereotypes in Nigerian Online Forums Discussing Paternity Fraud

Main Article Content

Opeyemi Olawe
Godwin OGBIJI

Abstract

While extensive research has examined gender stereotypes and misogyny in digital media, the specific role of memes in perpetuating these issues, particularly regarding paternity fraud, has received limited attention. This study, therefore, addresses this gap by investigating how Nigerian online forums depict gender stereotypes and misogyny through memes. Data were collected from Nairaland and Twitter over six months (January to June 2024), with a focus on semiotic analysis to uncover ideological messages. Using Kress’s Multimodal Social Semiotics and Van Dijk’s Social Cognitive Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis as the analytical framework, the study identifies five prevalent stereotypes: women as sexual objects, deceitful, irresponsible, unreliable, and perpetrators of infidelity. These stereotypes are constructed through hyperbolic imagery, ironic captions, derogatory language, and culturally loaded symbols. The linguistic strategies employed include pejorative terms, humor, and colloquial expressions that trivialize serious issues and reinforce negative perceptions. The findings reveal how these representations reflect and perpetuate misogynistic attitudes within Nigerian society. The study concludes that memes significantly shape and sustain harmful gender stereotypes, highlighting the need for critical awareness in digital content creation and consumption to combat the spread of misogynistic ideologies.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
Olawe, O., & OGBIJI, G. (2025). "Na Men Dey Cheat but Na Women Dey Fear DNA Test": The Meme-ification of Misogyny and the Semiotic Construction of Gender Stereotypes in Nigerian Online Forums Discussing Paternity Fraud. Hybrid Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.58256/w8yeqj25
Section
Articles

How to Cite

Olawe, O., & OGBIJI, G. (2025). "Na Men Dey Cheat but Na Women Dey Fear DNA Test": The Meme-ification of Misogyny and the Semiotic Construction of Gender Stereotypes in Nigerian Online Forums Discussing Paternity Fraud. Hybrid Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.58256/w8yeqj25

References

References

Abdulyakeen, A., & Yusuf, Y. A. (2022). Social Media and Political Participation among Youth in South-Eastern Nigeria: A Case Study of 2015 and 2019 General Elections. Acta Politica Polonica, 54, 147–173.

Adannaya, U. (2023). Attribution, consequences and pervasiveness of baby factory in Nigeria (Doctoral dissertation, University of Portsmouth).

Adebomi, O. O. (2020). A multimodal analysis of memetic representation of individuals and institutions in Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari administration. Language. Text. Society, 7(1), 3-3.

Adegbite, A. (2016). The Nigerian legal framework on the use of DNA tests in child paternity dispute resolution.

Ajayi, T. M. (2020). Beyond joking: A pragmatic (de)construction of “Nigerian realities” in selected humour-evoking Facebook memes. Israeli Journal of Humor Research, 9(1), 47-71.

Ajayi, T. M., & Akinrinlola, T. (2021). Pragma-multimodal functions of COVID-19 memes in Nigerian context. Journal of Applied Language and Culture Studies, 4, 77-102.

Akano, R. D. (2024). Online Resistance in Nigeria: Legitimising the Oduduwa Nation Separatist Mandate Through Language. Professional Discourse & Communication, 6(1), 12-25.

Alfred, B. (2019). Analysing verbal and visual indexes in internet memes on the APC-led administration and “change” slogan in Nigeria. Covenant Journal of Language Studies.

Ani, C. C., & Chime, O. H. (2021). The presumption of legitimacy under Section 165 of the Evidence Act and its inadequacies in the determination of legitimacy status/paternity of a child: A call for the adoption of genetic testing (DNA test) as a preferable and conclusive proof of paternity. Journal of Law, Policy & Globalization, 111, 73.

Athoi, A. S. (2024). Digital Déjà vu: The Enduring Presence of Gender Stereotypes in Memes. SCHOLARS: Journal of Arts & Humanities, 6(1), 101-115.

Ayetoto-Oladehinde, T. (2024, April 29). DNA centre expands to Lekki as paternity fraud spurs demand. BusinessDay. https://businessday.ng/companies/article/dna-centre-expands-to-lekki-as-paternity-fraud-spurs-demand/

Ayres, S. (2017). Paternity Un (certainty): How the law surrounding paternity challenges negatively impacts family relationships and women's sexuality. Journal of Gender Race & Justice, 20, 237.

Bamgbose, G. (2021). Multimodal analysis of post-election memes in the Edo State (Nigeria) 2020 Gubernatorial Election. Argentinian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(2).

Boiko, L., Stakhniuk, N., & Vladyka, S. (2024). A comparative linguistic analysis of internet memes in English, Polish and Ukrainian: specifics, functions and language means. Multidisciplinary Science Journal, 6.

