Be a Man / Be a Woman
Jun. 30th, 2009 03:16 am![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathmanduI was re-watching the "Be a Man" sequence from Mulan. It's my favorite part. And it occurred to me---this is framed as becoming a man, developing the strength and speed and stamina a man should have. That's right in the title of the song. But all of those were things Mulan could do, with proper training, and I have another context for that kind of training.
It was a tradition of one of the Northwest Coast tribes. Before the modern industrial world interfered, their way of making a living relied heavily on fishing and boat travel. And the entry to womanhood, described by one of the last women to go through it, reflected this.
A coach-type person would collect all the girls in the right age range (mid-to-late teens) and take them down to the beach. They had to practice running up and down the beach, hour after hour, to build up their leg strength. They had to swim up and down the bay, hour after hour, to build their upper-body strength. The woman recounting this said "and just when we thought we were getting good at it, they told us we had to run without kicking up any sand."
When your coach thought you were ready, the womanhood initiation ritual was that you and two other people paddled wayyyyyyyy out to sea in a kayak. Then you climbed over the side, and the other two people paddled back while you had to swim home.
When you made it back to the beach (if you made it back to the beach), the whole tribe was waiting with a blanket and a bonfire and a victory song about how a girl went for a swim and a woman came home. The whole point was that you had developed the strength, stamina, skills to do an adult's work on the boats and to take care of yourself if you fell overboard.
This is why I am irritated by Clan of the Cave Bear and similar works that invent societies where manhood initiation rituals center on some kind of achievement, but womanhood initiation consists of first period and first intercourse. That is not what womanhood is about. And now I wish there were a version of the song called "Be a Woman".
It was a tradition of one of the Northwest Coast tribes. Before the modern industrial world interfered, their way of making a living relied heavily on fishing and boat travel. And the entry to womanhood, described by one of the last women to go through it, reflected this.
A coach-type person would collect all the girls in the right age range (mid-to-late teens) and take them down to the beach. They had to practice running up and down the beach, hour after hour, to build up their leg strength. They had to swim up and down the bay, hour after hour, to build their upper-body strength. The woman recounting this said "and just when we thought we were getting good at it, they told us we had to run without kicking up any sand."
When your coach thought you were ready, the womanhood initiation ritual was that you and two other people paddled wayyyyyyyy out to sea in a kayak. Then you climbed over the side, and the other two people paddled back while you had to swim home.
When you made it back to the beach (if you made it back to the beach), the whole tribe was waiting with a blanket and a bonfire and a victory song about how a girl went for a swim and a woman came home. The whole point was that you had developed the strength, stamina, skills to do an adult's work on the boats and to take care of yourself if you fell overboard.
This is why I am irritated by Clan of the Cave Bear and similar works that invent societies where manhood initiation rituals center on some kind of achievement, but womanhood initiation consists of first period and first intercourse. That is not what womanhood is about. And now I wish there were a version of the song called "Be a Woman".
