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Okay...
Random, thesis-related stuff:
Susan Starr Sered (Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister) says that Women's Religions[1] tend to focus *way more* on healing (and the maintaining of social ties/relationships) than they do on rites of passage, when it comes to the types of rituals they do.
A rite of passage is a ritual that officially transfers you from one social state of being to another.
E.G.: A funeral *officially* (as opposed to litterally) transfers you from One of the Living, to One of the Dead. Gets you moving in the right dirrection, if you will.
A wedding *officially* (legally?) transfers you from single-hood to couple-hood (and, occasionally, from childhood to adulthood, as I experienced about a month ago), even though you have, presumably, been *unofficially* out of single-hood for some time now.
See?
Sered suggests that Male Dominated (as opposed to Female Dominated -- see above) religions tend to pay a lot of attention to rites of passage in part, at least, because of blood taboos (menstruation, menarche, birth, menopause). And, perhaps, also because the male transition into adulthood is less physically obvious than the female transition into adulthood, and because there's no guess-work involved in figuring out who a kid's biological mother is.
Anyway.
So they tend to focus on healing (various illnesses, but also various relationships).
Right.
Goddess Spirituality *does* do Rites of Passage.
But, if you look at the menarche rituals, at least, (I've read a few descriptions in books, but I've never actually seen one) the underlying message is more about being confidant in, and not being ashamed of, your body -- rather than it being about 'You are a Woman Now' or what-have-you.
Similarly, there are GS women who undergo something like a menarche rite when they are decades past their first period -- because they want to clear out all the shame-shame-shame crap that they absorbed during their first 'go-round' with menstruation.
Also:
Sophie Laws (I may have talked about this before), she talks about public vs private space, and has this (paraphrased) to say:
One is not supposed to talk about menstruation in public.
One is not supposed to talk about menstruation in front of men.
("Talk about" extends to 'make reference to', 'openly discuss', 'openly display', 'acknowledge the existence of', etc.)
As such, any place where there are men, qualifies as 'public space' (at least in the context of menstruation and, possibly, (given the content of your average advertisment) women's bodies in general).
Consequently, one could suggest that "women-only space" = "private space" (even when there are, say, a hundred or more women in said space).
[There's some connective bit of information that I need to put here, but I don't know what it is yet].
If we look at those well-past-your-first-period "menarche" rituals as healing rituals (which, I think, is what they are), then one could say that...
1) All the "Menstruation is Evil" stuff as something brought on by a male-centric culture that views *all* bleeding as 'wound' bleeding.
2) That women need to recover from having absorbed all that stuff.
3) That, because our culture is male-centric and says "Menstruation is Evil", and because all male-containing space = public space = space in-which the male-centric status-quo is upheld (to at least *some* degree), then:
4) Women *need* women-only-space (= private space = space where the male-centric opinion of menstruation (or what-have-you) need not be upheld in order to maintain the social piece /social ties -- see above re: importance of relationships in Women's Religions) in order to hash out all this stuff, and come to terms with their own bodies on... a level playing field? Without interfearance from the status-quo? Something like that, anyway. :-)
Uh... yeah.
So. If that made any sense at all, comments would be appreciated. :-)
Random, thesis-related stuff:
Susan Starr Sered (Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister) says that Women's Religions[1] tend to focus *way more* on healing (and the maintaining of social ties/relationships) than they do on rites of passage, when it comes to the types of rituals they do.
A rite of passage is a ritual that officially transfers you from one social state of being to another.
E.G.: A funeral *officially* (as opposed to litterally) transfers you from One of the Living, to One of the Dead. Gets you moving in the right dirrection, if you will.
A wedding *officially* (legally?) transfers you from single-hood to couple-hood (and, occasionally, from childhood to adulthood, as I experienced about a month ago), even though you have, presumably, been *unofficially* out of single-hood for some time now.
See?
Sered suggests that Male Dominated (as opposed to Female Dominated -- see above) religions tend to pay a lot of attention to rites of passage in part, at least, because of blood taboos (menstruation, menarche, birth, menopause). And, perhaps, also because the male transition into adulthood is less physically obvious than the female transition into adulthood, and because there's no guess-work involved in figuring out who a kid's biological mother is.
Anyway.
So they tend to focus on healing (various illnesses, but also various relationships).
Right.
Goddess Spirituality *does* do Rites of Passage.
But, if you look at the menarche rituals, at least, (I've read a few descriptions in books, but I've never actually seen one) the underlying message is more about being confidant in, and not being ashamed of, your body -- rather than it being about 'You are a Woman Now' or what-have-you.
Similarly, there are GS women who undergo something like a menarche rite when they are decades past their first period -- because they want to clear out all the shame-shame-shame crap that they absorbed during their first 'go-round' with menstruation.
Also:
Sophie Laws (I may have talked about this before), she talks about public vs private space, and has this (paraphrased) to say:
One is not supposed to talk about menstruation in public.
One is not supposed to talk about menstruation in front of men.
("Talk about" extends to 'make reference to', 'openly discuss', 'openly display', 'acknowledge the existence of', etc.)
As such, any place where there are men, qualifies as 'public space' (at least in the context of menstruation and, possibly, (given the content of your average advertisment) women's bodies in general).
Consequently, one could suggest that "women-only space" = "private space" (even when there are, say, a hundred or more women in said space).
[There's some connective bit of information that I need to put here, but I don't know what it is yet].
If we look at those well-past-your-first-period "menarche" rituals as healing rituals (which, I think, is what they are), then one could say that...
1) All the "Menstruation is Evil" stuff as something brought on by a male-centric culture that views *all* bleeding as 'wound' bleeding.
2) That women need to recover from having absorbed all that stuff.
3) That, because our culture is male-centric and says "Menstruation is Evil", and because all male-containing space = public space = space in-which the male-centric status-quo is upheld (to at least *some* degree), then:
4) Women *need* women-only-space (= private space = space where the male-centric opinion of menstruation (or what-have-you) need not be upheld in order to maintain the social piece /social ties -- see above re: importance of relationships in Women's Religions) in order to hash out all this stuff, and come to terms with their own bodies on... a level playing field? Without interfearance from the status-quo? Something like that, anyway. :-)
Uh... yeah.
So. If that made any sense at all, comments would be appreciated. :-)