Bourne, P. A., Lewis, P., Griffiths, K., Coleman, P. G., Whitely, L., Dennis, A., ... & Meikle, A. L. (2023). The perspectives and practices of women on paternity fraud in Jamaica: Post COVID-19.

Browne-Barbour, V. S. (2015). Mama's baby, papa's maybe: disestablishment of paternity. Akron Law Review, 48, 263.

Cutas, D., & Smajdor, A. (2020). ‘Duped fathers’, ‘cuckoo children’, and the problem of basing fatherhood on biology: A philosophical analysis. In Assistierte Reproduktion mit Hilfe Dritter: Medizin-Ethik-Psychologie-Recht, 171-182.

Dancygier, B., & Vandelanotte, L. (2017). Internet memes as multimodal constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 28(3), 565-598.

Daniels, G. (2021). Glass Ceilings: cybermisogyny is a sign of unchecked sexism in media and newsrooms. Agenda, 35(2), 123-135.

Drakett, J., Rickett, B., Day, K., & Milnes, K. (2018). Old jokes, new media–Online sexism and constructions of gender in Internet memes. Feminism & psychology, 28(1), 109-127.

Efut, M. R., & Chiagoziem, A. (2021). Paternity fraud: Examining its causes, tort of deceit and victims compensation. GSJ, 9(12).

Esposito, E. (2023). The visual semiotics of digital misogyny: female leaders in the viewfinder. Feminist Media Studies, 23(8), 3815-3831.

Fairclough, N. and Wodak, R. (1997) Critical discourse analysis. In van Dijk T (ed.) Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. London: Sage, pp.258–284

Falade, T. M. A. (2022). Context, discourse issues and common ground strategies in selected dialogic internet memes (Doctoral dissertation).

Fubara, S. J. (2020). A pragmatic analysis of the discourse of humour and irony in selected memes on social media. International Journal of Language and Literary Studies, 2(2), 76-95.

Ghaffari, S. (2023). Discourses of celebrities on Instagram: digital femininity, self-representation and hate speech. In Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (pp. 43-60). Routledge.

Grundlingh, L. (2018). Memes as speech acts. Social Semiotics, 28(2), 147-168.

Holm, C. H. (2021). What do you meme? The Sociolinguistic potential of internet memes. Leviathan: Interdisciplinary Journal in English, (7), 1-20.

Idegbekwe, D., Teibowei, M. T., & Onopa, Y. A. (2020). Conceptual Act Analysis of the Emotive Use of COVID-19 Memes on Nigeria-related Social Media Platforms. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities.

Igwebuike, E. and Chimuanya, L. (2023) Self-promotion, ideology and power in the social media posts of Nigerian Female Political Leaders. Journal of Language and Politics 23(1): 67–90. Crossref.

Kavanagh, E., Litchfield, C., & Osborne, J. (2019). Sporting women and social media: Sexualization, misogyny, and gender-based violence in online spaces. International Journal of Sport Communication, 12(4), 552-572.

KhosraviNik, M., & Esposito, E. (2018). Online hate, digital discourse and critique: Exploring digitally-mediated discursive practices of gender-based hostility. Lodz papers in pragmatics, 14(1), 45-68.

Kostadinovska-Stojchevska, B., & Shalevska, E. (2018). Internet memes and their socio-linguistic features. European Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics Studies, 2(4).

Nissenbaum, A., & Shifman, L. (2018). Meme templates as expressive repertoires in a globalizing world: A cross-linguistic study. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 23(5), 294-310.

Nwankwo, P. F. U. (2021). The challenges of failed marriages in the Nigerian society. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Journal of Private and Public Law, 3(1).

Obalowu, I. A., & Rahim, A. A. (2022). Marital infidelity and paternity dispute in Nigeria: An Islamic perspective. Al-Hikmah: International Journal of Islamic Studies and Human Sciences, 5(5), 1-17.

Obiegbu, J. A. (2016). "Pidgin English as a Lingua Franca in Nigeria: An Overview." Linguistic Research Journal 11(1), 22-30.

Hodge, B. (2014). Social semiotics. In The Routledge companion to global popular culture (pp. 36-44). Routledge.

Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Routledge.

Van Leeuwen, T. (2005). Introducing social semiotics. Routledge.

Okebie, C. J., & Konstantinidou, E. (2021). Potentials and effectiveness of the tort of deceit in addressing paternity fraud issues. Potentials and Effectiveness of the Tort of Deceit in Addressing Paternity Fraud Issues.

Ololajulo, B. (2018). Unshared identity: Posthumous paternity in a contemporary Yoruba community. African Books Collective.

