The April 2009 issue in the magazine, Marie Claire, I found an interesting article ~ http://www.zinio.com/pages/MarieClaire/Apr-09/388692895/pg-126 (click 'inside')
This article intrigued me because it is the complete opposite of Seierstad's The Bookseller of Kabul and other related discussions that we have had in class.
"Ladies First" informs readers about an isolated village with only 500 people, and is located in southwestern China where women are more superior than men and daughters are more valued than sons. Yes - a matriarchy. According to tradition, money, land, etc are passed from mother to daughter and the men are never in control of either. Men do the hard labor while women are the head of the house and do the housework and farming. In this part of China, there is free love. This means women may have lovers with no strings attached. The following quotation I found to be extremely intriguing - "When Maoist forces tried to impose their values on Mosuo during the 60's and 70's - introducing Western-style marriage, attempting to take land out of women's hands - not a single man in town signed the petition supporting them. The Mosuo tradition was too ingrained - and beloved" (121). I think this is important to keep in mind when reading The Bookseller of Kabul and other related stories or articles pertaining to traditions. It is so interesting to me that as strongly as Afghani men feel about being the superior, the head of the family and in charge of the money and land, Mosuo men feel just as strongly that women should fill these responsibilities. Most likely it is due to the isolation of this village that westernization has not been too strongly imposed upon these people. Also, the words war, jail and rape do not exist within their language.
Although this tradition of women being superior to men may seem strange, this is all the Mosuo have known. After reading The Bookseller of Kabul and learning about severe inequalities and discrimination towards women, it is empowering to discover that somewhere around the world, women are treated in such a positive light.
Fascinating article Marika. After all this talk of patriarchy and oppression toward women, it's refreshing to see a change of pace. No surprise though -- the matriarchy of the Mosuo people is presented as awesome, perfect, and the solution to all of life's problems. I should've expected that, the article is in a women's magazine after all. I'm curious to know the man's opinion. I feel as though the petition anecdote didn't represent their view accurately. How is Maire Claire to know that the men didn't sign the petition because they loved their situation (or didn't lie about it to the media)?
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is making me doubt the accuracy of the article: Marie Claire said the Mosuo are so secluded that Western ideals don't touch them. I find that highly unlikely when the village thrives on tourism. Even if it's mostly Chinese tourists, their ideals are still drastically different from the Mosuo people. With so many people of a different culture in town, wouldn't that have some kind of influence?
Still, I'm very fascinated by matriarchal societies and am interested to read more about them. Thanks for sharing!
Melisa, I found another article about the Mosuo and someone named Norbu Lama commented on the article at the bottom, although he just writes a sentence or so he seems happy with the information that was being presented. But I do wish there was more info on the men to hear from their point of view.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question, I can't say for sure if they are influenced, but tourists just float through their town, so, I am not sure if the "westerners" truly have an influence. For example, when I was younger I visited a farm in an Amish community and the Amish still seemed pretty intent on keeping their values intact - regardless if there were tourists or not.
Thanks for the comment!
Marika
Here's the article I found if you are interested... http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/07/introduction_to.html
ReplyDeleteThis is a great find, Marika. I think it's interesting to hear what Cha Cuo says about typical patriarchs. When she asks, "Why would you want the marriage license to handcuff yourself?" it made me think about what marriage really means to women in a strict patriarchy. In "The Bookseller of Kabul" marriage was so close to slavery that it was frightening.
ReplyDeleteIt is refreshing and good to know that there are some societies around the world that aren't dominated by males You could even argue that we live in a matriarchy here in America. It's nowhere near as brutal and restricting as in Afghanistan, but men still have more power than women even though we say that we have gender equality. I mean, how many women are in the senate or house of representatives? I'm pretty sure it's less than half...actually, I just looked it up (hooray for wikipedia!). It's around 17 percent. To me that's a little one sided. Maybe we should take a page out of Mosuo's book...