Interdisciplinary Seminar:
Education for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
Convener: Kathy Mumford, Australia

Contemporary Coming of Age: Redefining and Reclaiming Girls’ Rites of Passage to Womanhood in Developed and Developing Cultures
Lauri L. Hyers, International Member, USA

For centuries, Rites of Passage Ceremonies have served as a powerful vehicle to guide girls on the path to womanhood. While some traditional cultures use Passage Rites to restrict women’s health and empowerment, modern developed nations have failed to do much better. I will share my data on the consequences when secularized culture does away with these Rites altogether. Girls in my research were left with haphazard and inconsistent transitions to adulthood and fed contradictory messages about their emerging adult status. This can lead to confusion in recognizing the aspects of body and behavior where girls have a right to autonomy and control, and increase their vulnerability to low self-esteem, early pregnancy, distorted body image, sexually transmitted disease, sexual assault, and diminished career aspiration. Commercial media compounds these problems, equating sexual objectification with maturity. With increased exposure to values of westernized nations, girls in developing countries have greater risk of developing eating disorders and other gender/culture-bound syndromes of western culture (Makino, Tsuboi, Dennerstein, 2004; Wiseman, 1992).

To improve the situation for adolescent girls, national organizations have focused efforts on educational attainment and economic independence (e.g. United Nations Millennium Development Goals; IFUW Programme for Action, Women: Agents of Change). I will discuss how these efforts can be linked to the power of holistic, positive Rites of Passage Ceremony (Halleh-Delaney’s, 1995), bolstering girls’ growing autonomy and agency. By facilitating connections to a pool of adult mentors and incorporating positive customs and messages, girls can develop a more unified and empowered outlook on their emerging adulthood status.

Dr Lauri Hyers is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies in the Psychology Department, West Chester University of Pennsylvania. The major area of her PhD from Pennsylvania State University was social psychology, and she has published a number of articles in this area, especially in relation to women .