Ope-Davies, T., Adedeji, K., & Aina, O. (2023). Humourising COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis in Nigeria: A Discourse Study of the Selected Online Memes and Posts. University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature, 7(II), 243-255.

Osisanwo, A., & Falade, T. M. (2024). Directives and references in selected coronavirus-motivated internet memes. Language and Semiotic Studies.

Ostanina-Olszewska, J., & Majdzińska-Koczorowicz, A. (2019). A Cognitive Linguistics approach to internet memes on selected Polish internet sites. Cognitive Studies, (19).

Oyemade, O., & Adeagbo, A. (2020). Memes as Ideological Representations in the 2019 Nigerian Presidential Campaigns: A Multimodal Approach. Language and Semiotic Studies, 6(1), 78-103.

Peng, A. Y., Hou, J. Z., KhosraviNik, M., & Zhang, X. (2023). “She uses men to boost her career”: Chinese digital cultures and gender stereotypes of female academics in Zhihu discourses. Social Semiotics, 33(4), 750-768.

Perez-Vaisvidovsky, N. (2019). Fathers as frauds: On the criminalization of fathers in the parental leave for fathers program in Israel. Men and Masculinities, 22(2), 127-150.

Peterside, D. (2021, February 15). Paternity fraud and the upsurge in DNA testing. Premium Times. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/442949-paternity-fraud-and-the-upsurge-in-dna-testing-by-dakuku-peterside.html

Powell, A., Henry, N., Powell, A., & Henry, N. (2017). Online misogyny, harassment and hate crimes. Sexual violence in a digital age, 153-193.

Premium Times. (2021, September 18). INTERVIEW: Six of 10 children in Nigeria brought for DNA testing not fathered by supposed fathers – Geneticist. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/485520-interview-six-of-10-children-in-nigeria-brought-for-dna-testing-not-fathered-by-supposed-fathers-geneticist.html?tztc=1

Punchng. (2023, December 16). Paternity fraud: Shocking revelations as more couples embrace DNA testing. https://punchng.com/paternity-fraud-shocking-revelations-as-more-couples-embrace-dna-testing/

Rogus, C. (2014). Fighting the establishment: The need for procedural reform of our paternity laws. Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, 21, 67.

Saluja, N. and Thilaka, N. (2021). Women Leaders And Digital Communication: Gender Stereotyping Of Female Politicians On Twitter. Journal of Content, Community & Communication, 13 (7), 227- 241, DOI: 10.31620/JCCC.12.20/19 227

Sani, A. U. (2020). Study of metaphor types in selected Nigerians’ COVID-19 internet memes.

Santoniccolo, F., Trombetta, T., Paradiso, M. N., & Rollè, L. (2023). Gender and media representations: A review of the literature on gender stereotypes, objectification and sexualization. International journal of environmental research and public health, 20(10), 5770.

Simões, R. B., Amaral, I., Santos, S. J., & Brites, M. J. (2021, July). New media, old misogyny: framing μediated madonna on instagram from an ageing perspective. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 430-442). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Snyder, C. K. (2022). Navigating Online Misogyny: Strategies, Methods, and Debates in Digital Feminism. Feminist Studies, 48(3), 776-789.

Sobieraj, S. (2018). Bitch, slut, skank, cunt: Patterned resistance to women’s visibility in digital publics. Information, Communication & Society, 21(11), 1700-1714.

Ugoala, B. (2020). Adaptability and Linguistic creativity of Nigerian English in internet memes. International Journal of Integrative Humanism, 12(2), 50-65.

Van Dijk T (2001) Critical discourse analysis. In Tannen D, Schiffrin D, Hamilton H (eds) Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell, pp.352–371.

Van Dijk, T. A. (1997). Discourse as social interaction. Sage.

Van Dijk, T. A. (2006). Politics, ideology, and discourse. In R. Wodak (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd ed., pp. 728-740). Elsevier.

Van Dijk, T. A. (2009). Society and discourse: How social contexts influence text and talk. Cambridge University Press.

Vickery, J. R., & Everbach, T. (2018). Mediating misogyny. Gender, Technology, and, 9-49.

Vickery, J. R., & Everbach, T. (2018). The persistence of misogyny: From the streets, to our screens, to the White House. Mediating misogyny: Gender, technology, and harassment, 1-27.

Wilhelm, C. (2021). Gendered (in) visibility in digital media contexts. Studies in Communication Sciences, 21(1), 99-113.

Zeghiche, S., Côté, I., & Lavoie, K. (2023). ‘Once you open that Pandora's box, you cannot close it’: A qualitative study on family relationships following insemination fraud. Reproductive BioMedicine Online, 47(2), 103220.