Becoming Female: The Role of Menarche Rituals in “Making Women” in Malawi

Abstract

This chapter uses qualitative research methods to explore the role that menarche rituals play in making women in Malawi-specifically, the role that ritual and practice play in facilitating the integration of girls into social structures and in providing a means of codifying female behavior. Bacalja Perianes and Ndaferankhande read these rituals through an African ontological position to move beyond understanding African women’s subjectivity through the lens of oppression and gender-based hierarchies. By situating menstruation in local epistemologies, Bacalja Perianes and Ndaferankhande demonstrate how gender can be understood at a personal level, through the collective and relational experience of menstruation in Malawi. Findings from the research suggest that within Malawi, to be female is collectively ascribed, and individually understood, through the active and intelligible performance of menarche rituals and consequent menstrual practices. It is through such traditions, Bacalja Perianes and Ndaferankhande show, that women are “made, " with their newly ascribed gender imbuing them with a locus of power within their communities.