In approximately 10 days I will be leaving for my trip. As a precursor to my trip, I went to an African week celebration where we were treated to performances of Ndebele dances, Ghanaian drumming, Shangaan dancing and praise and performance poetry. As part of the evening, we we asked to dress up. I swathed myself in scarves and painted my face in a Nigerian inspired pattern.
To the left, me, to the right, my inspiration (ref: superstock.com). I am however, uncertain about from which group of people this face painting originates. But for the sake of learning something new, I will talk about face painting on women (there is face painting for men as well !).~
Among the Efik tribe in Southeastern Nigeria face painting can be a sybol of love or purity. In the later case, young women paint their faces as a symbol of a rite of passage, an entry into womanhood. And in most cases it is presumed that the young girl is pure (i.e she has not yet had sex. Although I have issues with the word pure being used - why is it that when a woman has had sex she is considered un-pure...? This is why we have so many issues in the world today where it comes to sexuality and sensuality. I don't believe to have sex is to sully yourself. Maybe if people replaced the word purity with the word innocence that would be a better r epresentation- because when you are a child, you are still innocent, and generally - but not always I understand - children have not had sex and are therefore innocent to all the emotions that comes with such encounters).On the other hand, face painting may also be done to show the happiness of giving birth to a child. Here is a paradox. If no sex = purity then by deduction, sex = impurity. But! Children = happiness. Therefore, how can something that is happily wanted come out of something that it impure? So goes my above statement, purity should be replaced with innocence.
On a whole though, face painting for the Efik women was (and still is?) a way to outwardly express their femininity. These women embraced their womanhood. Something I often think is missing from many women's construction of selves today... For our Selves are constructed, no matter how authentic we claim to be. I am not negating the possibility that there are people, women, who have worked on themselves for years and have reached a higher plane of consciousness and no longer feel the need to subsctibe to lables (no matter how positive - e.g. carer - or negative - e.g. people pleaser). And it is not that bad a thing to subscribe to identities - for me I like to think I subscribe to the identity of writer, dancer/bgirl/ballerina, hippie, environmental vegetarian etc etc. I suppose if these identities constrain you then these labels might not be such a great idea to subscribe to them...
Why is it I wonder that women try so hard to be like men, but if men try to embrace their feminine aspects, they are seen as being soft? South African men are hyper-masculinised - being fed images on Steers adverts that construct a man to be a "proper man" if he shouts Huha!, watches rugby and eats "real 100% beef patties with MORE BEEF". Alas, the beef industry is the worst culprit in accelerating the demise of the environmental situation of the world. And "proper men" fight. Just watch an army movie and the idealisation of belonging to a brotherhood.
Neither do I believe the answer is radical feminism. All this is doing is changing the person who is being hated on. Neither is the position of women being improved if all they are doing is becoming like a man, by fitting into the patriarchal constructs in the working and living world. The position of women is neither further improved if there is pressure to simultaneous be a good mother and a good businesswoman. If a woman chooses to work, she is suppressing her biological clock. If she has children and works, she is abandoning her role. If she has children and chooses (here I must emphasise choose and not forced to out of belief that this is her "true" role) to stay at home, then she has no ambition, she has chosen the easy way out (as to some peoples belief that popping out kids is the easy way out of doing something with you life). As a psychologist said on Talk Radio 702 a few months back, there is nothing wrong with stay-at-home moms. But if this prevents you from doing anything on your own, then this is a problem.
Hating all men is not a solution either. We must all remember that sometimes men are just as much victims of the circumstances in which they find themselves. This is not an excuse for abuse or mistreatment by men of other people. That men are also victims can help us to understand the complexity that is male-female relationships. And women are not helpless passive pawns in the construction of and path that their lives take. Women can be and are often active agents in positioning themselves in situation in order to get the most out of it. Women are not the weak victims that politics, books, novels, fairy tales, the media, songs etc portray them to be. I think we need to start chaging the stories that we feed our children. No matter how pretty the stories are. The world is not made up of weak princesses just waiting to be saved by the handsome prince.
These are just some (deep) thoughts that have come out of researching the role of face painting in a Nigerian woman's life. That womanhood is outwardly expressed and celebrated on a woman's face and body shows how beautiful, dominant and strong femininity is in the world today.
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