Woman as the passage.

Some time back, I posted an intriguing article on the cross dressing warriors of Liberia.

Malada quotes:

a boy's passage to adulthood is symbolically represented by the donning of female garb. He must first pass through a dangerous indeterminate zone between male and female identity before finally becoming a man

And then responds:

I notice a lack of female cross-dressing for becoming an adult. I think something is really off about this imbalance.

-m


Yes, technically, it is an imbalance. But it balances out when you consider that women usually have their own rites of passage at menarche.

It sorta works like this: Men have to go through several portals--birth is one, and into manhood another. In this country, often the first sexual experience is a rite of passage. Certain Native American Shaman often have to live as female for a specified amount of time, even acting as female in sexual situations to the other men of the tribe, clan, or village. (I wish I could remember where I read that.)

Because women have the menstrual cycle and are able to give birth, they ARE the gateways.

One rite of passage I've heard of at menarche is that the female members of the girl's family will all slap her face. Explainations run from "To make yor cheeks red to show your embarassment at being a woman (i.e. sexually able to reproduce)", "To make sure you don't get pregnant out of wedlock", "To match the color of your blood".

One woman I know told her mother she'd started her first period. Her mother slapped her across the cheek, and then told her to go upstairs and tell her aunt. She did so, and her aunt slapped her and told her to go next door and tell her grand mother. She went next door, told her grandmother, and just as granny was about to slap, she ducked.

"I'd caught on by then", she explained.

With men, manhood is a nebulous thing. Males get erections even in utero, so that isn't a real indicator. There is no clear-cut physiological delimiter. With women, there is no mistaking the onset of adulthood; the sight and smell of blood is unmistakeable. With men, they don't have the burden of childbearing, nor breast feeding. The only thing that ties a man to his family is his sense of social honor, or possibly the continued supply of sex from his mate(s). With women, every month we have the reminder of our adulthood, unless we are carrying or nursing children.

Men only have to go through rites of passage once. Women do it over and over.