Dundes (1965) and Adams (1973) suggest that folklore validates and maintains conformity orrncontrol in or over the society and educates certain aspects of culture and justifies its rituals andrninstitutions, and shows the manner of thinking, mode of life, and attitudes of the society. Hence,rnthe major goal of this study was examining the images of women in Arsi Oromo folktales,rnfolksongs and proverbs. To achieve this goal an attempt was made to collect and analyzernfolktales, folksongs and proverbs from two districts in east Arsi zone. The data were collectedrnthrough interviewing people from the study area, using focused group discussions, makingrnobservations of the discussions and also using already documented folktales, folksongs andrnproverbs. The study revealed that images of women in Arsi Oromo folktales, folksongs andrnproverbs have been portrayed both positively and negatively and that images of women in all thernthree genres were highly distorted though some positive images also existed. Regarding thernpositive images of women, some of the Arsi Oromo folktales, folksongs and proverbs havernrepresented some groups of women, for example, wives as faithful, honest and loving; mothers asrnfair and thoughtful; and female beings in general as wise and problem-solving. There are alsornsome positive representations of women that are manifested only in the proverbs. These are thernportrayal of women in general as cautious and suspicious beings; wives and girls asrnindispensable persons; and mothers as generous. However, the largest parts of the collectedrnfolktales, folksongs and proverbs have represented women in a negative and distorted manner.rnThese include the representations of women in general as shameless, selfish and greedy, troublernmakers and evil-minded, stupid, and as inferior to men in every aspect; and in particular, wivesrnas unfaithful and adulterous, and step-mothers and co-wives as cruel and jealous. Moreover,rnsome negative representations of women were observed only in the sample proverbs. Theyrninclude the depiction of women generally as liars, pretenders, deceivers, submissive, quiet andrnweak, unintelligent, and careless and unreliable, on the one hand, and wives as disagreeable andrndisobedient, on the other. The other point found out was that images of women in the threerngenres vary. That is, some positive and negative representations of women exist only in thernproverbs but not in the folktales and folksongs. In general, the over all result revealed that therndeep-rooted attitude of the patriarchal society that attempted to establish the superiority of menrnand subordination of women in its oral literature. Regarding the organization of this study, it isrnmade up of four chapters. The first chapter deals with the introductory part of the study whichrnincludes the background, statement of the problem, the objectives, the significance, the scope, thernmethodology and the definition of some important terms of the study. In the second chapterrnrelevant literature is reviewed and also the socio-cultural background of the Arsi Oromo isrnpresented. The third chapter includes the analysis of the folktales, folksongs and proverbsrncollected from the study area. In the fourth chapter an effort was made to provide a conclusionrnbased on the discussions of the foregoing chapters.