Friday, April 12, 2013

Puberty Rites

To download an audio file (save it on your hard disk): Click on this link for instructions.

New World Notes News
Vol. 6, No.14 -- April 12, 2013


This week in New World Notes, radio program #267, April 16, 2013

Puberty Rites

A public part of the puberty rites for girls of the
Ashanti ethnic group of Ghana

In brief

Our culture lacks--and very much needs--"puberty rites" for adolescents, such as civilized societies have. These ceremonies
  • teach kids adult roles
  • reinforce community values
  • celebrate sexuality
  • define the licit and illicit
  • increase social cohesion
  • help teens through a difficult period
  • justify a big party
  • honor the gods
  • etc.
I'll describe the rites of Ghana's Ashanti people, play 2 songs and a 1958 health-class movie for girls, and discuss why puberty rites won't soon be coming to the U.S.

Christian "Confirmation" class in the United States. Confirmation is a sort of "coming-of-age" ceremony but a really poor excuse for a puberty rite. The white gowns are a tip-off.

Notes, credits, & links

This program was originally broadcast in September 2008 (as NWN #31--no blog entry available).

Includes 2 songs of comic satire: Tom Lehrer, "Be Prepared!"; Roy Zimmerman, "Nothing But the Best [For Our Little Girl]"

Movie is Molly Grows Up (1958)

The complete article on puberty rites in Ghana (which I read in part) is here: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/tribes/puberty_rites.php .

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "First Floor") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio. See the gray sidebar on the right ("CONTENTS [Links]") for a table of contents.

Series overview:
Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.
The worst puberty rite ever: the parental "birds and bees" lecture.

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)
  • April 23 -- TBA
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):
A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net

No comments: