Ritual whipping of women in Ethiopia - is this widely known about?

[Greenshootsandleeves]

I'm watching a documentary about the Hamar tribe in Southern Ethiopia and am shocked by their tradition of ritual whipping

When a boy comes of age, his female relatives beg to be whipped as a sign of their loyalty. The women have deep, permanent scarring from this on their backs and arms. I had never heard of this and I wonder whether it is widely known about, and whether there is any substantial opposition to it?

Interestingly the women of this tribe also cut one another to make themselves more attractive to men - they have patterns of scarring on their backs that has been created deliberately. It disturbs me that mutilating females seems to be so deeply entrenched here

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I missed that, what a shame

Is there something wrong with my post?

You've picked out one ethnic group in the whole world. If you look up "body modification" you can find lots of other groups doing lots of other things, some of them to men and some to women, and some to both. Female genital mutilation in Africa gets the most attention, but if you have a strong stomach, there's more to hear about.

Yes, I am very aware of FGM and other body modification traditions thank you! I posted about this one because I hadn't heard about it before and because it seemed different to me that this is done as a celebration, and the women feel that it demonstrates the depth of their loyalty.

Are we not allowed to discuss women in other cultures then? How bizarre

I didn't know about this. Thanks.

Is it Tribe with Bruce Parry you're watching?

Disturbing from our western perspective but I don't know much else about the culture. Is this the one where the men fight with long spears as a rite of passage.

No, I looked up the Hamar and apparently there the men jump over cows (naked) and the women are whipped.
www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-bull-jumping-and-whipping-ceremony-hamar

People have found some bizarre things to do in this world. I'm not sure what a reasonable feminist response is to some of it.

That's why I posted about it Tera, I just watched it and felt nonplussed and sad, and a bit angry.

It got under my skin more than the usual "men doing vile things to women" scenario because of the pride and pleasure these resilient, hard-working, ascerbic women took in being whipped by their male relatives. It almost seemed that the tradition was designed to mess up their pain/pleasure responses very early in life. The decorative cutting smacks of self-harming. Which is disturbing. I thought "there will be MNers who understand more about this than I do".

It certainly wasn't meant to be a "look at the funny black people" post

Well I for one am relieved to have been born in the UK. I didn't know about this. Thanks for posting.